Remove search directories from TestExec.ini

[RyanWright]

It isn't uncommon to deploy customized TestStand options, such as search directories, on a deployment computer.  It would be much easier to do this if the search directories in TestStand were stored in their own .ini file rather than in TestExec.ini.  You can obviously set the search directories in TestExec.ini quickly using the built-in search directories GUI, but when distributing the TestExec.ini file to the deployment computer, you have to be careful that none of the other options contained in the file don't inadvertently cause problems when executing TestStand deployments.  A separate .ini file for search directories would clearly remedy this situation.

[warren_scott]

I'm going to complicate this greatly, but Idea Exchange is for dreaming, right??

I'd love to be able to deploy a "masterTestExec.ini" to a test station which has all the normal stuff of TestExec today, but also includes a "station user/operator is allowed to modify/overwrite this value" flag for EVERYTHING.  Then anything a user stores is saved in a separate file ("userTestExec.ini"), so I can deploy a new master to the station.  But this allows me to specify what things the user is allowed to change, and which ones they are not.  And the "defaults" / "not changable values" can be updated by just deploying a new master file and that doesn't impact any of the user modified values.

I can get into the situation where a new deployment of the master would no longer let the user modify a value, which just means the value in the user's userTestExec.ini would be ignored.

This way I can control whether I want the user to be able to edit the station model (or not), or whether they can change the search directories (or not), or what debugging settings they can configure (or not), etc.

Maybe this is closer to a "what user permissions level do you need to have to be able to edit this configuration value"

[GarryG]

I'd also like to see the insertion palette configuration removed from here.  It would be nice to be able to distribute it to other developers without having to affect other things such as search directories and how they have their user management configured.