Life of a Sysadmin

The occassional trials and tribulations of a jack of all tr ades sysadmin in a startup in Silicon Valley

archives

October 2008 (2)
September 2008 (3)
June 2008 (1)
April 2008 (1)
March 2008 (6)
December 2007 (6)
October 2007 (1)
September 2007 (1)
August 2007 (2)
July 2007 (1)
June 2007 (5)
May 2007 (5)
April 2007 (3)
March 2007 (7)
February 2007 (2)
January 2007 (3)
December 2006 (4)
November 2006 (3)
October 2006 (3)
August 2006 (3)
July 2006 (1)
June 2006 (2)
May 2006 (4)
April 2006 (2)
March 2006 (5)
February 2006 (5)
January 2006 (7)
December 2005 (2)
November 2005 (6)
October 2005 (4)
September 2005 (4)
August 2005 (1)
July 2005 (2)
June 2005 (3)
May 2005 (4)
April 2005 (1)
March 2005 (2)

October 2005

Updating Acrobat Reader, or Another Reason to Hate Acrobat Reader

While updating a machine from Acrobat Reader 7.0 to 7.0.5 I encountered a another annoyance I have with the program.

There is no reason an application should require a system reboot for a software update.

So a friend who programs under Windows on occasion pointed out that the recommended way for programs to handle replacing in use files under Windows is set it up to be done at next reboot. So there is apparently a reason for an application to require a reboot to install. I point out however that it would have been preferred to inform the user what programs are currently using inuse files and asking the user to close them so the install can continue without a reboot. I note that plugins for web browsers do this. Updates for CorelDraw work this way.

So I change my objection only slightly: There are few reasons an application should require a system reboot to perform a software update. If it needs to update in use files, it should make every effort to do so without requiring a reboot.