Comments
Comments posted:
For me, the app path is ugly right from the "C:\Users" part.
I want my binaries in Program Files, read-only to un-elevated users, shared by all users (instead of wasting space on a copy for each user), and kept to a known-good version with updates done by an admin (i.e. me at home) instead of self-updating behind the admin/user's back.
If a program or person is unable to write to Program Files that's a good sign they're not really meant to install code on the machine.
I realise all these things I dislike are "legal" and even recommended in places, and also that some (but only some) versions of Windows provide tools that can restrict who can run what from where (at the cost of time/complexity for admins). For me, though, ClickOnce (and installing apps into the user's profile in general) creates problems and annoyances while solving nothing (that I cared about, or that could've have been solved better in another way, anyway).
Google Chrome doesn't use ClickOnce but it uses a similar system and this is one of the reasons I won't install it on my machine anymore. (The other being that I found about three copies of Google Updater, two of them always running, and after uninstall bits of them were left all over the filesystem and the registry; made me decide never to install any Google software for Windows again.)
Leo Davidson (link) - 30 01 11 - 20:45
How I wish you would come to the linux side already. It saddens and horrifies me every time I hear your frustrations that you're still sticking with MS.
derp - 31 01 11 - 02:29
What I hate more is when programs require admin password every time they want to run or update. I'm not going to give my kids admin account on their PC just because they want to play a game - so I can choose to either come and start the game every time for them or to find them games that install to user space and don't bother me with admin rights. I think it's obvious which of the two do I prefer.
Kasuha - 31 01 11 - 10:01
@Kasuha: Apply NoCd fix and things usually don't have to run as admin since you don't have to deal with the copy protection driver (If you install by unpacking the .MSI the driver never gets on your system in the first place but you might have to manually add some entries to HKLM (use Process Monitor to find these) to make the game happy)
asf - 31 01 11 - 10:31
> How I wish you would come to the linux side already. It saddens and horrifies me every time I hear your frustrations that you're still sticking with MS.
I assure you that my frustrations with Microsoft don't equate to happiness with Linux.
Phaeron - 31 01 11 - 14:58
I have no idea what they were thinking when they came up with their directory structure.
I mean, just look at the person files or libraries as they call it.
They were eager to break any useful clean function.
Windows Vista and 7 are about clicking.
They figured, the more you click, the less likely you still had energy left to write a complaint.
I pray that they revert some of these back or Linux will start getting more and more attractive.
evropej - 01 02 11 - 15:19
Libraries are great - I never in my life used My Documents folder for anything important, and libraries solves this very nicely.
ender - 03 02 11 - 01:21
> I pray that they revert some of these back or Linux will start getting more and more attractive.
Linux is not enough attractive already? xD
chaosflaw - 04 02 11 - 05:56
i use ClickOnce when it neccessary (automatic updates and possibility to setup without administrator rights), and InnoSetup, when i need full control and small footprint setup application
Ernest (link) - 06 02 11 - 16:55
>>>I want my binaries in Program Files...
And here's my converse problem: I do NOT want every program to wind up trashing every other program by changing the global libraries and/or changing the registry (an idea that I had thought went away with IBM mainframes). Right now I can't get VirtualDub to work right because I upgraded from Nero 8 to Nero 10 HD and the installation seems to have trashed all of my settings. Yeah, Nero works fine, but all of the open source and other commercial audio/video stuff seems to have been stuffed.
Each program should have its own directory, and not interfere with the others. Period. Linux has its own problems - upgrade one thing that decides your libraries are "deprecated" and everything else is broken (and don't tell me about version numbers, it seems nobody actually uses them as documented). Everything we do to save space on disk comes from the days when a washing-machine-sized drive held 200MB.
DutchUncle - 14 02 11 - 14:02
That's a tough one. I suspect part of your problem has to do with DirectShow, where global registration of codecs allows one program to break another in subtle ways, particularly Windows Explorer. The alternative is to do local registration, but then you get all sorts of side effects, one of which being a possibly massive increase in disk space.
I will say that there are some portions of the Windows API that annoyingly require global registration or installation, most notably COM servers. Some security measures have also had this effect, such as the change to require an HTML Help (.chm) file to be registered if it is on a network path (local intranet zone or further). These get in the way of doing user-local or otherwise isolated installations.
Phaeron - 15 02 11 - 15:15
Yikes, this thread is alarming! I knew there were many ways to install programs because I have stumbled across many of them over the years maintaining many computers for myself, friends, work, church, etc. It begs the question of 'hypervisor' for installations. And, maybe virtualization for everything! I suspect we can quickly turn a 2TB drive into 200MB-feeling washing machine drive in a hurry. But when installing a program breaks other programs, that is completely unacceptable. Thus the apparent need to sandbox everything.
So anyway, this thread has me asking the question: In order to minimize these installation problems, I think I need a CLEAR understanding of what the different installers do. Does anyone have a link(s) to any primers on the pluses and minuses of the various installers?
Tex - 14 03 11 - 02:46
[b]Tex:[/b]
[i]Good:[/i] NSIS, InnoSetup.
[i]Bad:[/i] MSI and everything else.
shx - 28 03 11 - 04:07
MSI is not as bad as it is abused by developers.
Igor Levicki (link) - 07 06 11 - 02:25
