Yet another rant on windows' lack of packaging system
Today at work i was again faced with the problem that is: the lack of a packaging system in windows.
Adobe Acrobat decided it was time to update itself, it wanted to update to version 7.0.8 - installing 7.0.6 and 7.0.7 as a road to that. Fine i thought, up-to-date software means better and more secure software, especially when it comes from a well renowned company like Adobe. Although i couldn't help but wonder why it didn't just start downloading the stuff in the background, and then letting me know when it was ready to actually start installing the patches - that is what windows update does.
I just hit enter and the pop-up goes away - having stealt the focus of the program is was working with - ok, i try not to loose my temper. Then it is done downloading and start installing, stealing my focus once again - counting to 10, trying not to yell. When it is done installing, it steals my focus for the third time, this time to ask me if i wan't to reboot now or later. I click now, and wait for it to boot up.
Then comes the shock - after logging in, the Adobe update thingy tells me "Adobe Update Manager requires your attention" - you just bloody got it you retard! I click to see what it wants, and lo and behold, it has only updated to 7.0.6 - and i am now required to do the same freakin' process, be interrupted _three times_ in the middle of my work for 7.0.7, and then do the whole thing for the third time for version 7.0.8 - so when it comes with the "reboot" or "later" options, i click later, the newly updated Acrobat starts up .... EVERY FREAKIN' TIME IT HAS UPDATED ITSELF!!!, once for each update. Well i locate the Help menu, and look for the update option, i click it, it looks for options, and .... nothing happens - i know that there is a version 7.0.8 update available - but i get no feed back - no "there was no update available" no "At Adobe we are so stupid that you have to reboot before we can update your software" or nothing - no feedback at all.
Who the hell can in their right mind write so abominable software??? Where the hell did it go wrong, i get agitated just writing about it.
To calm down i have written this little peace of lyrics (sung to Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind"):
How many times must a man boot up, before he is deemed up-to-date And how many times must he watch like a droid his life drained away by A-"dobe" The answer my friend, is many times again, The answer is many times again How many times will it take till they learn that pop-ups' not even for porn And how many times will the focus be'gone even if his writing his "pass" The answer my friend, is many times again, The answer is many times again
Why, oh, why, haven't microsoft filled this gaping hole with some Red Carpet like tool, why must each and every program have their own updating routine, one more horrible than the other. And why must the program insist on being started every time it is updated - i have never started Adobe Acrobat Reader in my entire life on it's own - only by clicking on a PDF document.
The reboot thing, unfortunaetely, we can't blame on Adobe, that is entirely microsoft's fault for making an operating system where the tiniest of process can prevent anyone from writing to file that is being read by enother process. This is insane!!! If this was true on linux we would have to reboot each time the fine GNU libc guys updated their software - everyone uses libc! Not to mention the horrible stuff that must go on in the boot stages where some files must be "queued for updating" before any program opens them for the first time.
On Linux (and i'm guessing all other operating systems) this just works - the process who have opened a file, holds a handle to the file as it was when that file was opened - the file may be overwritten a gazillion times after that, but the data associated with that file will be open as long as the process maintains a handle to it. How hard can it be?
My guess is that this stems, somehow, from the fact that microsoft has sported some horrible filesystems in their time, FAT this and FAT that.
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"* Lights a cigarette and sipps a cup of tea *"
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On a completely unrelated note, i was down at the real estate agent today, to the sign an agreement for a flat (or appartment depending on your english), the seller can still reject me, buy hey - i'm a nice guy :-)
When i can take over the flat, i have no idea, more on that some other time.
Comments:
Still, my rant isn't so much that on Adobe (although they take the price for most horribly updater), but more that microsoft hasn't built a standard updating mechanism into windows - and also that you have to update windows each and every time a dll is updated.
And to the linux comment, besides reading and experiencing being two different things, i have also had the few "snags" with linux package management. But then again i run [http://www.debian.org/ Debian GNU/Linux)'s unstable distribution so expect a few bumps in the road along the way - although very few bumps considering that there are about 40-50 new packages to update every day.
But on the servers i have administrated using Debian GNU/Linux stable there has never been a single security update that did anything to disrupt the operation of the system. And the only time you need to boot is when you install a new kernel, i can't imagine running a web server on windows, where you would need to explain to your customers that you needed to reboot the server because the "x.dll" needed to be updated.
Plus, there is seamless upgrades from stable version to stable version - last time i, almost, just typed apt-get dist-upgrade and i went from running woody system to running sarge system.
The thing here also is that all the packages are built and tested on the new system so there is only the few non-Debian packages software that needs to be updated separately from the Debian release schedule.
I like your song.. :)
I'm in the process of the same bloody thing right now. It reminds me of something else Microsoft are guilty of. I just hate when trying to install a package and I get a message like 'Preparing for installation'..... 'Installing'...... 'Validating Install'..... and each one has a countdown timer, just to piss you off and make you think it's gonna be done in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 second. then, oops, no we have another 45 seconds to wait until the next part of the process is over. Why can't they just be honest and give us a simple timer, however approximate it might be, and give up on bullshitting everyone by pretending this crap. I hate Microsoft AND Adobe
I hear you Karl.
And on the same note: why doesn't the system start loading the desktop stuff when just standing at the login screen? Then you have to wait two times before the system is usable: Once when pushing the on button, and then when you have logged in - waiting for all the "little icons in the bottom right corner to load".
To be fair, Linux also suffers from this.
This isn't Microsoft's problem, this is an Adobe problem. I have lots of apps that don't do this crap. Now that I've installed 7.0.8 my system takes five minutes to boot. That isn't Microsoft's problem either. This Adobe piece of bloated crap screwed it up.
By the way, I've read about tons of problems with Linux updates from numerous distros.