Vidalia fails to start Tor if a Tor service is already running

[vidalia]

I'm running Vidalia on Wiondows XP SP2 and testet this behavior with both Tor 0.2.0.2 alpha as well as with Tor 0.1.2.14 and with vidalia 0.0.11 and 0.0.12.

Create two different Tor configurations for Tor Server and Tor Client. Install the Tor Server as service e.g. "c:\program files\torserver\tor.exe -install -options -f c:\program files\TorServer?\torrcServer".

Then run Vidalia and try to start Tor from a different dircetory: "c:\program files\vidalia\tor\tor.exe" with Config file "c:\program files\vidalia\tor\torrc". (of course you may run the tor.exe also from the same directory)

Vidalia fails to run Tor. If you run Tor manually "c:\program files\vidalia\tor\tor.exe" -f "c:\program files\vidalia\tor\torrc" Tor starts as expected and works very well (although Vidalia is not able to show the settings, network map etc.)

If you run first Vidalia (starting Tor not as service) and then install the Tor-Server as service it works also very well.

Apparently vidalia uses the option 'run Tor as service' as soon as there is a Tor service already installed on the system - what should not work.

So I would propose that the 'run as service' option in vidalia is set independent of an already installed Tor service.

kind regards

sheepdog