Stupid installers
Sometimes it's hard to get a computer game working. I don't buy a lot of computer games nowadays, but there are a couple of games I've had trouble with. I tried to buy Silent Storm as a budget release, but I had to return that one, because I couldn't get the copy protection working. The game just wouldn't recognize its own DVD in the drive. They've stopped using this copy protection scheme because of complaints now.
Today I wanted to install IL-2 Sturmovik 1946. I don't have autorun enabled in my drives, so I had to manually open the disk and try to install. There were a couple of programs which could've been the installer, like the one called 'setup', but the right program was called just 'a'. Easy to guess. Then it's update time - and I have to think again about which one of the multiple update programs from the programs website I should run and in which order. Somehow Ubisoft can't make updates which include all the previous ones, too.
It also seems that every single game in the world wants to install DIrectX from its own disk. DirectX should be downwards compatible, so the installer could check the current version and not show the option if there's already a version installed.
Why it's so hard to make good installers? If you can write a good 3d engine and physics simulations, why can't you write a simple installer? Or an updater?
Today I wanted to install IL-2 Sturmovik 1946. I don't have autorun enabled in my drives, so I had to manually open the disk and try to install. There were a couple of programs which could've been the installer, like the one called 'setup', but the right program was called just 'a'. Easy to guess. Then it's update time - and I have to think again about which one of the multiple update programs from the programs website I should run and in which order. Somehow Ubisoft can't make updates which include all the previous ones, too.
It also seems that every single game in the world wants to install DIrectX from its own disk. DirectX should be downwards compatible, so the installer could check the current version and not show the option if there's already a version installed.
Why it's so hard to make good installers? If you can write a good 3d engine and physics simulations, why can't you write a simple installer? Or an updater?