What Software Downloaders Must Installsplain

In which Nick Batzdorf wags his middle finger at windmills after three successive sample library installations go awry

Are you old enough to remember how much of a PITA it was when you had to install sample libraries from DVDs (not that you look it)? Those were the best and worst of times.

Today we have software download installers, and when they work they’re great. But answers to the following obvious questions are not part of the human genetic code, so – yes this means you – please installsplain me!

1. If I click on [whatever it is], am I agreeing to put a gigantic sample library on my startup drive? In that case I’ll have to pass, because I don’t have space.

WHY AREN’T YOU TELLING ME THIS AS THE VERY FIRST THING, YOU FOBBING BLADDER VARLET?!

(Insults courtesy of a Shakespearean insults generator somewhere on the Internet.)

  1B. Will I get a chance to tell you where to put the gigantic sample files? Hint: I’d better, or I’ll bonk you over the head with a 12” skillet, YOU PAUNCH VARLET NUT-HOOK!

2. How big are the files you’re proposing to put on my startup drive?

  2B. How big are the files you’re proposing to put where I bleedin’ tell you to put them, not wherever you decide without telling me, YOU MEW FUT APE?

The following dialog is from SuperDuper! from Shirt Pocket software, an excellent Mac backup program. It’s not an installer, but it’s an example of the kind of installsplanation every installer should have.

GOOD DIALOG:

Disclaimer: the names have been omitted to protect the infuriating. But it’s not just one program, it’s several.

In closing – after wasting hours on an installation still in progress – it would only be appropriate to proffer the following insult: YOU ARE AT BEST A MAMMER FUSTRILARIAN MOTH’S MIND!

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