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The Trouble With Software Upgrades
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "When software makers urge upgrades, it isn't always in users' best interest, the Wall Street Journal reports. Many upgrades bring advertising or other unwanted features; some iTunes users felt this way about a recent upgrade. But for many programs, downgrading can be a headache--Yahoo generally doesn't link to old versions of software, and Apple says iTunes can't be downgraded. Some websites can help with the problem. OldVersion.com, for instance, offers more than 600 versions of about 65 different programs. The site's 16-year-old administrator says, 'Companies make a lot of new versions. They're not always better for the consumer.'"
I 100% agree. But yet recently I was forced to upgrade our accounting system through two versions in a weekend. Why? Well a new manager came along and said "We're using an unsupported version? We must upgrade now!".
We, like you, did not rush to upgrade because we didn't feel the need. Our users were happy and used to the system. We'd worked out some bugs over the years and everything was pretty stable, very routine. But our support contract (which we never used) stated that once a new version came out support for the old was very limited and eventually was per incedent, $mega/hour support only.
While I understand the nature of a support contract as insurance it is a bit frustrating that my company pays a huge annual amount for this, we hardly (actually never while I was here) use it and if we want to keep it we have to run our business on their schedule, not ours.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Unfortunately most non-technical users have "Upgradeitis", which means that all it takes to get them to upgrade a piece of software is to tell them in straight forward language "An upgrade to XYZ software is available" and make the upgrade process painless. The average user (in most cases I think) doesn't stop and ask themselves, do I really need this? Is the software I have now doing what I want it to do? What's in this upgrade that I really want/need? How will this upgrade affect my data and/or other applications?
Seems to me that they've become almost programmed to think of anything new as necessarily "better" and thus desirable without ever thinking of the old addage "If it ain't broke don't fix it", couple this with the propensity of many users to load up on drive by download software that they'll probably only ever use once and you end up with a pay per incident support providers wet dream.
There's a part of the movie when Elliot Carver is having a teleconference with his underlings, and one of the questions he asks is:
Elliot Carver: "How about our new software?"
Underling: "We are releasing on schedule. As requested, it is full of bugs, and users will be forced to keep upgrading for years."
I wonder how valid that statement actually is.
If software wants to do something you don't want it to do, block it with your firewall.
What if the new version won't run until it phones home? Half-Life 2 retail anyone?
I have never updated Swat4 to 1.1 due to their patch adding in game advertising.
http://www.massiveincorporated.com/
"SWAT4 fans have been on the offensive, following news that the new 1.1 patch contains a feature adding advertising to the game and collecting players' data, including IP address and how long they play for. The new patch implements Massive streaming ad support, which changes some of the in-game textures to adverts for real products. It also gathers information about players, detailed in their privacy policy."
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
And I'll say this:
Piracy is not always a bad thing. I used to pirate 3d software back in high school before I could afford it (or justify to my parents that I needed it) Now, some years later, I happily own Maya and Modo. If I had never pirated other 3d apps in the past, I probably never would have gotten into 3d and eventually shelled out the money to Alias and Luxology (and various book publishers, training DVD resources, texture collection CDs, etc) Does it make the fact that I originally did pirate software? No, but like I said, it worked out in the long run. (Keep in mind, this was before there were readily available personal learning editions, and when 3D was even more expensive than it is now)
The advantage of XP over 98, IMHO, is the stability. My XP machine almost never has any stability problems. In contrast, 98 had a lot of them. That alone is worth the upgrade for me.
I know, I know... try a BSD or Linux for stability. If the apps were equally available (games, especially) I'd be with you.
Why do you accept that? That'd be my question!
If I got a car that failed to start 5 mornings of the year, I'd be pretty pissed off. If I got a TV that wasn't compatible with channel three or seven, I'd be rather annoyed. If my car's doors unlocked randomly on the third Tuesday of the month, I'd be frustrated. If I got a VCR that couldn't timer record at 58 minutes after the hour, I'd be pretty pissed off too!
So why do we let our computer programs have these problems? Why do programs need to be killed or the computer restarted at random (freezing during startup isn't as common since win2k). Why do we accept a computer program that doesn't seem to handle the formats established at the time with ease (think Windows XP destroying exif information on jpgs)? Why do we accept holes in our software that lets crooks in along with their bots, spyware, and adware? Why Why why?!?
I've always been a fan of a certain car maker (and still am), but when I got a 2004 sport sedan and a few weeks later had my dash light up brighter than a christmas tree, the dealer tells me that their software/flash upgrade to the car should fix the issue. Sure enough, it did, and by the forums, it wasn't an uncommon problem with early production of the model. But this is stemming into other areas. An audio system I got in 2000 couldn't read any CD-Rs- obviously it didn't spend enough time in testing, as this should have come up. My car had bugs! The EPROM on my new furnace needed to be replaced. This is getting silly!
Sure bugs are bound to get through, but it is the programmer's responsibility to properly test their program. I'd rather Windows 2000 be released today and have it stable as anything and a solid performer. This isn't how things work. Microsoft spends more time making Spider Solitaire for Vista then they do testing the OS itself.
Updates aren't always better. Sometimes they add functionality, like additional CD Recorder capability, updated roster information for a sports game, security fixes, etc. Other times they add bloat and problems.
Anyone remember ICQ 99b and the 98's? Memory footprint of about 1MB, fast as anything, fixed the data corruption issues of previous versions. Good upgrade. Then recall late 99 versions and 2000+, where the memory footprint was about 80MB, the thing took a good minute to start up. It was buggy, and an ad-city. Then they wonder why it died a horrible death to the favour of MSN? Pack hundreds of features in there and make it slow as anything and nobody will go back. Wait... That's a good description of Windows.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!