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IP: How not to write an installer
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 05:05:58 -0400
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 22:49:20 -0700 (PDT) From: "Ole J. Jacobsen" <ole () cisco com> To: David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu> How NOT to write an installer ----------------------------- In early July, Microsoft posted a patch to Office 98 for the Macintosh. According to the company: "This Microsoft Office 98 Updater addresses two issues: file corruption saving Word documents containing complex formatting, especially tables; and file compatibility between PowerPoint 98 and future versions of PowerPoint for both Windows and Macintosh." While I am not a heavy user of either Word or PowePoint, I still decided to dowload and run the patch. This is one of those installers that first checks your confirguration, and then proceeds to install two files and update two files. I am sure you have seen the dual progress bar so you know what I am talking about. About 3/4 of the way through, the installer quit without any kind of warning or error message, it just plain went away! None of the usual "...has unexpectedly quit because a type N error occured", nothing. I tried running the installer again on a system starting with no extensions. Same result. I was about to give up when I got this idea: Maybe the installer is really looking for "Microsoft Word" and "Microsoft PowerPoint" instead of my re-named "Word" and "PowerPoint." Sure enough, after I renamed the applications the installer ran just fine. There are lots of lessons about quality control and software design in this little saga. And of course it's a lesson to us dumb users who are so stupid that we would even consider renaming an application. Ole Ole J. Jacobsen Editor and Publisher The Internet Protocol Journal Cisco Systems, Office of the CSO Tel: +1 408-527-8972 e-mail: ole () cisco com URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj
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- IP: How not to write an installer Dave Farber (Aug 14)