"Another installation is in progress."

It’s 2017, and Windows still can’t install more than one thing at a time? The Windows Community needs to stop coddling the Redmond Washington based company. Windows is the most archaic OS now. I hope you are all happy!

Conversation 9 comments

  • Polycrastinator

    19 October, 2017 - 8:50 am

    <p>Depends on the thing. Developers need to get with the program and submit Store apps which don't have this problem. I feel like it's the same argument you still occasionally see about software needing admin to run, which shouldn't happen either and is due to lazy developers.</p>

  • Tony Barrett

    19 October, 2017 - 10:11 am

    <p>Yep, for a multi-tasking OS, there are quite a few things Windows can only do one at a time. You are right though, no matter how MS polish it, under the hood, Windows is archaic and not fit for purpose. It's the complexity of the product that just makes it untenable these days. Patching is also a very high risk chore (when it shouldn't be), but Microsoft don't have the option of 'starting over', so they just keep patching, and hacking things to work while at the same time trying to layer on more and more features.</p>

    • jimchamplin

      Premium Member
      19 October, 2017 - 11:35 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#208670"><em>In reply to ghostrider:</em></a></blockquote><p>There's ways to fix it that wouldn't be that hard. The truth is though that until they're able to make a clean break from the past – no legacy components – then it has to be this way. Once non-UWP-compliant code is no longer needed, they can rearchitect the user-mode portion of Windows.</p><p><br></p><p>Until then, it's still NT running the traditional Win32 stack. It's why 10 S doesn't look any different from 10 Pro. If they could be shed of the legacy stack then they can really start cleaning house.</p><p><br></p><p>Now if people would get off their butts and write UWP software we could get there faster.</p>

      • offTheRecord

        20 October, 2017 - 6:15 am

        <blockquote><a href="#208877"><em>In reply to jimchamplin:</em></a></blockquote><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Maybe this has been addressed already elsewhere, but why do you suppose MSFT doesn't make a *true* clean break and develop a purpose-built OS from the ground up (what they'd really like Windows to be today and going forward, but *don't* call it Windows) while at the same time continuing with the current Windows (with all its baggage) — not unlike what Apple, and to some extent Google, have done? Trying to make "Windows" (or things that look like or are called Windows, but really aren't) be all things to all people has gotten them in a huge mess. </span></p>

        • Polycrastinator

          20 October, 2017 - 8:26 am

          <blockquote><a href="#208935"><em>In reply to offTheRecord:</em></a></blockquote><p>Because no one would buy it. People buy Windows for existing applications, often archaic business applications. How well did Windows RT do?</p>

          • offTheRecord

            20 October, 2017 - 8:59 am

            <blockquote><a href="#208957"><em>In reply to Polycrastinator:</em></a></blockquote><p>Regarding Windows RT, specifically, the first problem is, as I hinted at, they called it "Windows" RT, which brought a performance expectation that didn't exist (and was probably never supposed to exist) and that they marketed in such a way that it thoroughly confused (and angered) consumers. I wrote a comment in the Samsung DeX article giving my opinion about why RT failed. IMO, it was a marketing failure as much as anything else.</p><p><br></p><p>There is clearly a general market for things in the Windows RT vein (as Apple and Google are showing), it's just that Microsoft completely botched the implementation and marketing. It was poorly executed all around, and it's still having a negative impact to this day.</p>

        • jimchamplin

          Premium Member
          20 October, 2017 - 9:51 am

          <blockquote><a href="#208935"><em>In reply to offTheRecord:</em></a></blockquote><p>Well… See… Here's the thing. iOS isn't really a very far stone's throw from macOS. Both use an evolution of the OpenStep APIs for the user-facing application frameworks. Both use the very same combo of Mach+BSD userland underneath. Quartz is the graphics layer. Metal is the render engine. CoreStorage, CoreGraphics, CoreAnimation, et cetera, are all shared.</p><p><br></p><p>Similarly, Windows Phone 8.x and Windows 10 Mobile both ran more modern user stacks on top of NT, but supported the same Store/UWP API as desktop Windows 10 but without any ability to run legacy software.</p><p><br></p><p>Maybe they should do something built from that codebase and call it Tiles.</p>

  • rameshthanikodi

    19 October, 2017 - 11:57 am

    <p>And how do you fix this? with another way to install apps, right? Guess what. You can uninstall/install multiple apps from the store simultaneously, even win32 ones. They problem has already been solved, but developers need to get off their asses. MSI windows installers have always been archaic.</p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    19 October, 2017 - 5:11 pm

    <p>Just to pile on, it's dev laziness. Microsoft fixed this problem in 2012 with the Windows Store. Windows devs could have modernized then. Since last year, devs have been able submit legacy Win32 software to the store via the Desktop Bridge. But noooope. More junky .msi and .exe installers for us.</p><p><br></p><p>Just for once, I'd like the rest of the Windows world to catch the fsck up to where it needs to be. While Apple and El Goog follow the Gretzky rule, MS at least tries. But the great majority of Windows "power users" apparently skate not to where the puck is going, not where it is, but where it was in 1843…</p><p><br></p><p>… BC.</p><p><br></p><p>Come on y'all. You can do better.</p>

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