Solution for Users Looking to Relocate Toolchain Directory (Probably for Windows)

Troubleshooting
1

I am one of the Windows users who have the problem that my username has a space in it. This causes make and other tools to not function correctly on Windows. Below is a solution to this problem. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the GitHub repo for Workbench; if it exists I’ll write up a better (and more automated) solution. But for now, do the following:

Situation: Your windows username has a space in it.

This causes make and other commands to fail.

Solution:

  1. Create a “Junction” in windows without a space.

For example, if your user is “Bob Jones” change to your home directory and go up a level.

cd C:\Users\Bob Jones
cd ../

and execute

mklink /D /J bjones "Bob Jones"

Now you’ll have a path without spaces. Next, open a cmd.exe prompt and type:

set USERPROFILE=C:\Users\bjones
code

The instance you start of vscode will work with the new path and not impact other programs depending on the USERPROFILE variable.

3 Likes
2

Wow @jls, this is great stuff! I’m going to pass this information along to a few folks who have been asking for this.

The Workbench repo is indeed private, but I think this will be interesting to @m_m.

3

Happy to help @marekparticle! Let me know if anything comes of it!

1 Like
4

@jls

instead of editing Workbench’s source, does it work to simply set the USERPROFILE env var for the code process? e.g. using cmd.exe:

cmd /C "set USERPROFILE=C:\Users\bjones && code"
5

I’ll certainly try it @m_m and report back with results! I’ve previously run into trouble with trying to trick windows into moving the profile directory but in the context of just the code process it would probably be fine:

It looks like this would work: https://nodejs.org/api/os.html#os_os_homedir

1 Like
6

@m_m – doesn’t work like that, but if you do it in a cmd.exe session it works. If you try it like that vscode fails to open and gives a bunch of path errors. I’ve updated my post to reflect this! Thanks for suggesting it!!

1 Like
7

:thinking: hm. this hints at a work-around but i haven’t tried it

either way, thanks for finding a handy work-around :pray::+1: