configuration of install path

[nothinghappens]

I don't know where this is configured, whether it's specific to PEAR, PHP, or XAMPP all around...

But for some reason PEAR insists on intalling packages to C:\xampp even though I installed XAMPP with the self-executing installer in C:\Program Files\xampp (What can I say, I like having my program files in Program Files, maybe I'm just nutty like that.) As I don't have C:\xampp\php\pear set up as an include directory, and anyway I'd like my PEAR packages to be in my PEAR directory -- by which I mean, the one with PEAR in it -- and because I don't want to have what PEAR packages were included with XAMPP in one directory and any others I install in some other directory, this situation needs to change.

However, I cannot figure out how to change it. I tried to "pear config-set php_dir" and it reported setting successfully, but the when I tried installing some packages they still went to C:\xampp\php\pear.

[nothinghappens]

Hello, I'm back.

I've since decided that C:\xampp\ is a perfectly fine place to install XAMPP (apparently you guys have too, since the new installer now offers it as the default)

Unfortunately, after installing the latest version ar C:\xampp\, I am now, once again, unable to install PEAR packages. I was getting a "Registry directory is not writeable by the current user" error upon trying to do any pear installs or pear channel-discovers. A check of pear config-show revealed that for some reason the configuration value "php_dir" (described as "PEAR directory" -- I wish they'd make up their minds whether they mean the PHP directory or the PEAR directory, but as time goes on my expectations of anything PHP related, continue to decline steadily). was for some reason set to C:\Program Files\xampp\php

Unfortunately doing a pear config-set php_dir C:\xampp\php (and in fact, I'm still not clear on whether it should be that ot C:\xampp\php\PEAR) just results in yet another problem. Any time I attempt to install a package I get an error like this:

Starting to download PHPUnit-3.2.7.tgz (199,515 bytes)
.........................................done: 199,515 bytes
Could not delete C:\xampp\php\phpunit, cannot rename C:\xampp\php\.tmpphpunit
ERROR: commit failed

In this case, the PHPUnit folder actually appears in whatever folder I have configured as php_dir, and the temp file mentioned in the error message is nowhere to be found afterwards, so I suppose you could say that despite the screwy error, it worked... although I'll note that if I subsequently attempy to pear uninstall the same package, PEAR insists that it isn't installed.