[uk_john]

Your FSO installer may be great for a total install, but I had a working 3.6.9 and just asked for an upgrade of files, and now to say the game is buggered up is an understatement! I get font errors and Microsoft errors and god knows what! This means a total reinstall! Thanks for making it sooooo easy!!!! Grrrr!

[Jeff Vader]

Your FSO installer may be great for a total install, but I had a working 3.6.9 and just asked for an upgrade of files, and now to say the game is buggered up is an understatement! I get font errors and Microsoft errors and god knows what! This means a total reinstall! Thanks for making it sooooo easy!!!! Grrrr!

If you have problems using Turey's FSO Installer, please post in the FreeSpace Open Installer thread at General FreeSpace Discussion. Problems with the Installer aren't directly related to the SCP staff, as far as I know.

If you have general installation problems, post at the support board (and read the troubleshooting FAQ to find out what info we need in order to help you).

In any case, "installing" 3.6.10 Final should definitely NOT break anything, unless you're doing it wrong.

[General Battuta]

All you have to do is drop in a new executable and new MediaVPs. The installer shouldn't be necessary.

[The E]

Personally, I'd recommend upgrading the mediavps as well....

Still, I'd like to know just *how* the installer "messed up" here. "I get errors" is just about the worst call for help imaginable.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

All you have to do is drop in a new executable and new MediaVPs. The installer shouldn't be necessary.

The installer never was necessary. It's for people who are too busy with life to get it done the old-fashioned and proper way.

[General Battuta]

All you have to do is drop in a new executable and new MediaVPs. The installer shouldn't be necessary.

The installer never was necessary. It's for people who are too busy with life to get it done the old-fashioned and proper way.

Thanks for the clarification. 

A hands-off automated installer is an expected element of any polished bit of software. Newcomers should not be expected to hand-assemble their installations, no matter the technical benefits. The SCP team is, so far as I know, currently working on a way to help make installation more automated.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

How many installers are there for FSO anyway? I'm sure Turey wasn't the only one who made an installer for it.

[Commander Zane]

hip63, and it's an offline installer.

[Jeff Vader]

ShivanSPS's upgrade pack

A hands-off automated installer is an expected element of any polished bit of software. Newcomers should not be expected to hand-assemble their installations, no matter the technical benefits. The SCP team is, so far as I know, currently working on a way to help make installation more automated.

Turey's Installer is a bit difficult in this respect. It doesn't "install" as much as it "downloads", and since the dowloaded components seem to be scattered throughout the Internet, there's always the possibility that something is not downloaded and the less experienced users have a hard time figuring out what went wrong. ShivanSPS's pack and hip63's installer are better in this case, since they are offline installers: if you can download the entire pack, you'll know that it contains everything it promises and I've understood that at least hip63's version is rather user-friendly as well.

Some extra difficulty comes from the nature of FSO. It is constantly improved and new versions are released. Add the fact that some older mods have issues with new builds (and vice versa). As a result it is rather difficult to make an installer or somesuch that would provide the end user with a flawlessly working piece of software. In this respect, Turey's Installer would be better, as it doesn't contain any game data, but instead downloads it from the Internet.

If you ask me, some things that would be excellent in, say, Turey's Installer include
- the ability to succesfully check if newer versions of at least FSO, the Launcher and the MediaVPs are available
- a question box during the updating process that asks whether the user wants to keep the old components or remove them during the update
- the ability to check the integrity of at least FSO, the Launcher and the MediaVPs
- the ability to detect OpenAL and offer to download it if it is not found or is old/flawed.

I'm definitely not saying any of these things are easy/fast to implement, just saying that they should be a part of any self-respecting handsoff installer.

[portej05]

There're things in the pipeline (wrt installers & updaters), but they're a little bit off at the moment - they're not the easiest things in the world to write!

[Tomo]

There're things in the pipeline (wrt installers & updaters), but they're a little bit off at the moment - they're not the easiest things in the world to write!

I've just completed a project that is functionally very similar to an Online FS2 Open installer and updater at w*rk, but the current UI is inappropriate as the project is for a very different usage case. (And the UI isn't permitted to go outside the company, while the backend can)

- As it stands right now the app would work if I change the constants to point to the right remote and local URLs.

So, do we have the requirements for an online installer/updater, and a place to download the actual data from?

[The E]

I think it would be best if the installer would pull a file with download locations for the mods from somewhere (Just like the current installer does).

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I think of FSMods when I see your post above this one, E.

[The E]

It just needs to be somewhere where people can edit it easily without having to go through a single bottleneck.

[Tomo]

It just needs to be somewhere where people can edit it easily without having to go through a single bottleneck.

How about a set of pages on the FreeSpace Wiki?

One 'Title' page that includes direct external links to the 'core' files and links to a page for each Mod.
Each Mod page includes direct external links to the relevant files for that Mod.

A common header is used for the section of the page that is relevant to the installer/updater.

The installer/updater can then spider that section of those pages.
- Any HTML pages outside of the Wiki are ignored (to keep everything in one place), all other non-executable files directly linked are downloaded.

One big advantage of this approach is that it automatically provides somewhere we can point people to to get all the files for a manual installation.
- Careful use of Wiki templates for the 'installer' section would make it simple to add new Mods.

The core question is determining when something has been updated.
- Unfortunately not all servers include the Last-Modified header, and not all servers respect the If-Modified-Since GET header so I don't think we can rely on them.

[The E]

That's relatively easy. If you include version info in those sections of the page the installer is reading, and copy that information locally, you can determine whether something is out of date or not.

[Tomo]

That's relatively easy. If you include version info in those sections of the page the installer is reading, and copy that information locally, you can determine whether something is out of date or not.

True enough - it's just that it's something extra for the Mod maintainer to remember to do, and I don't like that.

Unfortunately I don't see an easy way around it for servers that don't support those headers.

- Moderators, it's probably time for a topic split.

[Jeff Vader]

- Moderators, it's probably time for a topic split.

Agreed and done. I'm not exactly sure where this discussion should be so I'll just leave it here for the time being.

[Tomo]

A quick question for the people who've been here the longest:

What are the most common causes of installation failure to date?

[Commander Zane]

Files becoming dated in the presence of newer files.