tea & toast

Before i start having a stab at Adobe, let me start by saying i love Illustrator, Photoshop and Flash, frankly i would be lost without them. I know i am not alone in this feeling!

Today is yet another day, where my work flow was interrupted by Adobe, and their frustrating updater. But today, was even more special than any other day. Generally Adobe Updater, sits in the background, downloading ridiculous amounts of bandwidth to do various updates on the software, which i, as an end user, couldn't say i've ever noticed a difference. Not like these hundreds of megabytes i've downloaded have given me any new pretty brushes or anything - nope they have just been securing and stabilising software, which seemed fine to me.

I have no problem with this, the more security the better. So i let little Adobe Updater go crazy, i put up with the annoying "i'm sorry, but Adobe Updater can't install because... *shock* you are actually using a piece of the Adobe software", *sigh* - save all my work again, stop what i'm doing so i can avoid getting bugged by it again... of course then it complains that you have Firefox and Internet Explorer... now it's really starting to get annoying. So finally, you've close almost every single program down... and are somewhat expecting Adobe Updater to tell you to close MSN Messenger, Notepad, Antivirus, and for the sake of it explorer.exe - but not this time, it's going to be kind enough to let you have *a* program running while it's takes 5-10mins installing.

You think that's annoying, then it restarts your computer - "oh well" you say.... "i saved everything, and might as well have restarted my computer". Then finally the fortnightly/monthly frustration is over.

That's if Adobe are being nice.

Today, i get the annoying usual rigmarole - however this time Adobe Updater didn't feel as social, and instead of telling me to close my programs and so forth, instead it goes right ahead - "At last it's fixed!” i think - i return to my work only to have Windows Vista give me a lovely little message;

"Your computer will restart in less than a minute."

Oh... wait, what?! Cancel? CANCEL?! THERE'S NO CANCEL! My windows start dropping off like flies in a mist of moreteen; anything somewhat important, gone...

* swearing *

And just to put the cherry on the icing, once my computer has restarted, Adobe Updater announces;

"Adobe Updater has finished installing the updates."

Thanks Adobe... Thanks.

So my question to anyone else - Do you also endure the frustration that is Adobe Updater?

And the most important question of all - we pay out a few thousand dollars to get the Adobe Suite, unlike people who download it for nothing - what are the advantages? Adobe Updater? You've got to be kidding me - seriously... they can't afford to give an intern some money to make a user interface that isn't reminiscent of Windows 95? Or just warn us that we *should* close IE and FF, but install anyway - even a "Would you like to restart now, or later?" dialogue would be nice.

Come on Adobe, give the people legally using your software a little something - it seems those who have illegitimate versions have the bonus of avoiding the pain of the updater... and if i turn it off... then what was the point in paying those thousands?

I'm interested to hear other people's experience and thoughts on Adobe Updater, also, other than supporting Adobe, paying out all this money, do you feel it is justified?

Alex
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Posted by Alex Brindal @ 10:10 AM CST |  Comments 5