IA 9.0x releases

[DanStutzman]

I am installing IA 9.06 SP1 on my VM's using an updated license module but is this the last update for a while? I want to know because I want to make sure I'm not wasting my time upgrading.

Thanks,

Dan

[MichaelNesmith]

We've been aggressively issuing bug fixes, this is not to waste your time but to ensure you have no downtime if you are affected by the bugs reported. If you would rather wait and upgrade at pre-set intervals, that is your imperative.

As general practice, R&D is aggressively issuing updates to bugs fixed virtually as soon as they are reported, this does take a lot of our time and maybe I should advise that customers would rather wait for a few months and upgrade when at least X number of bugs have been fixed? This would save our time and would make more sense if customers are not appreciative of lightning fast updates.

[DanStutzman]

I'm sorry... that didn't sound nearly as snarky in my head as it did in print. No, no, no, I actually really appreciate the fact that IA is as quick as they are with their updates.

Basically what I'm asking is with 9.06, have the bugs that have been idenitified that have generated 6 minor revision updates, been resolved? Can I base my updated VM's on .06 or is .07 on its way?

Does IA release a revision roadmap anywhere with changes made and/or anticipated minor revision updates with anticipated changes? Most of the vendors I work with (HP, CheckPoint, etc) do this upon request.

[MichaelNesmith]

No worries, I was just wondering if our users would actually prefer less frequent updates - given that our full install is now a 1.1 gb download, I can see frequent updates easily getting to be a nuisance.

There are no planned minor revisions at this time. R&D is working on InstallAware 10 which will have trialware creation, InstallShield import, and a native setup engine as its major new features. Or at least, that's what's currently on the roadmap

[jeroenvanonzen]

Hi Michael,

where can I find the release notes?

[MichaelNesmith]

The updates have been described in posts in this forum...

[DanStutzman]

No worries, I was just wondering if our users would actually prefer less frequent updates - given that our full install is now a 1.1 gb download, I can see frequent updates easily getting to be a nuisance.

There are no planned minor revisions at this time. R&D is working on InstallAware 10 which will have trialware creation, InstallShield import, and a native setup engine as its major new features. Or at least, that's what's currently on the roadmap

Updates are good as long as they are effective. As for v10, does IA do any outside beta testing, if so I would like to volunteer. You have my email.

Dan

[MichaelNesmith]

Yes, we are planning a public beta.

[MikeOnline]

The updates have been described in posts in this forum...

It is extremely tiresome trying to find out extactly what is in each InstallAware update by searching the forum posts.

Please, please, please (please) add a sticky post that describes what is fixed in each point release, so InstallAware users can decide whether to download the 1.2 GB update or wait for the next update.

Thanks,
- Michael

[jsmith]

I've mentioned it in another thread but I'll add it to this one, too. I truly appreciate that IA has released updates quickly and often since the initial release of IA9. Frequent releases are great. However, I strongly disagree with the policy that customers could no longer install, e.g., IA 9.01 once IA 9.03 had been released. I had downloaded 9.01 and installed it on my workstation, the build server, and most of our developers had installed it, too. We hired a new developer, but by then 9.03 had been released and he could not install the 9.01 that I had downloaded. The saved 7zip packages failed to extract, and the installer couldn't find them online because they'd been removed from IA's servers. This put is in a predicament where we had to choose between upgrading all machines to the latest version and having different developers using different versions of IA. Neither of these options are desirable. We do want to upgrade to the latest releases, but we can't do it immediately. We need to test the release before rolling it out.

[Mohamed Koker]

Hi Guys,

While I certainly appreciate the speed improvements available in the above, I could not get it to work using any combination of NOHARDLINKS=FALSE or NOHARDLINKS=TRUE and had to downgrade to InstallAware 8.

The problem I regularly run into is a failure to perform an EditFile installation action if I try to do a command-line build or the IDE simply hangs at 0% while compressing the install.

One other issue I ran into which I would like to bring to your attention is the fact that you cannot do a command-line build if you install the IDE to a folder containing spaces on a computer where the use of short file names has been disabled.

Cheers

-Mohamed

[MichaelNesmith]

Your EditFile plug-in is out of date. This is a completely separate issue. There is already a newer version of EditFile on the Plug-Ins section of this forum.

InstallAware requires short file names to be enabled.

[Mohamed Koker]

Thanks Michael!

I downloaded and installed the new plugin and all is right with the world again.

I was wondering if you would consider adding a check in the IA installer to see whether short files are enabled and providing a warning if it is not since not having this warning can waste a lot of time and create the rather unfortunate impression that IA is flaky?

-Mohamed

[rickrat]

There are no planned minor revisions at this time. R&D is working on InstallAware 10 which will have trialware creation, InstallShield import, and a native setup engine as its major new features. Or at least, that's what's currently on the roadmap

Michael, this kinda irks me. I've paid for installaware 7 (with no maintenance). less than a week after my installaware account expires, then 8.0 comes out. Then 9.0 in less than 2 months. Now it's july, two months later, and another full version to 10.0.

I am a one person company, and don't sell enough of my software to justify a maintenence license too along with the $700+ for the studio version. Not to mention double that for maintenance.

For me, it's not about new features as much as it is the runtimes. .NET 3.5 SP1 is out, along with silverlight 3, etc, and I cannot download runtimes for these with v7, I need to get v9. Then once v10 comes out, v9 users will not be able to automatically get runtimes it seems like.

I don't know of any other software company that is pushing a major new version every 2-3 months. That's a little extreme.

You see, no one that tries Installaware will willingly go back to installshield. The way I see it is you have the market cornered, but your prices are a little too high.

My opinion is that Installaware Rocks, I used to use Wise, until they dropped the ball and stopped updates. I'm glad I found Installaware. But sometimes it is frustrating.

Sincerely,

Rick

[MichaelNesmith]

You're probably used to paying for each runtime with InstallShield - they have been purchased by private equity so they will do everything and anything to milk their customer base

This is not what InstallAware does. If we release frequent updates, its because we really are working hard to bring major additional value to you. We're not milking you.

Just visit the PR section of our website. You'll find LOTS of free application runtimes that were published for FREE without requiring a major version update.

If a major version update coincides with new application runtimes, that is a coincidence or a release planning convenience, and not an effort to milk our customer base.