If you find that the escape key is no longer responding (or only intermittently) in AutoCAD, check whether you have an instance of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements open, as this program seems to commandeer the escape key even when it is not the window in focus.
I mainly use Mac OS X at home, but keep a PC running XP for a couple of apps. One of these Windows apps, DVD Profiler, today highlighted the gaping difference in developers’ thinking between Windows and Mac applications.
In today’s constantly connected world, we have become accustomed to updating programs on a fairly regular basis. Both minor and major updates are available on-line without resorting to retail boxed discs.
Applications can even check for updates when you launch them and many Mac OS X applications on launch, having determined that an update is available, will offer a dialogue box saying “A newer version is available” and offer to “download, install and relaunch” or “skip” – all very efficient and streamlined.
Today, however, I fired up DVD Profiler on the PC. Before adding a new DVD to the collection, the program will download the latest database, which it did but then complained “This database cannot be read as it is for a later version of DVD Profiler”. So why then did it waste time downloading 18MB of data if it wasn’t going to work? Surely it makes sense to check compatibility first. It did however ask whether I wanted to download the latest version; I said yes, but instead of DVD Profiler updating itself, it fired up my browser and dropped me on their download page to download and manually run the installer myself, which rather than a one-click update was the usual long-winded multiple dialog windows application installation process asking all the same questions the initial installer asked. Surely an update should pick up on the existing installation and work with that. I’m surprised it didn’t make me uninstall the previous version, something demanded of several Windows application upgrades.
The new version, as it happens, runs like a dog, so I may well be switching to Delicious Library on the Mac.
We’ve had an odd one today: Before installing a copy of Photoshop Elements 6 on a Vista machine, we thought it best to uninstall an older version 2 that was on the system in case anything got fouled up by the new version (or rather the old version fouled up the new install).
That was easier said than done. There is no uninstall option under Program files, so Control Panel was used, but it threw back the error that the “‘Uninst.isu’ file is not valid”. Reinstalling version 2 in an attempt to fix any corruption was also not successful, but we then noticed that the uninst.isu filedate had not changed.
After trashing the file, we again reinstalled v2 and uninstall then worked OK.
I’ve just run a manual Windows update on three Windows boxes today that are normally run by non-admin users. This is still necessary since, although they are all set to ‘auto-update’, the updates get downloaded but the actual updates do not take place unless an admin logs into the machine. I wonder how many PCs around the world are delayed in installing critical security updates because of this? However, that is an aside as it is not the reason for this post.
On all three machines, as well as the critical update, I also installed updates for .net 1.1, .net 2.0 and the latest Windows Media Player. After installing and rebooting, I always make a habit of logging in again as admin and forcing a recheck for any other updates: on all three machines it was then identified that critical security patches were required for all three of these new items installed.
This means that the initial downloads made available by Microsoft were not patched, despite the fact that Microsoft knows they need it because it has the patches ready for them.
Since the initial install involves the mandatory Microsoft ‘your mouse has moved, please restart to update changes’ reboot, it is quite likely that anyone installing it will then leave the machine to a non-admin user to continue using, blissfully unaware that the new software has a critical flaw.
Surely it makes perfect sense to have the initial download fully patched.
One of the very reasons I don’t want Windows Vista is the threat that Microsoft will screw up the WGA validation system, and surprise, surprise, guess what happened this weekend?
Interestingly, Microsoft’s WGA Blog says:
This validation failure did not result in the 30-day grace period starting and no one went into reduced functionality mode as a result.
but in the very next sentence then says:
The experience of a system that failed validation in this instance was that some features intended for use only on genuine systems were temporarily unavailable.
Err, sorry Microsoft, but temporary unavailability of features is very definitely reduced functionality.
Don’t know which version of Microsoft Windows Vista to choose? Take a look at JoyOfTech’s recommendation.