Russell Campbell said:
Phrederick - I appreciate your help and you could be right. I might have
just missed it, but I will say that I hope you're not a software developer.
The problem with the software often times is this "you should be paying
attention, not watching TV and running to the fridge for a beer" attitude
that you have.
I agree that it's not the best way to do it. Often I have to restart an
install because I miss the prompt while doing too many things at once. I
guess M$ decided it made more sense to wait a few seconds and go on than to
wait indefinately for user input.
As a software developer, I take a different attitude. I
know how busy my users are and how they need me to make their job easier,
not harder. It's easy to miss a request that is put to the users like you
say it is. Even someone who has installed many versions of Windows on many
different machines like I have may not have seen this message and may not
have used a RAID controller before. So it would make sense for the Windows
install to ask for the drivers at the point that it decides it can't see any
drives.
Problem is, what if it DOES see drives, but just not the right ones? Or what
if the driver is for a memory controller or display controller that won't
run properly during install without the drivers.
It could say "if you have a controller that needs a special driver,
insert the media with the drivers and press F5" or something like this and
the installation process would be improved because of it.
It does do this... right near the beginning of the install. It just doesn't
wait very long for the F5.
Microsoft has, in
point of fact, attempted to make the installation more "hands off" so that
people can do other things and not sit there answering a bunch of
questions.
....and this is WHY it's done near the beginning of the install instead of in
the middle.
So for the sake of increased productivity, they have encouraged people to do
other things while an install is going on. So don't fault me or anyone else
if I am not sitting there looking for any little cryptic, short-lived
message that might pop up. If they do use such a message to get these
drivers, then I believe that it's a poor design choice and any good software
developer would agree with me.
Don't blame me... I'm just letting you know it's there, and it works.
Personally, I think the first thing the install should do is ask ALL the
pertinent questions - drivers? timezone? username? etc. - BEFORE the install
starts, then you can leave it run for 30 minutes without even being in the
room.
It could be worse... It could be a closed system like Macintosh (I do like
the new machines though), where you don't even really have an option for the
multitude of hardware choices that you get on a PC.
