# Sunday, July 31, 2005
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Installers that don’t play nice

I've had to install a few new pieces of software lately for work and some of them have decided to take over my system. Some of the worst offenders are as follows:

  • Cisco Systems VPN Client - if I try and move it's shortcut on the program menu then it decides to reinstall. Why do that? Shouldn't I get to choose how I structure my menus?
  • MSN Messenger 7 - if I remove the shortcut from the program menu then it causes errors when Outlook loads. Why?
  • RoboHelp - this is the biggest offender. What right does it have to remap the "Open .CHM" extension (i.e. help files for all programs) to its editor? I don't want to edit the thing, I want to read them.

So, a message to people writing installers - it's my computer, my rules so please don't presume to know better than me.

 

Software
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posted on Sunday, July 31, 2005 10:10:13 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [4] Trackback
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Hotmail Beta
Sunday, July 31, 2005 9:19:59 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
That Cisco issue pisses me off. I uninstalled it and will refuse to VPN using Cisco. Perhaps with good reason now with the recent security flaws announced.
haacked@gmail.com (Haacked)
Sunday, July 31, 2005 12:27:26 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
What security issues? Do you have a link?
James Snape
Monday, August 01, 2005 9:59:38 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
The cisco vpn does allow you to put an additional link on your start menu. then just leave the default one alone, xp will soon hide em when you dont use em. sucks i know but what else do expect from cisco?
solidstore
Thursday, August 11, 2005 9:14:20 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
They are not regular "shortcuts" that you and I used to understand. I have run into similar issues with my own installer. Right click it and check the properties, you will find out they are actually linked to the "program"(not the exe!). It allows the installer to check the integrity of the program(and do other fancy stuff) before it launches the application. Most installers(installshield foe example) do that by default. So even if you delete something "unimportant", the installer may step it and offer a repair.
yawl
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