Software installation the right way

Zman gives some good tips for polite software installation. I sympathize with his gripes because I'm just as territorial toward my computer. And I would add to his list, "Don't add yourself to Startup without my permission."

But they all do it. It's become part of my install routine: complete Setup and then run Msconfig to remove from Startup. (The UltraAnnoying award goes to the programs that add themselves back in on restart - I uninstall them.)

And just to give this post a little bit more relevance to my primary topics, Zman caught my attention with this:

"I will give you a couple of points back since this was in the installation docs but who read them?"

We do try to document everything the customer needs to know. But we also have to face the fact that some (many, most, all?) users try first, and read when all else fails. Which is why user interface (UI) text can be so critical, and why those of us on the content side push the product team to keep us involved in the product UI.