How can it be that most software for Windows treats each single update as if you are installing the software for the first time? [closed]

Question

Notepad++ just nagged me about a new version for the millionth time. Finally giving in, this time I clicked "OK" with a sigh instead of "Cancel". And so it started downloading the latest version, but once it had done so, it didn't just, you know, update Notepad++, which I obviously already have installed, to the latest version.

Instead, it opened the installer which acted as if I had just installed my computer and downloaded the initial Notepad++ installation file. I had to click "Next" many times and make all the same choices I've already done on this computer.

Every. Single. Time.

Why is it that software developers don't seem to understand/care about their users' experience to this extent? How hard can it be to build in a feature into the installer where if you open it with a "/silent-upgrade" flag or something along those lines, it ignores the whole GUI setup process and just installs the new files?

I don't understand it. Even if they "are lazy", they must be using and testing the software themselves, and since they keep making so many updates to the program, why can't they do this small, obvious fix? Why won't they?

Before you answer that they want yet another opportunity to trick you into installing a bunch of malware and/or enable "telemetry", Notepad++ (and some other FOSS I use) don't have any such things in their installers, so it cannot even be explained by this. It's just a pointless waste of time where I have to wait for the GUI to appear and click "next" a bunch of times, for no apparent reason.

Some software actually has such flags, for example pgAdmin 4, which nags you to upgrade until you click the link inside the program, which then opens up their webpage where you have to manually download the entire new installer and then manually run it. However, it has undocumented flags which you can use which do exactly what I described above; just install the new version and skip the pointless installer.

pgAdmin 4 also has no "fishy" stuff in its installer, so again it cannot be explained by that.

Why do they actively go out of their way to hide these things and (in practice) force the user to click through a GUI installer every time the software updates? No matter how "lazy" you think I am, it has made me extremely reluctant toward updating my software because it's such a mental chore. You'd think they would want users to have the latest stable version rather than postponing updates perpetually.

Answer 1

Because they have no idea what version you or your neighbour might be updating from and thus what dependencies might have changed.

If they were to take account of original version installed then they would have several thousand installers or a lot of "check version and install newer" logic in the installer.

The logic of the "check everything" stage is far beyond the amount of hassle as just installing everything regardless. When you have to conditionally check everything then you might as well just assume it is all wrong and install as if it were.

As a result it is just easier and a far simpler update mechanism with less room for errors.

Answer 2

The chief problem that you're overlooking is that the installer runs at elevated permissions. It has to be a separate program for that reason alone. And the OS itself will warn you that this elevation happens, which makes it hard to be silent.

The "incremental update" installer is usually not such a big saving. It's quite common for an update to replace the main executable, add a new string in every translation file, etcetera. Plus, you have an issue if someone skipped an incremental update.

Now you can avoid the repeated elevation, but that requires keeping an elevated process around. That has a downside; ignorami keep complaining about "malware" and "telemetry".

Background: I created Windows installers for software used by about 40 million people, and was responsible for 20+ updates. The real problem was DDOS'ing our own servers, repeatedly. You'd be surprised how many people leave their PC on overnight.

Answer 3

I think this may be what you may be looking for. There is a software packaging solution called Chocolatey which allows you to install and upgrade with a single line. They already have Notepad++ that allows:

Installing Notepad++

choco install notepadplusplus

Upgrading Notepad++

choco upgrade notepadplusplus

In fact, it also have a search tool like

Searching for vlc player

choco search vlc

Chocolatey had a pretty extensive library of most common windows applications. I understand your pain. I have used Chocolatey to install/upgrade most common windows software that I use.

P.S. Another cool feature is also to have multiple software installation together, like

choco install 7zip vlc notepadplusplus

Hope this helps. Thank you.