This forum software has now been archived into static HTML page (i.e. it does not function as a working forum anymore, so you cannot login.)
In due course a new forum will be available to help support newer CamStudio versions.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
In due course a new forum will be available to help support newer CamStudio versions.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
CamStudio 2.7 and corporate environments
2.7 has some great improvements, and I'm glad to see that significant progress is being made.
Unfortunately, it looks like some of the changes make it difficult or impossible to use Camstudio in a corporate network environment.
One change I'm not happy about is the new default save location for videos. Saving documents under program files has been frowned on for years, and in the latest Windows OS versions, especially in a corporate environment, it's very problematic. A limited user trying to record with CamStudio 2.7 sees what looks like a recording session starting up, but nothing actually happens, no video is recorded, and there's no error message to tell the user that there's a problem. It just silently fails to work, which has caused some serious frustration for some of my users until I figured out what was going on.
It's possible to work around this by changing the default location to one the user has access to, but that leads to my second problem: How can I deploy the program with customized default settings? Previously I could just deploy a customized INI file to the program folder. Now the individual users' settings are stored in the user's profile, which is fine, but the default settings they're based on seem to be hard-coded somewhere I can't identify.
Also the settings don't seem to recognize or make use of Windows environment variables. For example, I would expect to be able to use values like %LOCALAPPDATA% or %USERPROFILE% in the configuration, but these aren't recognized.
Am I just missing something? How are others handling these issues?
Unfortunately, it looks like some of the changes make it difficult or impossible to use Camstudio in a corporate network environment.
One change I'm not happy about is the new default save location for videos. Saving documents under program files has been frowned on for years, and in the latest Windows OS versions, especially in a corporate environment, it's very problematic. A limited user trying to record with CamStudio 2.7 sees what looks like a recording session starting up, but nothing actually happens, no video is recorded, and there's no error message to tell the user that there's a problem. It just silently fails to work, which has caused some serious frustration for some of my users until I figured out what was going on.
It's possible to work around this by changing the default location to one the user has access to, but that leads to my second problem: How can I deploy the program with customized default settings? Previously I could just deploy a customized INI file to the program folder. Now the individual users' settings are stored in the user's profile, which is fine, but the default settings they're based on seem to be hard-coded somewhere I can't identify.
Also the settings don't seem to recognize or make use of Windows environment variables. For example, I would expect to be able to use values like %LOCALAPPDATA% or %USERPROFILE% in the configuration, but these aren't recognized.
Am I just missing something? How are others handling these issues?
Comments
I wrote Nick an email to pass along to future programmers about this, but it is my fault for never being explicit about this point. The original 2.0 version did this saving to the program folder business routinely and willy-nilly without guilt or conscience .
Keep watch - if we could muck it up this easily, we can probably un-muck it using the same techniques. Or, as Will Rogers asked famously, "If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" On this occasion, we may yet prevail!
Terry
When a user launches the program for the first time, they see the message "CamStudio.cfg Config file was not found. Using defaults." Where are those defaults coming from? Is this in another file somewhere, or is it hard coded?
There ARE several files in the user's applications directory.
You may want to review any profile or .ini files in the hidden folder at Users/(username)/AppData/Roaming directory.
look at:
Camdata.ini
CamLayout.ini
CamShapes.ini
and CamStudio.cfg if present.
Edit, then restart and perhaps re-install.
As you likely already know (but I'll mention it for completeness!), make hidden folders visible frm the top left of any folder view from the Organize dropdown, selecting "Folder and Search Options" and then the View tab, selecting "Show Hidden Files" frm the Hidden Files and Folders section.
Terry