There is an ongoing stream of complaints concerning Program Updates. This unwelcome “feature” is installed without the user’s knowledge and permission, and apparently there is no way to remove it. This comes pretty close to the definition of spyware… Users complain about irate customers and even lost business upon discovery of Program Updates on customers’ computers.
InstallShiled have been pretty much ignoring the posts here as well as direct emails asking for a one-time utility to remove Program Updates from infected computers. There are sporadic vague references to a “feature request” but no timeline for the availability of a fix.
What do others think about how is InstallShield handling this situation? Should we start considering competitive products?
I don't find this Update Manager to be "spyware" but a very useful tool and a great feature. Imagine every company that shipped the gdiplus.dll with security flaw would have used Update Manager - then they could easily notify thier customers and send them a fix. Sometimes I dream I wouldn't have to visit the web sites of Apple, Macromedia, Real, Adobe, etc. to make sure I'm using the latest version of their players and viewer, that include the latest security fixes.
For end users who feel the need to get rid of Update Manager (and not just switch it to manual mode) I think there's knowledge base article HOWTO: Uninstall Update Manager
Thank you very much fro your replay and reference to the uninstall utility – it did the job. I am still puzzled by the fact that InstallShield hasn’t bothered to reply to posts here and to emails sent to them on that topic.
There is no disagreement that Update Manger could be we good tool, if implemented correctly, i.e. as an uninstallable user option. Users of this forum reported complaints from their customers about this option appearing on their computers and not trusting it. In my case it appeared after installing a mere demo version of InstallShield that I wanted to test….
So it turns out to be more of a communication problem (explain users what it is for) than a technical issue. I agree that installing Update Manager with a trial version may not be of much use. On the other hand, it's one of the features of the software you are evaluating. Making it easier to uninstall Update Manager is a risk as it can be shared between multiple applications from multiple vendors.
The files are in %ProgramFiles%\Common Files in the InstallShield folder and the registry keys are the keys required to register the COM components for the agent. You can determine them by looking at the tables in the ISUS.msm merge module if you desire.
I'm currently working on a version of the merge module that will solve most of these installation and removal problems. If you note my post from a few days back you'll note there are serious problems with the installation using administrative installs. I hope to have this finished in a couple of days.
I hope to get InstallShield to accept my changes and replace their module with my module (it is actually much more robust and it is obvious InstallShield did not spend much effort in its development). I'm going to be willing to give it to them at no cost if they agree to support and use it.
I've had to do this because I've not had success getting them to fix what I consider fairly fundamental problems.
I attempted to not include the Macrovision merge module (components) Manager in my basic msi builds. It would not go away.
In 'Direct Editor' I located the Table 'IsMergeModule', and deleted the related Row. Builds then occurred without a problem.
This is no doubt a bug. I had turned of the update service altogether 'No', and also 'No' for the 'Manager' and the components kept being part of all project builds.
Have you submitted this either via the website or through support as a bug?
Regards, Kelly
bryantlk wrote: I attempted to not include the Macrovision merge module (components) Manager in my basic msi builds. It would not go away.
In 'Direct Editor' I located the Table 'IsMergeModule', and deleted the related Row. Builds then occurred without a problem.
This is no doubt a bug. I had turned of the update service altogether 'No', and also 'No' for the 'Manager' and the components kept being part of all project builds.
