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IT NEVER ENDS

No, it's not about Adobe. Today's bit of "YOUR INSTALLER SUCKS" is brought to you by a company that should know better, your friend and mine, Google.

We have some people who want to check out the new AV features in Google Talk. Great! I'll download it...ooh, Apple Installer Package...well, that's even better! Fire up Apple Remote Desktop, select, drag, drop, why, yes, I would like to run this from our Task Server, and awaaaay we go!

SUCKER!

YOU MUST QUIT ALL BROWSERS TO INSTALL THIS!

WTF? When installing remotely, I have to make people quit the browser to install a plugin? Note: Not restart the browser to use the plugin. That's fine. No, the fucking thing will.not.install if the browser is running.

How many times do we have to say this: STOP IT. We, as sysadmins are fully capable of sending email, IM's, yelling down the hall, sticking our head in doors to tell people "Hey, I installed that <browser plugin>, you have to restart <your browser> to use it." We can do that. We don't mind. In fact, many of us prefer it, because it doesn't force people to grind their work to halt. Yes, it's just a few seconds. Ever been in a groove, and suddenly have to stop because of someone else's stupidity? Kind sucks, don't it. Yeah.

So this making people across a company stop working and twiddle their fucking thumbs so I can install a BROWSER PLUGIN? I know this should not be news to Google, but evidently it is, so I'll point it out:

PEOPLE DO REAL WORK IN THEIR BROWSERS

Also, forcing people to stop working to install a plugin, even remotely, KIND OF MAKES YOUR INSTALLER SUCK.

You know what? I'm done being nice about this. If a company can't be bothered, (and don't tell me GOOGLE doesn't have the resources to test this) to think about "what happens if I run this installer remotely", and make sure it causes as few problems as possible to the users, then I'm not going to report it as a bug. I'm not going to bring it to the attention of anyone. I'm going to repackage the thing, warn people that your installer is stupid, and move on. You want to fix it, great. But the days of being nice to people who don't think about their installers in a managed network situation are done. This is not new. This is not bleeding edge. It is how work gets done, and every vendor on the planet needs to pull their heads out of their asses and get with the program.

Thank god for LANRev InstallEase. That little bit of freeware is so nice when doing other people's work.

Technorati Tags:
Bad Installers, Google, Installers MATTER

Categories: Mac OS X Scripts

Posted by John C. Welch at 13:28 | Permalink

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No, it's not about Adobe. Today's bit of \"YOUR INSTALLER SUCKS\" is brought to you by a company that should know better, your friend and mine, Google.\n\nWe have some people who want to check out the new AV features in Google Talk. Great! I'll download it...ooh, Apple Installer Package...well, that's even better! Fire up Apple Remote Desktop, select, drag, drop, why, yes, I would like to run this from our Task Server, and awaaaay we go!\n\nSUCKER!\n\nYOU MUST QUIT ALL BROWSERS TO INSTALL THIS!\n\nWTF? When installing remotely, I have to make people quit the browser to install a plugin? Note: Not restart the browser to use the plugin. That's fine. No, the fucking thing will.not.install if the browser is running.\n\nHow many times do we have to say this: STOP IT. We, as sysadmins are fully capable of sending email, IM's, yelling down the hall, sticking our head in doors to tell people \"Hey, I installed that <browser plugin>, you have to restart <your browser> to use it.\" We can do that. We don't mind. In fact, many of us prefer it, because it doesn't force people to grind their work to halt. Yes, it's just a few seconds. Ever been in a groove, and suddenly have to stop because of someone else's stupidity? Kind sucks, don't it. Yeah. \n\nSo this making people across a company stop working and twiddle their fucking thumbs so I can install a BROWSER PLUGIN? I know this should not be news to Google, but evidently it is, so I'll point it out:\n\nPEOPLE DO REAL WORK IN THEIR BROWSERS\n\nAlso, forcing people to stop working to install a plugin, even remotely, KIND OF MAKES YOUR INSTALLER SUCK.\n\nYou know what? I'm done being nice about this. If a company can't be bothered, (and don't tell me GOOGLE doesn't have the resources to test this) to think about \"what happens if I run this installer remotely\", and make sure it causes as few problems as possible to the users, then I'm not going to report it as a bug. I'm not going to bring it to the attention of anyone. I'm going to repackage the thing, warn people that your installer is stupid, and move on. You want to fix it, great. But the days of being nice to people who don't think about their installers in a managed network situation are done. This is not new. This is not bleeding edge. It is how work gets done, and every vendor on the planet needs to pull their heads out of their asses and get with the program. \n\nThank god for LANRev InstallEase. That little bit of freeware is so nice when doing other people's work.\n\n\n

Technorati Tags:\nBad Installers, Google, Installers MATTER\n