How many applications do we install monthly?
A bit, most people will say. Yes. Quite a bit, in my case.
And how many times does it happen to you to have to click Next for a long time?
Yes... me too, obviously.
Setups are darn boring.
They're boring because in most cases we just want to get the thing installed and don't care about the slightest details. Over 20 yrs of setups around the world and nobody seems to get this
very simple thing: the most of the time people don't care about customizations.
That's the problem. What's so wrong about having a simple message box asking at startup:
"do you want to do any modification to the setup?" If you answer yes, then the plain
setup windows will follow, otherwise it will JUST INSTALL THE THING!
Then, if you like it, you can always remove it and re-install and be picky and modify each small detail about it. But that's afterwards.
Other thing: most of the time, setup programs ask a variety of questions which, in principle, should be asked at the first run. Please stop that. It's awful.
It's just a time consuming step that makes people lose their time.
Yes, eventually you'll have to answer those questions, but at least give an option.
Ask: "Do you want to preconfigure the program?". If I answer yes, then go on.
Otherwise, please do refrain from obliging me to configure on the spot.
I might have other things to do and be unwilling to leave the computer opened.
Now, after all this, what is a setup in my opinion? A setup is a set of steps that
prepare your application to be started and operated flawlessly.
Example: when you install the Operating System, in my opinion, driver installs are not part of the configuration, but of setup, because they enable the computer user to "use" the OS to its uppermost extent. License acceptance, for example, should be part of configuration.
Registering an OCX is part of setup, but having registry keys containing other things shouldn't be part of setup( well, registry shouldn't really exist in the very first place, but that's another story... ).
Please, let all of us cooperate to get back to setup sanity.
Cheers,
Andrew
