Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!mts.rpi.edu!Garance_Drosehn
From: Garance_Drosehn@mts.rpi.edu (Garance Drosehn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: StuffIt Deluxe Installer from Hell!
Message-ID: <`|Q^0$+@rpi.edu>
Date: 28 Dec 90 02:16:37 GMT
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst.
Lines: 55
Nntp-Posting-Host: gilead.its.rpi.edu
References:<40020@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <1990Dec27.195645.22056@svc.portal.com>

In article <1990Dec27.195645.22056@svc.portal.com> 
           daven@svc.portal.com writes:
> When you reformatted your HD, did you do anything to collect bad
> sectors? You may just have a problem with a sector that happens
> to be where part of the directory catalogs fall.

This seems absurd to me.  I used my disk day in and day out.  I've 
installed tons of applications on it.  The *only* time I have ever (in the 
last 3 years) had a "folder from hell" is when I used the stuffit 
installer.  I used the installer 3 times, the first time I got dismal 
results, the second time I got disasterous results, the third time it 
worked.  That's Two problem installs for Stuffit Deluxe, verses Zero 
problem installs for every other installer I've ever used.  

Now maybe it's my hard disk that's at fault, but it's one amazing bit of 
coincidence that stuffit hit a hard disk problem twice while nothing else 
I've done has hit anything even remotely similar.  Anything that runs into 
a disk problem should stop or do some sanity checking.  It should not go 
on and fill up 5 megabytes of a hard disk with duplicate copies of files.  
It should not create a many hundreds of folders within folders.  If it 
does those things, then the program needs to be fixed whether or not the 
initial cause is a hard drive with a few bad sectors.

The amazing coincidence factor grows considerably when you stop to think 
that there are several different people here, each of which have had 
rather painful hassles with the installer, and none of them have 
complained about anyone elses installer.  We're all on different machines 
with different hard disks, can it be that we all have bad disks and that 
for all of us the Stuffit installer just happened to be the innocent, 
unfortunate application that tripped over the problem disk?  Mmmmmmmm, not 
very likely...

> In summary my experience with StuffIt Deluxe and it's Installers
> has been very positive. I would highly recommend them to anyone.

I'm sure you'd change that tune if you ever find yourself having to 
reformat your hard drive after running one of these installers.  It seems 
that only a few people are hit by any problems with the installer, but the 
ones who are hit are *really* nailed by it.  I could believe that it might 
be the combination of the Stuffit installer and some init(s) we all are 
running, and the real bug could be in one of those inits and not the 
installer itself.  But the chances that this is a hardware error on our 
disks is much too implausible.

I would say, however,  that my experience with Stuffit Deluxe itself has 
been very positive.  Everything I've used has worked as good or better 
than I expected (maybe not *faster* then I expected, but the newer version 
is supposed to improve the speed quite a bit...).  I'm looking forward to
the new version, although I must admit I'm rather uneasy about running the
installer unless Aladdin says that they've found and fixed some problems
in it.

Garance_Drosehn@mts.rpi.edu
ITS Systems Programmer
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Troy, NY.  USA