> What if they're in the middle of, say, typing up a Word document & need to install a font, but the only way they have of getting it is to run the font's installer file?
> Do they save their work, shut everything down, run the installer, & then fire everything back up?
> What. a. waste. of. time.
> What if you're in the middle of a spreadsheet & you realize that the chart-building parts won't make the type of chart you need. But the add-on that DOES create said chart-types "requires" you to shut everything down to install it first?
> Again, save everything, shut it all down, install, & re-open?
> Freakin. waste. of. time.
He obviously finds it offensive to shut down a program while installing add-ons to that program. But on windows, you're forced to do exactly that: you can't replace a file that's in use.
(And "these installers" might force a reboot because they monitor whether the file install happened successfully or not: if the move-file-immediately fails, then the installer calls MoveFileEx with the "delay until reboot" flag, and either tells the user to reboot, or forces one. There's no way to move a file with a "wait until process X restarts" flag; the only flag that exists waits for the whole system to restart.)
(Now yes, some installers are annoying in that they force you to reboot. But the entire-system-restart is required a lot more than you may realize, too: there's a *LOT* more interdependency between layers on windows than on most other OSes. There's a lot more interdependency than is probably required, too. And when the only options are to move a file now, or wait for a reboot before moving the file, people will start forcing reboots soon when they can't move files, so the files can actually get moved. It's why "Automatic Updates" has such an annoying set of dialogs when you automatically install patches, for instance.) |
