Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!reed!glacier!busker!f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG!johnston From: johnston@f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (johnston) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps Subject: Re: StuffIt Deluxe Installer -- Aladdin's reply. Message-ID: <508.2783DE17@busker.fidonet.org> Date: 28 Dec 90 08:10:55 GMT Sender: ufgate@busker.fidonet.org (newsout1.26) Organization: FidoNet node 1:226/20 - cmhGate UF Gateway, Columbus OH Lines: 84 Reply-To: johnston@oscar.ccm.udel.edu In article <40101@nigel.ee.udel.edu>, johnston@oscar.ccm.udel.edu writes... [far more than anyone really wants to know about Installers from Hell] I just got a phone call from Marco Gonzalez of Aladdin Systems, Inc. (Mr. Gonzalez is one of three 'software engineers' who wrote StuffIt Deluxe. The others are Danny Lovato, and the 'Chief engineer' Ray Lau.) Mr. Gonzalez agreed to let me paraphrase his explanation of the Deluxe Installer problem that I and a few other netters have reported. If this explanation is technically unsatisfying, the problem is probably my typing or recollection of the phone conversation, and not with Mr. Gonzalez. Executive Summary: The problem is real, but very obscure. It will not affect this week's release of StuffIt Deluxe version 2.0, a free upgrade for those who have registered Deluxe 1.0. Details follow: 1) Mr. Gonzalez *did* try to reply to my e-mail messages to "aladdin" and failed due to a mail routing problem. That's fair enough: my initial attempt to send mail to failed for the same reason. ( I had previously stated that Aladdin had failed to reply to my e-mail, which was received.) When they did not get a reply to either of my messages, Mr. Gonzalez called me directly, using the phone number given in my .sig file. 2) A very small number of users have reported an installer problem similar to mine. I won't quote the number Mr. Gonzalez used, but it is indeed a very small fraction of the > 20,000 copies of StuffIt Deluxe which have been sold to date. The problem is real; it does not result from user error, init conflicts (as far is known), or failure to follow the installation instructions given in the manual (which are straightforward and unnecessary for experienced Mac users). 3) The problem has been seen by testers at Aladdin, but cannot be consistently duplicated because it appears to involve a strange interaction between the installer application and a system (or toolbox) call that handles bad disk sector information for the installer disk. It is not clear whether the problem is a bug in the installer application, or in the Apple system software. This apparently occurs only in "strange circumstances". Mr. Gonzalez stated that the Installer has been re-written to work around this problem; the StuffIt Deluxe version 2.0 free upgrade disks (which begin shipping this week) use a new version of the installer and several improved features, including faster stuffing/unstuffing. [ Technical note: I may have stated this backwards; a previous posting suggested that a bad sector problem on my hard disk could have caused the difficulty. At any rate, I checked both my hard disk and the Installer floppy with Apple Disk First Aid, and with a borrowed copy of SUM II. Neither utility found a problem with either disk; although Disk First Aid claimed that the Deluxe disk was a 'Disk with Bad Name'. ( I don't mean to imply that that is relevant, but that is what it said.) ] 4) In one of my previous postings, I guessed (and labelled it as such) that the Installer was simply a scripted, self-unstuffing archive. I also implied that this called into question the reliability of the scripting features (which I like) in StuffIt Deluxe. This is not true, according to Mr. Gonzalez. The Deluxe Installer is more elaborate, and was specifically written to correctly handle situations such as those I encountered. (These seemed to involve the installer's attempt to replace previously installed versions of the "StuffIt-installed" files and folders.) If the problem is genuinely 'obscure' it may not merit continued use of net bandwith; please follow-up by e-mail. Aladdin's net address are , and . They offer excellent phone support at (408) 685-9175, 9 to 5 Pacific time. -- Bill (johnston@oscar.ccm.udel.edu) -- 38 Chambers St.; Newark, DE 19711; (302)368-1949 + Organization: Univ. of Delaware, CCM -- johnston - via FidoNet node 1:105/14 UUCP: ...!{uunet!glacier, ..reed.bitnet}!busker!226!20!johnston INTERNET: johnston@f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG