Installation, Do we Really Need it?

[TheHaso2011 152]

Hey EVeryone,

I've been having some Trouble Recently with Files That Require Installation. Basically, When i finish installing them, Windows show me A Message that Reads:

'Windows could not install the File Correctly. Re-Install With Recommended Settings?'

I say yes and it does it all again, then the Smae Error Message Pops up, and I thought, WHy DO we Need Installation, I mean, Why is it that we have to install the Best Stuff? If we Could Just Extract it to our Plug-ins folder and Be done with it, It would be A lot Easier, Dont you think?

I was talking about this on the Live Chat and Several People were saying how they Hated Installation Files and Such. What do you think? Wouldnt be a lot Easier if you Just Extracted?

I'm sure you will agree with me.

  Edited August 23, 2011 by TheHaso2011  

[Vahr 341]

Some files are too advanced for normal drag and drop (NAM).

Some groups prefer their work organized a certain way (BSC).

Sometimes the average user doesn't know where to properly install the mod (Some "load last" mods).

Sometimes the author wishes to allow configuration of a mod (again, NAM related or even some SFBT things).

Sometimes people think its cool.

Sometimes its plain damn fun to shove an installer inside an installer so you can install while you install! (SWENPCBWS Nucler Starbucks 2k10 Edition wit 25% added cowbell for 56% more awesumness - glenni + yours truely )

Also, ignore that Windows popup (hit cancel/X). It's partially due to how SC4 plugin installers work, they actually work fine.

I personally don't care if the upload is in a folder or 14 nested installers. I just blast through them all the same. (Pssst, add a "I dont care" option to the poll! Don't leave my demographic out!)

[TheHaso2011 152]

Ok, And Sure

[Yarahi 1,816]

Just a small additional info: Most Install files will give you a message @ the end that will look something like this:

IMO this overrules the windows message

  Edited August 26, 2011 by yarahi  

[Eʟᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ 273]

Depends really. Some people who may be new to custom content in general might find installation quite difficult. The installer over simplifies the process.

I agree, for the more experienced user it definitely can be quite annoying and counter productive. Not to mention the carpool tunnel syndrome that some users might experience.

All jokes aside of course, I do believe that it can be quite useful for the newcomer to custom content. I mean really, the average newcomer is already quite overwhelmed with the intense learning curve.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

One of the most annoying things I have encountered lately is installing the update to the RTMT because it doesn't have an installer, has several folders full of stuff, and a readme that is clearly written by a programmer. If you don't know the internals of the RTMT, this is quite a challenge, even for an experienced computer professional like me. I'd rather have a simple installer for a mod as complicated as this.

Your poll should also include an entry called "I'm not on Windows, it doesn't affect me".

[TheHaso2011 152]

I've added the Extra Option

[Hamish 1,369]

Actually, I think it effects people not using windows the most.

Windows users make installers for other windows users, they don't work on mac OSX, and its extremely difficult for us to be able to install the files successfully.

For mac users, we can't run the installer, which means that we have to put the file through a program called 'file juicer'. However, it doesn't let us use the installer. Its like an extractor, it grabs all the files inside the installer, and dumps it into one folder. So you end up with a mixture of png files, jpg files, html files, txt files, a bunch of code based files, and then the SC4 related files are in there somewhere. We have to go and manually move the correct files from in here to our plugins folder.

And then, what if we actually need to installer to install specific files? Well that just doesn't happen, so we go look in the read me and what do we find? A line that goes a little something like this: "Mac users: File Juicer will enable you to install these files". Nothing about which files need to be installed, just a small reminder that windows users don't really think about us.

If I were to upload my files with mac only installers and direct my downloaders to a small extractor program like file juicer my download would be shunned from the STEX, no one would want to use them because its just too hard to install the files.

I just don't get why this is acceptable for windows users.

Yes, I know, there are far more windows users than mac users here at ST, and we may as well make the windows users happy, but its just frustrating that I sometimes can't use these files because they have been bundled up in an installer made for windows and then Im not given proper instructions on how to actually go about installing them.

For me, installers cause way more problems than they fix. But the concept does sound useful if you are able to run them. But I don't support installers.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

But the installers run fine for me on Linux/wine. There is great care done by most people who make installers to create a MAC version. I think that for the 15% of computer users who are on MAC without wine, that is a great courtesy.

[DavidB_ 83]

I download files on my Mac, and transfer them to my dedicated SimCity account. However, when an exe installer pops up, I don't use FileJuicer, I transfer the files to my PC, run the installer and extract the files. However, this is more annoying, but at least it's easier for me to organise my plugins folder to my liking.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I download files on my Mac, and transfer them to my dedicated SimCity account. However, when an exe installer pops up, I don't use FileJuicer, I transfer the files to my PC, run the installer and extract the files. However, this is more annoying, but at least it's easier for me to organise my plugins folder to my liking.

Instead of switching machines, why not just put up a windows virtual machine on the MAC?

[DavidB_ 83]

I download files on my Mac, and transfer them to my dedicated SimCity account. However, when an exe installer pops up, I don't use FileJuicer, I transfer the files to my PC, run the installer and extract the files. However, this is more annoying, but at least it's easier for me to organise my plugins folder to my liking.

Instead of switching machines, why not just put up a windows virtual machine on the MAC?

It's a PowerPC machine, and running VirtualPC (Microsoft) would A) Cost money, B) Not be very secure/bug-free and C) be painfully slow... I have tried SimCity for PC on a Mac (VMWare), but this only works on Intel machines! Oh well, I'm gonna have to eventually give up on the Mac copy, and then I can use all the installers I want. (or not!)

