(NOT a DEAL) Crazy Updates

[CSistine]

The last years I get more and more updates that are none!

Apple Silicon support, wow how important for Windows users! Other bells and whistles? I am not interested in.

And new internet gimmick! How I like if I click on the wrong position of a plugin that my browser is being started, just to see a fu..ing home page, help page or check the current version! In what an absurd and pointless world, time do we live???

My DAW would suppress any internet access of plugins! I want to make music and mix songs! I don't want a Facebook or whatever social network in my DAW!

[kitekrazy]

Then some of those updates are only for a new released controller/

[chris.r]

All valid points. What I find even more disturbing is when the updates introduce bugs, like for example at some point the AAS installer has changed path for their plugins by moving into a different folder but without clearing out the previous location and you've been left with two sets of the same plugins all inside the global plugin folder.

The most recent example is from yesterday, I was updating some AudioThing plugins and at some point I've noticed that the overall count of plugins in my global folder has increased. It turned out there were previous plugins with '_x64' suffix already installed and the new versions were all the same names but without suffix. I mean, man you can't do this. There should be process of cleaning during installation or at least some exclamation, but I don't recon anything.

[kitekrazy]

The beauty of Hornet is there is no installer.

Unfortunately every DAW is turning into Garage Band

Edited November 22, 2023 by kitekrazy

[CSistine]

3 hours ago, chris.r said:

All valid points. What I find even more disturbing is when the updates introduce bugs, like for example at some point the AAS installer has changed path for their plugins by moving into a different folder but without clearing out the previous location and you've been left with two sets of the same plugins all inside the global plugin folder.

The most recent example is from yesterday, I was updating some AudioThing plugins and at some point I've noticed that the overall count of plugins in my global folder has increased. It turned out there were previous plugins with '_x64' suffix already installed and the new versions were all the same names but without suffix. I mean, man you can't do this. There should be process of cleaning during installation or at least some exclamation, but I don't recon anything.

This is exactly the reason why I prefer zip files for plugin installation! And because this is a lot handier, I create my own zip files out of the installer exes, if this is possible. Like that I safe a lot of time afterwards when I install the plugins on another computer or on re-installs. Also for removal I really know what is where. Additionally, I skip for me useless installation garbage (like AAX, menu entries, icons, ...).

[chris.r]

Zips are great, except for people who are either lazy, compute tech resistant or can't tell the difference between vst2 and vst3 and could possibly extract to the wrong folder anyway. I'm fine with it but now more and more 'simple' plugins do install banks of presets somewhere else on the disk along with the plugin, then I'm finding installation process more handy because manual instructions are then often someway unclear for me. It still takes some labour to keep an eye on what the installer is doing to my system. One corner case I remember was when it put the plugin where the resources should go (ProgramData) and the resource files into plugin folder 😂 but these particular guys probably didn't have access to a PC at all and did just some guess work. I'm using sandboxie to isolate cases like that.

[CSistine]

47 minutes ago, chris.r said:

but now more and more 'simple' plugins do install banks of presets somewhere else on the disk along with the plugin

Yes I know! But it's interesting that there are quite a couple of developers that implemented the possiblity to define the location of the configs, the manual and for other stuff in the registry, nonetheless this configuration is not available in the installer, strange! But manually (zip files) I can use it.

Frankly if the installers would give more configuration possiblities I would also use them (e.g. if you want menu items, if you want a Windows uninstaller, the VST3 subfolder definition, the document location, preset location, ...) and it could have a default value for those who don't want to define it. Also, most installers don't tell you where they install stuff, except some exemplary developers. 

[chris.r]

2 hours ago, Sistine said:

Also, most installers don't tell you where they install stuff, except some exemplary developers. 

For that, to quickly find out, I use sandboxie as well.

[ashley_k]

Give me any single installer any day, over a product portals, etc.

I ran iZotopes Product Portal yesterday and it insisted that it updates to latest version, unfortunately latest version doesn't run on my mac OS!

Contacted support, reply:

"I am sorry for the inconvenience. Here is a link to download and install the previous version of Product Portal that is compatible with your operating system: 
Please let us know if you are able to use the application correctly. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to prevent the program from prompting the update to the unsupported version. "

So I can download and reinstall a version that is compatible with my OS, and before I can do anything, it seems that it's going to update itself to an unsupported version, again, brilliant!

Madness.