Why Can’t We Make Software That Installs and Uninstalls Anymore

Why Can’t We Make Software That Installs and Uninstalls Anymore – Here I with Mike (who is also writing this) sit in the server room waiting for an installation that has gone bad.  It seems like this is happening more and more.   Companies seem to rush software out to be competitive without truly beta testing it.

 

Things that happen:

• The software begins to install and then the hard drive light stops blinking for a loooonnnnngggg time.
• The software stops responding (Boy the mouse moves and Ctrl-Alt-Delete Works)
• The computer spontaneously reboots
• The computer freezes (mouse and all!)
• You uninstall the application and guts are left behind
• You double click setup and nothing happens
• You double click setup and the application begins installing and disappears
• You reboot your computer “as requested” and Windows is corrupt
• You reboot your computer after installing and it (the software) is not listed in the programs
• An error pops up wanting to send the message to Microsoft.
• The program starts requesting updates immediately.  After getting them it stops functioning.
• Don’t get me started on Linux (8 thousand ways to install software and then modifying 800 files to get the proper configuration)
• After updating a program there are problems and removing the updated version breaks the previous version
• The newer version has a Java interface and when you push a ‘next’, ‘enter’ button or whatever it just blinks. (You have the latest version of Java or Flahs! – Which it seems you update daily)
• The software works on the previous workday.  There have been no updates to the OS or ANY applications and today it doesn’t work.
• We recently installed software on a MAC and got totally lock up.  YES MACS LOCK UP.  The commercial isn’t true.

Final notes- if the software vendor makes a tool that helps to uninstall a program (in addition to the Add/Remove Programs)…..well, you get the picture.

 

By the way – started at 7:22 am CST and still holding on and off – 3:32 pm CST.   The end result – I gambled and tried something that worked (I looked at Mike and got his advice “Mike this isn’t working.  Let’s try this, keep them busy.”)  The end result is this – experiment with your computer.  Use virtualbox and try freeware, opensource and go through the operating system daily.  The experience you gather from doing so may help you in the end.   We emailed the company this morning and told them how we fixed it.  They informed us yesterday that they had hundreds of complaints and dozens of people waiting for a fix.