title: PEAR directory problem on Windows
body: <p>I've downloaded the ZIP archive of PHP and extracted it under my profile. I then needed some PEAR packages. <code>go-pear.bat</code> apparently installed PEAR just fine, I just needed to go into the <code>pear.bat</code> file afterwards and adapt the path to <code>php.exe</code> – no big deal and after that it ran.</p>
  
  <p>However, when I try installing something I get the following error:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>ERROR: failed to mkdir C:\php5\pear\data\Console_CommandLine\data</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Naturally, no write access is allowed in the root directory but I'm a little at a loss to know how exactly PEAR thinks it should install anything in a location that neither exists nor is configured anywhere. PHP currently resides somewhere below <code>H:\</code> (subst'ed to my profile). All paths I entered during PEAR installation were sane and the only place I can find <code>C:\php5</code> is in <code>PEAR/go-pear.phar</code> and in the documentation. One of those is something I shouldn't change anyway, I guess and the other thing is hardly relevant for the program itself.</p>
  
  <p>Now, I probably could go in and make <code>C:\php5</code> a junction/symlink to the directory where PHP lies currently or actually install it in that location – both things I'd rather avoid since this was originally just intended for a little test of something.</p>
  
  <p>I since looked into <code>pear help install</code> and apparently I can use <code>-P</code> or <code>-R</code> so set some paths. The exact difference between those is still unclear to me but it won't hurt to try them, I guess. Somehow the results were ... unexpected:</p>
  
  <p><code>-P H:\Downloads\php\PEAR</code> resulted in the fun error (among others)</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>ERROR: failed to mkdir C:\Downloads\php\PEAR\php5\pear\data\Console_CommandLine\data</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>while <code>-R</code> using the same path (apparently <code>-R</code> dictates where downloads are stored, since that worked before I guess I shouldn't touch this) resulted in even more fun:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>download directory "C:\Downloads\php\PEAR\Users\JOHANN~1\AppData\Local\Temp\pear\download" is not writeable.  Change download_dir config variable to a writeable dir</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>By now I guess both <code>C:\</code> and <code>php5</code> are somewhere hardcoded for no apparent reason (my environment variables also contain nothing of that sort) so I'll go digging again, this time looking for shorter string and therefore longer result lists.</p>
  
  <p>But if anyone has an idea about this in the meantime, this might be helpful. </p>