[MiKTeX] dvips not reading local config files

[Norvell S. <nor...@gm...>]

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Pardon if this is a duplicate.  I had trouble sending the first time
and am not sure the original post made it to the list.
****

In both versions 2.4 (from a few weeks ago) and 2.5 (general
availability release 2006.08.08), dvips has a problem reading or
processing the local config.ps file.

In 2.4 I followed the directions for changing the default paper size
to letter and refreshed the FNDB, but still got A4.  I had to change
the config.ps under the texmf directory to get it to work.  Changing
the default paper size for pdftex using the local pdftex.cfg worked
just fine.

In 2.5 I changed the default paper size both when installing and after
installation using MiKTeX Settings and got the same results:  dvips
still outputs A4 -- even though the All\ Users config.ps has letter
listed first -- and pdflatex outputs lettersize.

This may be unrelated, but I noticed also that dvips has a problem
with the mathdesign package.  Instead of using the bold version of the
default Roman font for section titles, dvips seems to fall back to
Helvetica or some other sans serif font without giving any error or
substitution messages.  The map files for mathdesign are in the
localtexmf config.ps.  pdflatex has no problem finding the right font.
 And I noticed this with 2.4; I haven't tried it with 2.5 yet.

-- 
Norvell Spearman