Why? The 5.0 Update Manager is useless with IE7.

[pmcclosk]

Yesterday I found that IE7, at least RC1, renders the Update Manager version 5.0 useless. Sure we can upgrade to FlexNet Connect 6, but how will our users update with a broken interface? I've had a night to think about this, and I think that us having to spend time and money to update the Update Service with an outside download or a cd update is a ridiculous workaround. As it always seems to be the case, we get the short-end of the stick with the Update Service. Not only does it look like we put broken software on our user's machines, but now we have to chance getting updates through some other medium just so users can use the Update Service which is supposed to alleviate our application updating problems. This seems totally unacceptable and ridiculous for Macrovision not to handle themselves as it's their product, not ours, that is causing this issue. Shouldn't you update your own update service before everyone upgrades to IE7 instead of letting your customers face the blame and headaches? There has to be a better update solution out there if this is the way we can expect to be treated. Given the way the Update Service has upgraded itself on client machines in the past, not smoothly if at all, I'm really worried that an outside update will even fix the issue despite what the documentation says. I hate feeling like I'm going to get fired over a product that supposedly makes my life easier as an installation developer.

[dmcnamer]

i created a support incident with installshield for this issue, and they responded with the following hotfix released recently.

http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=Q112727

but i am not sure what the user will have to do to get this to work. i have not tried it yet. but i would hope this fix is forced upon the users, as they will not be able to see the update in the first place to allow for it to install.

has anyone seen this issue be fixed in the field? what, as developers, do we have to do? or do we have to tell our customers to get the hotfix for themselves from the installshield site and install it?

[KellyF]

Hi dmcnamer,

Well, I'm glad they finally published it publicly. Yes, this is an automated patch sent out to update the agents themselves, no action on the part of end-users should be necessary. Once the agent/update manager hits the site to check for updates, it'll receive this update and will grab it. The next check should then use the patch.

It shouldn't be necessary for a user to apply the patch, but anything is possible*, so the link to the patch was placed in the KB.

Regards,
Kelly

dmcnamer wrote:
i created a support incident with installshield for this issue, and they responded with the following hotfix released recently.

http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=Q112727

but i am not sure what the user will have to do to get this to work. i have not tried it yet. but i would hope this fix is forced upon the users, as they will not be able to see the update in the first place to allow for it to install.

has anyone seen this issue be fixed in the field? what, as developers, do we have to do? or do we have to tell our customers to get the hotfix for themselves from the installshield site and install it?

*

[pmcclosk]

It's a shame that I have an open support incident on this very issue, and yet I find out about this here. Kudos to you guys for doing this, but as a customer with an open support incident, I would have expected some communication on this by now.

[KellyF]

On behalf of my teammates (and MVSN as a whole), my apologies. I admit, I also anticipated a little more communication to everyone...

I would encourage you to send a note to your sales representative so he/she realizes we have to improve our communication with customers. If you weren't notified through some mechanism, then it signals to me that we have an opportunity for improvement.

Regards,
Kelly

pmcclosk wrote:
It's a shame that I have an open support incident on this very issue, and yet I find out about this here. Kudos to you guys for doing this, but as a customer with an open support incident, I would have expected some communication on this by now.

[dmcnamer]

i just got the program manager icon in my taskbar and it checked for updates. it did not install the hotfix mentioned in this article (i believe) as the same situation occurs. on top of that, when i look at the list of available updates, this fix does not appear. on top of all of that, there is a message asking for complete the survey for installshield... well, if they want me to fill it in now, i can, but it will not positive...

i hope that this issue is still being worked on. i still have my support case open and have created entries describing my scenario.

[KellyF]

Hi dmcnamer,

A couple items here:
1. It's being deployed as a silent update and will not show up within the UI that you would see.
2. Despite your indications that it wasn't, I do hope that it was installed for you. It will only become apparent the next time you do run the Software Manager. (I can check with others about which files would've been updated so you can peek; though it's the holiday season so I may not post until later in the week)
3. Regarding the survey, I would encourage you to submit your feedback, both the good and the bad. It's difficult to work around issues created by Microsoft's IE breakages (and I would consider their CSS bugs frustrating at best); we have based the client UI on it, so it's something we must deal with.

Regards,
Kelly

dmcnamer wrote:
i just got the program manager icon in my taskbar and it checked for updates. it did not install the hotfix mentioned in this article (i believe) as the same situation occurs. on top of that, when i look at the list of available updates, this fix does not appear. on top of all of that, there is a message asking for complete the survey for installshield... well, if they want me to fill it in now, i can, but it will not positive...

i hope that this issue is still being worked on. i still have my support case open and have created entries describing my scenario.

[Ben_Kirchhoff]

The fix doesn't stick. When another app is installed which includes the Update Service, it reverts back and you have to run the um_update again.

[Ben_Kirchhoff]

If you run another install, the Update Manager reverts back.

[KellyF]

So if another app installs over it, the silent update didn't then re-run for you?

I'll check with our QA folks to see if we can verify that. I was under the impression that it would re-run

Regards,
Kelly

Ben Kirchhoff wrote:
The fix doesn't stick. When another app is installed which includes the Update Service, it reverts back and you have to run the um_update again.

[Coconuts]

We published a hot fix that requires customers to manually execute, and all seems OK for those who complete the process.

We are pushing another scheduled product data update tonight, and now have several questions:

1. I assume that if we include the "fixed" UM in this build, it will install over what is there and all will remain OK. Besides the larger download size, does anyone see issues with the brute force approach ?

2. I have multiple commercial products on my PC that use UM. If I run an update from one of those that _does not_ include the "fixed" UM, can their product cause my product's UM to be disfunctional ?

Thanks

[Ben_Kirchhoff]

KellyF wrote:
So if another app installs over it, the silent update didn't then re-run for you?

I'll check with our QA folks to see if we can verify that. I was under the impression that it would re-run

Regards,
Kelly

The silent update doesn't appear to have run at all. The um_update has to be rerun after each install.

[KellyF]

Hi Ben,

You may have done this already, but if not, could you report this via the support teams? That will help it gain visibility and priority to accelerate this.

Regards,
Kelly

Ben Kirchhoff wrote:
The silent update doesn't appear to have run at all. The um_update has to be rerun after each install.