

I hate installers - geal
http://unhandledexpression.com/2010/05/17/i-hate-installers/

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makecheck
Nice breakdown, but if you ask me, even the article's suggested reduction to
"only" 5 screens is ridiculous. There are many things I've always hated about
Windows, and this kind of brain-deadness is near the top of the list.

The iPhone App Store model is pretty much perfect: one step, "install the
thing" (or two, to authenticate, if you haven't recently). Any progress is
asynchronous, and it is completely obvious when the installation is finished.
All of the app's files are in one place, which eliminates 99% of the reason an
installer/uninstaller seems necessary in the first place.

Granted, the iPhone auto-selects an install location for security reasons, but
there's no reason a desktop OS couldn't choose someplace "obvious and
reasonable" to save a step for the user. Of course, this also requires that
apps be easily relocated after the fact, which is another stupid flaw in many
OSes...

~~~
X-Istence
Mac OS X did it right: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1356203>

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jsiarto
Mac OS X has the best "community norm" for installing software: 1\. Download
compressed .dmg from Awesome Software Inc. 2\. OS X unpacks it automatically
and mounts the drive on your desktop (with a new Finder window open) 3\. Drag
your app to the Applications folders 4\. No step 4.

~~~
geal
I agree, Mac OS did it right. But I'm not a fan of packaging two different
architectures in one installer. It makes the package bloated (which is also a
problem with Windows installers).

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Alleyfield
How are you going to improve the user experience by cramming 6 different
questions (which make no sense at all to a newbie) in to a one window?

That has an oxymoron feel into it, don't you think?

~~~
drivebyacct
Which is why you hide them behind a screen that lists "Install with Defaults".
USA English, Program Files, Simple Install settings. I agree with the author
that 95% of people install software this way.

It doesn't really matter. It doesn't get better than DMGs. Oh, unless you use
a FOSS system.

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stck
Installing things is the single greatest improvement when switching to a
modern Linux distribution. Click, click, done.

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jodrellblank
I hate installers too, which is why whenever possible I'll pick a no-install
program.

Forget all the installer stuff, download an exe and run it and there's the
program. At the most, download a group of files, extract them into a folder
and run, and there's the program.

Definitely keep the advanced and simple choice when "simple" means "we install
the toolbars you would never choose if we asked".

Also dump the freaking download managers (Adobe, Microsoft) and FEAD Systems
Optimiser (Adobe) and the download-a-program-which-downloads-the-installer
(Microsoft .Net framework).

~~~
geal
Well, in the article, I especially told to forget about making money with
toolbars. But I'm not confident one can easily teach this kind of good manners
to developers...

