Your SMF install timed out on me again.
Lucky for you I pasted my post into notepad before hitting the post button and losing it all. (You really must fix that).
So here is what I had written:
The files are digitally signed - so you if open the file's properties and let the digital signature be validated, you can be sure that the file is OK. (And if the digital signature tab doesn't appear at all, you can be sure that it's truncated).
Cool, thanks for the tip. I did not think to check that, (it never occurs to me to pay for a CA... that is all such a scam... as long as Thawte still exists it is evidence that model is horribly broken... anyway, not your problem - I see you use the overlord Verisign...* insert plug for Entrust *) So my download does check out by this method. I can assume it is intact. Interestingly when I unzip it with 7-zip it does show errors... the fact that I was able to unzip it one level with 7-zip is what led me to suspect you were wrapping a proprietary installer in an NSIS one... but since there are errors when unzipping it with 7-zip that tells me it it probably not an NSIS installer (have not read your further comments on this below yet....)
The log contains quite a lot of information - so if you posted it here, it should be possible to say what happened. But yes, it's not really meant for the users.
Unfortunately I expect an uninstall and re-install may not duplicate the result. Also, I am still about 45 megabytes into the unknown download that avast.setup is running. My suspicion is that if I allow it to complete over the next few hours that I may end up with the desired result (a functional avast install) - so I am hesitant to interrupt it, as repeating the process will be essentially another days work, and I am trying to get to my real development work... anyway, I did not copy the log, apologies.
It's just the original Microsoft redistributable - it does all the work itself. So yes, your build environments will still work.
Thank you for the information, that is reassuring. I expected so, but with all the weird behaviour I was not really sure.
This is an offline installer. But the program certainly checks for further virus database updates after installation, there were probably some released in between. The size of the download should be small, however.
Ah there's the rub. In both cases, on XP and now on Vista, your installer downloads at least 50 megabytes of data. There is no doubt about this. You guys need to take another look. Like I said, use QoS, packet sniffers, MRTG... something. I know it is fact. Your installer re-downloads itself as its last step. (or something of equal size) it is not a definitions update. I know roughly how large those should be. (I have been maintaining my own ClamAV windows builds for several years now). THis is where the problem is, as you are not aware of it, nor is your software, but I am and I am looking at the evidence right here... (see attached) I connected this morning a few hours ago and started your installer and have looked at nothing but these forums in SRWare Iron and have been monitoring connections via nestat at the commandline. There is definitely something wrong then, and you guys are not seeing it.
No, no physical delivery, sorry.
That's too bad. I'd seriously consider paying if there were. You guys might want to consider it as an option if the product swells any larger.
Much of the world is still on dial-up and will be for some time to come. There is no more copper and no one wants to lay the fiber. It is not financially viable like it was in the days of the telegraph.
No, no NSIS.
Interesting. (see above comments re: 7-zip)
The only wrapped installer is the Microsoft redistributable, which I don't think can be done any other way (license stuff etc.)
Aside from an externally linked pre-requisite... ....
um no wait... there is... I think.. MS's side-by-side redistributables... i think they were called? I've seen them and used them in my ClamAV builds... (not done for a while now though - so foggy in memory) They came around after the new compilers... we're still digging our way out of the vc6 world everywhere... the new vc8 and 9 libs can be used in this fashion as I recall, you just need to change your build link properties somewhat ... don't think I'm imagining all this. I could look it uyp for you but MS sites are big... and I still have the avast-double-download ongoing... up to 57Mbits now... must be getting close...
Edit: P.S. If you're not using NSIS, you may want to consider it. If your current install system does not support lzma compression and your installer is just about 60MB then I can think of no better reason. (though I expect Verisign has the final say in your installer format...
Ditch them. Use proven methods.)
P.P.S. Thank you very much for the prompt and near-complete reply.
