When using the software this weekend, I thought I discovered a fault in one of the libraries. By some misunderstanding, I got the impression that one pin on the Zilog Z80 processor (HALT on pin 18) is defined as an output instead of an input. (Yes, it is an Output). Using the library editor, it was easy to change the properties of the pin, but I was not able to update the library, since it is in the C:\Program Files… path.
Even with changing the administrator rights of the folder in Windows, I still got the error message that I could not save the updated library because I did not have write priviliges to that folder.
I guess if I keep all the libraries in the User\documents… path, this would not be a problem, but since the installation process puts them in the C:\Program Files\KiCad… the correct privilegies should be set.
That’s the way to do it. Many of us keep our own libraries. Sometimes “own” library means the official library copied/moved to some place in my hard disk. After an update of kicad the official libs at C:\Program Files\KiCad… will also be overwritten and your changes will be eventually lost.
The libs that come with kicad are read only on purpose. An update of the software might wipe your changes. If you share your project that does use locally modified versions of the official lib, the person you share it with will not have the same libs. …
You can of course “install” your libs into your user folder. (Quite hard to achieve in kicad version 4.)
But do not add stuff to the official libs locally. Make personal libs instead.
If you discover a problem consider sharing your fix with others by making a pull request on the github repo responsible.