Poor programming, poor installation procedures

Let’s start a thread on example of poor programming, or poor installation setups.

Maybe the software writers will get to read this and improve their next offering.
Please add your own examples as you come across them.

Now I know hard drives are big capacity and cheap nowadays, but that is no excuse in my opinion.

Let me start with the ATI graphic card fitted to my laptop.
Type in HELP in the XP search.

(1) I get 22 examples of wwhelp4.jar in 20 different languages. Each file is 197 kb in size.

(2) 51 examples of wwhelp.htm, in various different folders, only 5-6kb each, in size, I admit, but poor programming IMHO.

(3) 22 x Folders named “HELP”, and their contents, each folder is 3 megs in size. Each folder has sub-folders and many files in each Folder.

(4) 22 x help.js (java scripts).

(5) 22 x Help_Help_1_0_0001.html, in different languages, as you have probably guessed.

A simple solution, IMHO, and I am not a programmer, would be to ask the person installing the program, what language you want installed, and whether or not you want the other languages installed. You can always re-install later, if need be.

Next, what about programs that don’t let you maximize a page but persist in showing explanations that expand past the available space to easily read the contents. You cannot always get the gist of what they are trying to say/explain as you vainly scroll left and right.

I hate working in keyholes and every screen page should be available, maximized, if that is what the user wants. Examples of “terrorist programming” I call it.

Next, how about MS’s own services.msc., Extended tab. Around 2 inches of wasted space that shows the legend “Select an item to view it’s description”. That wastes 2 inches of screen space all the way down. The Description on each item goes off wildly to the right. Haven’t they heard of wrap around text, based on your screen resolution?

The Standard Tab is better, but still suffers from the lack of wrap around text.
No way to print out either for later studying and research, either, that I could readily see. A closer look shows it can be exported to a *.txt file. Why not the option of a Word.doc, instead of a text file. It can also be exported as a comma delimited file so I guess I could dump it to Excel, if one has Excel, of course.

Next, how about EULA’s all in CAPITAL LETTERS. I know most of us don’t read them, but you have to agree with the EULA, irrespective, or you cannot install their programs.

Maybe if the EULA’s were not all in CAPITALS, maybe more of us would read them, but that may NOT be what they want to happen.

Next, do a search for all files with*.*_ That is star dot star underscore, or asterisk dot asterisk underscore. I have 5,524 files, taking up 260megabytes of space. These are the unextracted files, before they are expanded by the installation program upon installation. Once again I am not complaining about the space they take up, but rather the number of files that basically are duplicated later on. Each file add to clusters used, thus time taken to defrag, time taken to search, time taken to backup, and are available on the original CD, or probably a “google’ search anyhow.

Next, 369 fonts !!. Only 30 megs admittedly, but therefore 369 files. How many do we really need. Apparently you can invest in font management software, like Adobe Type manager, which can remove and install fonts in groups at the click of a button.

Next, Shortcuts. Every time you double-click on a document in Explorer or on your desktop, Windows creates a shortcut, whether you ever look at that document again, or not, and adds them to your Recent Documents folder.
Emptemp http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1575 ,
tells me I have 324 so far. Most of them created by program installations, I think, as I have not accessed these, that I can remember.

That’ll do from me, at this stage. Sorry it’s so long but I look forward to your contributions. Had to get them off my chest.

Don’t get me started on webpage design, trying to find where the download button, icon, instruction, or whatever is. That one I’ll leave to you. Bazza

 

Bump. Wot, everyone happy with every piece of software they've got.
Must be me !!! Bazza

 

You already have this info, but I'll post it here anyway.
The largest HELP file size on my puter is 2,019 KB and is the PDF Recovery Help Manual
Second largest is 840 KB and belongs to Zone Labs
I have as many as 4 "copies" of several different help files, but not more than that of any on my puter.

My Recent Documents Folder is empty because I just ran CCleaner.

Don't you use CCleaner too?

I do agree with the rest of the post.
We should have more choices when installing a program as to the Languages we want or don't want.
The windows that aren't sized correctly also annoy me.
All the unnecessary fonts and languages tick me off.
Toni

 

Thanks, Toni. It looks like this post is dead in the water, but I got it off my chest anyhow.

It really annoys me when software installers install a lot of stuff that you will never use anyhow, just because they don't think to ask a couple of extra questions on the install procedure. I realise that it is extra programming, allowing for variations in answers, but it can actually simplify their install in the long run. Bazza

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Talking of your numerous fonts reminded me of this..
One time (and one time only) I ran Norton clean sweep and it came back with
all these files the "were not used" so I *deleted* them and made a backup of the progress. It deleted my default Windows font! All I had left was little squares.. no text... watch cleaning those fonts...lol

 

Thanks, will do. Haven't thought of a safe way to tackle this as yet. Must investigate the Adobe solution mentioned in an earlier post of mine. Bazza

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