Journal Chacham's Journal: Verbiage: Windows installers are a good thing 7
Someone made a comment in a story about installers
You mean you don't just drag a folder somewhere and call it done?
Seriously, why don't apps just look at their environment, fix whatever is missing, and not require any install script at all?
I responded about the complexity, and mentioned how anyone who asks that is ignorant in the area (not ignorant in a bad way). So, someone actually responded challenging those ideas, basically saying that good programs don't use common DLLs, the registry is a bad thing, and installations should very easy.
It's unbelieveable. There's an entire market out there for installation software (which i used to work in) and people seem to deny them. They don't seem to understand that it's not easy. And even if it was easy, you wouldn't want the average programmer writing an install script.
There was an installer that wanted to wipe the temp directory when done (instead of using temporary files, he just "assumed" the temp directory was there to be emptied). Or assumed that the main drive was C. Or even that the floppy drive was a:. (Japanese NECs have A: as the hard drive, C: as the floppy. One programmer had the equivalent of format a: assuming it was the floppy drive.)
There was one person who had a graphics disk, with tens of thousands of little graphics, and wanted to put a link to each one in the Start Menu. (Think cluster size.)
The list goes on.
Anyone who uses Windows should be thankful for InstallShield, WISE, InstallerVISE, or anything else out there. You don't want these people touching your registry.
Send for Chacham! (Score:2)
It's just as well Chacham obviously doesn't read these journals, otherwise he'd be really upset ;-)
Re:Send for Chacham! (Score:2)
Since the "typo" JE, where in stated in a comment that interposing letters was rare for me. I have interposed many times. Oh the irony!
For some reason, i am continuously spelling installation as instllation. Each time you see it correclty, was merely where i caught it on the proof-read.
Of course, the difference between a published book or slashdot stories, and a JE, is the second person who reviews it. I do proof-read my JE, but it isn't as good, as it is too close to the writing. I k
life with installers (Score:2)
I use InstallShield every day, and I hate it more with each release. Alas, users want a pretty installer with text in a variety of languages, and I'm not about to reinvent installers to do it some other way. More importantly, users want M$oft's installers that can be easily deployed with M$oft's SMS.
Yes, there is more to an install than dropping files in a new directory, and yes, if your software runs on Microsoft OSs, you use their shared DLLs.
Still,
Re:life with installers (Score:2)
The MS SMS Installer is actually a modified version of WISE.
I doubt the VBA 6.3 installer could have been written
VB writers ruotinely look for a decent package to install their software. The packaged instllaer is quite limited. You're correct about that one.
My users would scream if my uninstallers removed shared files, but Microsoft gets away with it.
Actually, it decrements a counter in the registry. The D
Re:life with installers (Score:1)
That's what it *should* do, but VBA6.3 is screwy. It replaces certain shared files with others that use IDENTICAL registry keys. When you install, other apps begin using the new files. When you uninstall, the new files and all their registry associations are removed -- so all the other apps break.
All they had to do was use the same file name/paths OR make new UUIDS, but they did neither.
Re:life with installers (Score:1)
But, there are other reasons not to use VB.
Libraries on the Amiga (Score:2)