  Edited September 11, 2011 by DAB_City  

[IDS2 3,344]

I've been waiting for a thread like this

I've always hated installers to no end...I understand some things need them, like the NAM, and I don't mind that, but I get kinda peeved when every little BSC single family home or office building has an installer. I can't really complain since they're all fabulous models and the creators have every right to do it their way, but it takes so much longer than a simple extraction. I remember trying to install CAM...took hours to install the hundreds of files that go with it. It gets pretty discouraging after a while, even if it is necessary, as in the case of CAM.

I really don't pay attention to the installers anymore. I just wish all the next buttons were in the same spot so I could click really fast through them all. Personally, installers give me an imcomplete feeling at the end. With extraction files, I have the evidence right in front of me that I did it correctly.

Bottom line, I wish installers were only used when absolutely necessary, but if the creator wants their stuff to be organized that way, so be it. It really slows down the whole downloading process, especially with the extra step of deleting all the installers afterward. I've just dealt with it, if you want the files you'll just have to do what it takes. Keeps my plugins folder in check if nothing else I have to say, in most cases it's worth the extra 30 seconds. Really not much trouble now that I think about it.

I can assure you, though, that I'll do everything I can to avoid installers in any of my uploads.

  Edited August 27, 2011 by IDS2  

[Tarkus 6,931]

Here's the thing with installers.

-If we use them, we get "click-through" complaints. (Or recently, I ran across someone who just stuck the NAM installer--without running it--in their Plugins folder and then asked why the mod wasn't showing up in-game.)

-If we don't use them, we get "how do I install this?" complaints, or a myriad of tech support cases caused by improper installation.

It's really a darned if you do, darned if you don't situation.

Aside from the recent installer-in-Plugins-folder incident, the installer package has generally worked quite well for the NAM. The installer package we're using on the Windows version (Nullsoft's NSIS) actually has a higher compression ratio than .rar files, so the end user is actually having to download a lot less with the installer. Given that 15 out of every 16 NAM downloads on the STEX is for the Windows version, the Windows version is 18.41MB vs. 26.03MB for the Mac .zip, and looking over the last statistical sampling I took that showed the NAM's been downloaded 336.17 times per day from the STEX (between 7 June 2010 and 11 March 2011--277 days), we're actually saving ST about 73GB of bandwidth on an average month (30 5/12 days) on the NAM.

The Clickteam Install system, which the BSC uses, is not quite as efficient at compressing as Nullsoft, but it does still cut the filesize down a fair bit compared to just zipping things up.

It is largely because of the file compression, coupled with the minimization of "how do I install?" questions that leads me to be generally in favor of installers with respect to SC4 content. NSIS and Clickteam are also relatively benign compared to the abomination that is WinZip Self-Extractors, which I've been subjected to for years with custom content for other games, and have worse compression than .zip files. You haven't seen a nightmare installer until you've popped a dozen of those.

As far as the NAM Mac version, we do actually have a "cross-platform" Java-based installer, which daeley developed awhile back (with Cleanitol functionality built-in to boot), and that we hope to deploy at some point in the not-too-distant future. It doesn't have a compression advantage (it comes out about the same size as a .zip), but it'll hopefully make the Mac users lives easier. When it is deployed, we will probably keep the "manual install" .zip around for advanced users.

-Alex (Tarkus)

  Edited August 27, 2011 by Tarkus  

[TheHaso2011 152]

I have now got some installation stuff, but that was only by downloading the macOS version of the mod

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I am on Linux, and can currently use the present windows.exe installers through the wine interface. I am a little alarmed that a "custom" interface may be used in future if it does not produce an interface that can be run without the presence of strange run-time packages such as Python.

For inter-system operation it is necessary to think of portability in the most eclectic way. If you can't stick to a C or C++ executable, please try to stay with something java-based as you are then assured that everyone is likely to have it or can easily get it. I am unable to run the Python-based programs currently available, for example the Terraformer, because they are wrapped in a windows.exe of some vintage that my system doesn't recognize.

As more operating system users who do not run windows (15% MAC, 15% Linux), I believe it is incumbent on implementors to pay more attention to us. Portability is not all that hard, and remember that what you are propagating for the most part is simply a set of data files.

Of course, I would prefer files to be in .tar.bz format, but I can handle almost anything with my swiss army knife archive manager. One of the things I am able to do with .zip files, for example, is to mount them as if they were a disk and selectively add files to my plugins without actually materializing any but the needed files. It is really too bad that windows is in such a dark age of portability and file compression.

  Edited December 24, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Cockatoo 2,256]

As more operating system users who do not run windows (15% MAC, 15% Linux), I believe it is incumbent on implementors to pay more attention to us.

I don't think it's quite as high as that... for personal computing I'd of though maybe 1-2% Linux and 10-15% Mac with the rest being Windows. I'm talking worldwide here too, not just in the US or other developed countries where we can all afford to pay a crazy amount of money for a Mac Book Pro. I'm just taking a stab in the dark here though, I'd like to know the actual figures.

But back on topic, I've always thought installers for simple things like BAT's or lots are unnecessary. Everyone who's been here any longer than a day knows how to install them manually. For larger modds like the NAM though, they're a big help and I don't think anyone would argue that we need them in situations like that. For people who are using a non-Windows OS, there's always emulation software, virtual machines or dual booting. If I was using a Mac or Linux as my main OS, I'd want to make sure I had access to at least one copy of Windows somewhere just so I could be sure I'd be able to do everything I want to do.

[Sniper296 83]

I am fine with installers as long as they are NSIS ones, then you can simply open the .exe with 7zip or any p7zip based archive managers if not using Windows or you don't want to run the installer.