Why would anyone decide to abort installation if Start Menu shortcut cannot be created?
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I am using Startdock Start 10 to replace the ugly, disorganized abomination called Windows 10 Start Menu. I was sick and tired of applications that keep adding shortcuts to my nicely organized Start Menu without asking for permission or providing a simple user-friendly checkbox giving me the option to not add shortcuts so I denied write privilege to Administrator group to my Start Menu. In general this accomplished exactly what I wanted but what I discovered along the way totally blew me away! Apparently, there are developers/companies who think that failure to add a useless Start Menu shortcut is a sufficient reason to fail the entire installation and roll it all back. A program would install and run just fine but after it failed to add the Start Menu shortcut it would display an error and when you click on the OK button it would roll back the entire installation and remove the program. The offenders so far are NordVPN, Boxcryptor and Quicken. I am totally flabbergasted and cannot comprehend how could supposedly intelligent developers decide that if their completely useless Start Menu shortcut cannot be created, already installed and fully functional program must be uninstalled. Can someone try to explain how could anyone, ever, think it is somehow a good idea and it is acceptable to not provide users with the ability to skip adding Start Menu shortcuts and on top of that fail the entire installation if shortcuts cannot be created? What in the world are these people thinking?
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I am using Startdock Start 10 to replace the ugly, disorganized abomination called Windows 10 Start Menu. I was sick and tired of applications that keep adding shortcuts to my nicely organized Start Menu without asking for permission or providing a simple user-friendly checkbox giving me the option to not add shortcuts so I denied write privilege to Administrator group to my Start Menu. In general this accomplished exactly what I wanted but what I discovered along the way totally blew me away! Apparently, there are developers/companies who think that failure to add a useless Start Menu shortcut is a sufficient reason to fail the entire installation and roll it all back. A program would install and run just fine but after it failed to add the Start Menu shortcut it would display an error and when you click on the OK button it would roll back the entire installation and remove the program. The offenders so far are NordVPN, Boxcryptor and Quicken. I am totally flabbergasted and cannot comprehend how could supposedly intelligent developers decide that if their completely useless Start Menu shortcut cannot be created, already installed and fully functional program must be uninstalled. Can someone try to explain how could anyone, ever, think it is somehow a good idea and it is acceptable to not provide users with the ability to skip adding Start Menu shortcuts and on top of that fail the entire installation if shortcuts cannot be created? What in the world are these people thinking?
It might be a:
try
{
install();
}
catch
{
rollback();
}I would not say stupidity, probably lazyness or even more probably, not thinking that someone could ever do what you did.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I am using Startdock Start 10 to replace the ugly, disorganized abomination called Windows 10 Start Menu. I was sick and tired of applications that keep adding shortcuts to my nicely organized Start Menu without asking for permission or providing a simple user-friendly checkbox giving me the option to not add shortcuts so I denied write privilege to Administrator group to my Start Menu. In general this accomplished exactly what I wanted but what I discovered along the way totally blew me away! Apparently, there are developers/companies who think that failure to add a useless Start Menu shortcut is a sufficient reason to fail the entire installation and roll it all back. A program would install and run just fine but after it failed to add the Start Menu shortcut it would display an error and when you click on the OK button it would roll back the entire installation and remove the program. The offenders so far are NordVPN, Boxcryptor and Quicken. I am totally flabbergasted and cannot comprehend how could supposedly intelligent developers decide that if their completely useless Start Menu shortcut cannot be created, already installed and fully functional program must be uninstalled. Can someone try to explain how could anyone, ever, think it is somehow a good idea and it is acceptable to not provide users with the ability to skip adding Start Menu shortcuts and on top of that fail the entire installation if shortcuts cannot be created? What in the world are these people thinking?
netizenk wrote:
The offenders so far are NordVPN, Boxcryptor and Quicken.
Generally I'm all for naming and shaming offenders, but that's a rather broad brush you're painting these particular developers with. Most people don't bother rolling up their own installer (do you?) and use a third-party just to take care of the installation process. I'll bet in a lot of cases, handling your particular scenario is out of their control. Blame the installation software, not the software being installed. In which case, I would agree, if their bread and butter is to anticipate anything and everything that could possible go wrong with an installation (and they should, they should be experts at this), then they've totally dropped the ball.
