How NOT to create user-friendly application installers
Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's St. Matthew's Passion on a ukulele. - Bagdikian's Observation This is an issue I've come up against enough times to feel the need to gripe about it. You get the Windows Live installer to install the "new" Windows Live family of products (Messenger, Live Writer, Mail, Photo Gallery, etc.) and it fails. That's after you wait for everything to download (because the web installer is just a wrapper over what it downloads after you select which programs you want). So then you use the "Try Again" button which downloads a 135 MB WLSETUP_ALL.EXE installer. Boy, I sure hope you’ve got a high speed connection. So you run that and once again, after you've waited for it to go all the way through to the end, only then does it proceed to "roll back" everything - which takes almost as long as the supposed installation did! Now you’ve gone thro...