From Re^4: Strawberry Perl, from 5.18 to 5.22:
Backing up the over 31k files and 1GB of space is NOT the answer for a standard installation. I have hundreds of applications installed and most of them don't need to be backed-up. Data needs to be backed-up, not static applications.
and
Perl is (was) a wonderful platform, but it has been going downhill at a rapid pace. Strawberry Perl is a good example of the decline.
From Re^2: Strawberry Perl, from 5.18 to 5.22:
Right now I'm not sure how I'm going to recover from this debacle. So far, it has cost me nearly a days worth of wasted time at work and at best, that's disappointing. I'm hoping it won't take another day (or more) to get back to where I was this morning.
So, you did not have a backup of your computer, and now it takes you far more time than expected to recover. And that's Perl's fault?
Really?
As I said before: If you don't have a backup of your computer's files, those files can't be important.
Here is what would have happened with a working backup:
- Install 5.22 over 5.18.1
- Notice that this was a bad idea
- Uninstall 5.22
- deltree /y c:\strawberry
- Start backup software
- Restore c:\strawberry from yesterday's backup
- Ask perlmonks how to upgrade strawberry without damaging or loosing all modules
Total time: about 1 hour, and 5.18.1 still working.
Quoting again Re^4: Strawberry Perl, from 5.18 to 5.22:
Data needs to be backed-up, not static applications.
Yes, this is correct. Static applications that can be reinstalled from some installation media, archive or setup program and just work after that don't need a backup. But of course, you should have a backup of the installation media / archive / setup program. Good examples for such an application are calculator, notepad and clock that came with Windows. All without relevant configuration, available on the CD/DVD, and all without data.
Office does not fit, it is not static, because it has a lot of configuration settings, parts in the registry, parts in local files (normal.dot). So you should backup Office.
Perl also does not fit, it is also not static. It adds files to its installation as soon as you install a module.
Now you have two options: Decide for each and every application, or worse, for each and every file if it is worth to be backed up. Or just backup the entire computer, wasting a few Megabytes of backup space for applications that could also be restored from installation media.
With the second option, you can simply restore anything you damaged from backup, no matter if the damaged applications are also present on installation media or not. With the first option, you will find that your backup is incomplete, you have to search for the installation media, and you have to reinstall the damaged applications after restoring from the backup.
An external 4 TB USB 3.0 harddisk costs less than 120 €. It has more than enough space to store several full backups of a common desktop. With incremental backups, you usually don't have to think about disk space at all. 6 TB costs about 250 €, if your desktop has a lot of data. 12 TB costs less than 600 €, if you collect huge amounts of data on your desktop.
Compare those prices with the cost of two days of work.
Your computer can do backups automatically, you don't have to monitor it. It can do incremental backups, so only the first backup will take a long time and use a lot of disk space. The following backups just save your changes, this is fast and uses only a little bit of disk space.
Yes, the Strawberry 5.22 installer should not have damaged the existing 5.18.1 installation. It should have refused to install over 5.18.1, and instead give you instructions how to upgrade.
Alexander
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Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)