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I am using Startdock Start 10 to replace the ugly, disorganized abomination called Windows 10 Start Menu. I was sick and tired of applications that keep adding shortcuts to my nicely organized Start Menu without asking for permission or providing a simple user-friendly checkbox giving me the option to not add shortcuts so I denied write privilege to Administrator group to my Start Menu. In general this accomplished exactly what I wanted but what I discovered along the way totally blew me away! Apparently, there are developers/companies who think that failure to add a useless Start Menu shortcut is a sufficient reason to fail the entire installation and roll it all back. A program would install and run just fine but after it failed to add the Start Menu shortcut it would display an error and when you click on the OK button it would roll back the entire installation and remove the program. The offenders so far are NordVPN, Boxcryptor and Quicken. I am totally flabbergasted and cannot comprehend how could supposedly intelligent developers decide that if their completely useless Start Menu shortcut cannot be created, already installed and fully functional program must be uninstalled. Can someone try to explain how could anyone, ever, think it is somehow a good idea and it is acceptable to not provide users with the ability to skip adding Start Menu shortcuts and on top of that fail the entire installation if shortcuts cannot be created? What in the world are these people thinking?
I have a few desktop apps packaged with InstallShield. Those installers are configured to add shortcuts to the start menu. Honestly, I have no idea what would happen if I (or one of my clients) denied write access to the start menu but I will be checking thanks to this post. :thumbsup:
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I am using Startdock Start 10 to replace the ugly, disorganized abomination called Windows 10 Start Menu. I was sick and tired of applications that keep adding shortcuts to my nicely organized Start Menu without asking for permission or providing a simple user-friendly checkbox giving me the option to not add shortcuts so I denied write privilege to Administrator group to my Start Menu. In general this accomplished exactly what I wanted but what I discovered along the way totally blew me away! Apparently, there are developers/companies who think that failure to add a useless Start Menu shortcut is a sufficient reason to fail the entire installation and roll it all back. A program would install and run just fine but after it failed to add the Start Menu shortcut it would display an error and when you click on the OK button it would roll back the entire installation and remove the program. The offenders so far are NordVPN, Boxcryptor and Quicken. I am totally flabbergasted and cannot comprehend how could supposedly intelligent developers decide that if their completely useless Start Menu shortcut cannot be created, already installed and fully functional program must be uninstalled. Can someone try to explain how could anyone, ever, think it is somehow a good idea and it is acceptable to not provide users with the ability to skip adding Start Menu shortcuts and on top of that fail the entire installation if shortcuts cannot be created? What in the world are these people thinking?
I definitely understand your frustration. But if you're posting on CodeProject, you're probably more technically savvy that 99.9% of the people using these applications - even sort of techy apps like NordVPN and Boxcryptor. The unfortunate reality is that most people who use computers don't really have a good mental model of how computers and filesystems work. For these users, if the application doesn't have a start menu entry, it flat out does not exist. Image the support headaches caused trying to explain to confused users that yes, the application is on your computer, but no, it's not in that list that's supposed to show all of the applications on your computer. End-user heads would explode. Support staff would be driven to drink. I mean, they're already driven to drink; they'd just drink even more. I know this probably isn't why these apps are rolling back their installs. But it's why I'd make my app installers do this. Better to have a bunch of pissed off people who can't use my application that to have a few pissed off people incessantly driving me insane with support requests. :laugh:
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I definitely understand your frustration. But if you're posting on CodeProject, you're probably more technically savvy that 99.9% of the people using these applications - even sort of techy apps like NordVPN and Boxcryptor. The unfortunate reality is that most people who use computers don't really have a good mental model of how computers and filesystems work. For these users, if the application doesn't have a start menu entry, it flat out does not exist. Image the support headaches caused trying to explain to confused users that yes, the application is on your computer, but no, it's not in that list that's supposed to show all of the applications on your computer. End-user heads would explode. Support staff would be driven to drink. I mean, they're already driven to drink; they'd just drink even more. I know this probably isn't why these apps are rolling back their installs. But it's why I'd make my app installers do this. Better to have a bunch of pissed off people who can't use my application that to have a few pissed off people incessantly driving me insane with support requests. :laugh: