I use your software and want it to work and install EVERYWHERE and with EVERYONE.
Same as me but, this is impossible to achieve, without the help of affected users. We had about 30 testers, and they used the program for months and, guess what, NOBODY reported a problem.
I noticed some things that make the update problematic and tedious.
If someone on his system partition is not enough space for the 1.72 GB he cannot install the software. It does not matter whether the files are cached in a "Temp" folder or in the "Documents" folder. It is only successful if the user still has enough space or if the files "Temp" and / or "Documents" are outsourced and not located on C :.
We chose the Documents folder to store the complete installer, assuming someone short on space would have take enough precautions to give enough space on one of the most important location on this system: the Documents folder.
Suggestion: the better solution for the user would be to first download the GSX_Installer package and be able to determine the location itself
Asking a location to store the downloaded package can be done.
In addition, an installation from a local storage medium often goes much faster (many already have an SSD for P3D in operation) than directly from the internet.
The installation is ALREADY made from a local storage: the files that has just been downloaded from the internet and are stored under Documents\GSX_Installer is where the
installation takes place from.
The
UPDATE takes places "directly" over the internet but, if you use the current full installer, it won't download much.
2) The update version, downloading file by file immediately directly from the Web to update on the spot, takes too long in such a large update. It depends too much on the connection speed to the respective time of day (much or little traffic) and took me between 40 minutes and more than 2 hours with the same installation variant.
If you know your internet connection is slow, then simply don't do the Update and use the Full installer.
Even with a "small" update, as we have had it in the past, it takes far too long, as each file is checked, downloaded and installed online during the update.
That's not how it works.
The new update is different than the old one, and it's way faster for smaller updates. And no, it doesn't work as you think it does. Files are NOT checked online one by one, that would absurd. A small cache file, which contains only the list of all files on the server with their MD5 hashes is downloaded, and files are compared *LOCALLY* against this one, and only those that are changed are *then* downloaded.
Suggestion: here, too, would be better in the future, if we could download the update package completely and only then, when installing from a local medium, the verification and the replacement of the files would be done. that would also have the great advantage that in a new installation not every time the often lengthy online update process would have to be made again. it would be much more user friendly.
That's exactly how it works now, for the larger packages, which are the Simobjects, which are first downloaded in a single package, locally, then uncompressed. But it's done only when you have NO new Simobject installed. If we always did this, as you are suggesting, we would waste too much bandwidth, which costs money.
3) I do not know why there is a "new" GSX_Installer package that does not already contain ALL updates.
The current installer contains 99% of the updated files. Basically everything, except the small things which were fixed in the past 2 days. Nothing.
But I'm assuming that this is a variant WITHOUT the latest updates and you did not have time to update it because it was important to first publish the new update, and then update the package.
Exactly, you cannot expect we would re-compile the full installer EACH and EVERY single time we change one small file.
Currently, it is the case that we install the package and then immediately started an "update" to update the files. In addition, this takes a perceived eternity.
I think I understand what you are experiencing here: let's try to analyze the situation:
- We have a HUGE number of files which are specific for FSX users and will NOT be used in P3D4. Those are the Legacy Objects.
- We have a HUGE number of files which are specific for P3D users and will NOT be used in FSX. Those are the PBR Objects
- Then, the rest of the files is shared.
So, the obvious solution was to split the installer between an FSX version and a P3D4 version. This way, we achieve the following:
1) P3D4 users won't have to download the FSX files they don't need, so they get a faster download and a quicker installation
2) FSX user won't have to download the P3D4 files they don't need, so they get a faster download and a quicker installation
3) We save some money on our AWS bill, because less bandwidth is consumed, since those with only one simulator installed will download less stuff.
HOWEVER, what will happen (it's what I think happened in your case) if you have BOTH P3D4 and FSX installed ?
The P3D4 installer will install all the P3D4 stuff, and the Live Update will update it very quickly (because 99% of the files are already new) but, when it comes to the FSX stuff, it will HAVE to Update it as well, because it cannot possibly leave you with the P3D4 files updated and the FSX files outdated and, it must do that, because it cannot possibly be sure that you are going to use the FSX installer too.
So, with both simulators installed, you have a very quick installation of the P3D4 files, but a longer update of the FSX files.
This could be potentially solved by offering another Full installer, one for those that keep BOTH sim installed at the same time. We thought about that but, this option has the following issues:
1) Having 3 separate installers will likely confuse users
2) We'll surely consume more bandwidth, because many users would try to use all 3.
3) I would spent too much time on support having to explain which installer should be used and when. I know what I'm talking about, since I still receive a dozen of email PER DAY, from users that don't know how to Download our installers, since they don't understand we have only installer and it's the Trial version, so they keep asking where's the "full" version they bought. You must understand that 90% of users DO NOT come to the forum so, we must try to make something that is as foolproof as possible. Having the Updated being able to update everything regardless from which installer you started from, does exactly that.
4) which I still unclear, why the update ALWAYS at the beginning of the GSX files deletes. This is certainly not a "local" problem only on my system - quite some users report here about it - as the update explicitly reads the respective installation path from the registry.
It's not supposed to do that but, that's precisely what I was trying to discover with a TM session.
