Installer problems

[Olaf_Trygve_Berglihn]

Every time I try to update Intel Fortran or C++, I end up with problems during install. This discourages me from upgrading. Even if I decide to uninstall all compilers first, starting afresh with the installers, the install procedure tells me I already have the product installed and it asks if I like to upgrade. Sure, this is probably a bug in my registry keys (which I have not touched) or the windows installer.  Trying to remedy this with wiindows troubleshooters do not work, and the troubleshooter instructs me to download a second troubleshooter which fails to diagnose the problem. A year ago, in order to uninstall the Intel products I had to download old versions first, install them, and then uninstall. This took significant download time and stole productive hours. Given all the problems with registry and windows installer, I have come to the conclusion that I would really like Intel to stop using installers for their compiler products.

Please, please, start shipping simple zip-files and give instructions on how to integrate with Visuals Studio and set environment variables. This would most probably make life significantly easier for a lot of users, and would enable moving installations on disk or to a new computer by simply copying the installation.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Sorry, "simple ZIP files" simply won't work. There's too much complex registry manipulation required by Windows and Visual Studio.

Your problems are unusual, though not unique. What I usually suggest is the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility to remove traces of the old version and then installing new.

[TimP]

I had success with "Special Uninstaller" on Win8.1 and with the old Microsoft msicuu2 on Win7.  It does seem that you can expect to get eventually into these problems with incompletely removed past versions of Intel tools if you install new ones without first removing older ones.  Once an old installation goes bad it seems the Intel installers (even attempting to restore that old version) can't deal with it.  I suppose that development testing of installers might be done primarily on clean Windows installations, and there are far too many permutations to catch all the problems with cleanup and updating.

Windows 10 has been particularly balky in permitting Intel tools to work in the presence of old versions, but better at showing what needed to be cleaned up..

[Olaf_Trygve_Berglihn]

@Steve Lionel: Thank you for your reply. Why can you not delegate the registry manipulation to a post-install procedure/program which users can run, and for the other parts rely on environment variables or local configuration files only? Shipping a zip-file with the bare minimum required registry manipulation procedure included could be an option (bat-file or other executable). The installers are a hassle, really. I would much appreciate if I don't have to deal with them.

[Olaf_Trygve_Berglihn]

On the issue of the problems being "unusual", based on my experience then these problems must be largely under communicated. Over the last decade of using these products, the number of colleagues having this or similar problems are telling me they occur on a frequency much too high to be labeled "unusual". And for my part, this is the first time I have taken the step to tell Intel. I'm of the impression that users or software administrators seldom take the time to report to the vendor. At least this is the case for the organizations that I'm familiar with.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

We certainly do hear from customers who are unable to install the software, but as a fraction of all our users it is low. I agree with you that installers are complex and things sometimes go wrong, but I don't see that a reversion to ZIP files is going to help things. In particular, it would cause problems for system managers of larger networks who rely on "silent installs" and other automated tools.

[Olaf_Trygve_Berglihn]

I do not agree to the point of the installer making it better for "silent installs" in general. Most administrative systems on Windows would be capable of running simple scripts for a zip-install and setup the required integration. In fact, this would give administrators greater flexibility in customizing the install for the organization. If the installers are still needed, why not supply both the installer and the zip-file?

For the software I supply to customers, I try to be as unintrusive to registry and the system as possible, usually avoiding this all together. Requiring registry modifications and system privileges for install is something our customers specifically dislike. With analogy to Intel compiler products, I would consider it a great improvement if it became possible to install the compiler suite locally for a user (unzipping an archive), setting only user local environment variables, with no system modifications whatsoever. Facilitating this is a matter of design choices.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

I'm sorry that you're not happy with the installation process. If you have a specific problem we're glad to try to help you with it.