A lesson in installer testing at the expense of Adobe Premiere Elements 7

09 March 2009

My wife is putting together a video for her brother's wedding, so I purchased Adobe Premiere Elements 7, at the recommendation of Blake Caraway.  After some frustration that the serial number I was granted did not work, I tried to get it to work on my laptop just to be sure I wasn't screwing it up somehow.

I tried to install it on my laptop, and the installer bombed saying that D:\ is an invalid path.  I'm not sure why it cares, and it just so happens that I don't keep a CD drive in my laptop.  I opt instead for an extra battery.  This leaves my computer without a D:\ drive.  Apparantly, Adobe's installer was NEVER tested with a basic computer that only has a c:\ drive.  And somehow the installer logic fails when looking for the D:\ drive.

The experience just trying to BUY the software is very frustrating.  I can't even get the point of USING it.  Tomorrow I'll have to spend time on the phone with "Keith" from their India call center just to get them to give me a serial number that will actually work.  I'm sure the software is actually fantastic.  It's a bummer that is takes so much effort just to discover that.

Software testing is SOOO important.  The testing environment should closely match the target environment.  In fact, it should be even more restrictive. 

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Comments

Matt said on 3.10.2009 at 5:13 AM

Have you tried using a utility that mounts ISOs or something similar to create a virtual D: drive?

Joshka said on 3.10.2009 at 6:33 AM

Or perhaps just subst d: c:\temp

Anon said on 3.10.2009 at 6:48 AM

what Keith being double "?

mknopf said on 3.10.2009 at 8:05 AM

I hear you there, I had much the same experience with version 6, your correct that the software is in fact awesome and I will (eventually) upgrade to the latest version however the download and install process is in serious need of revision.

My Product Key was also troublesome and took many tries to get it to finally take. I think that once you are over this painful experience you'll be happy with the software.

Christopher Painter said on 3.12.2009 at 12:32 AM

I couldn't agree more that installs should be bullet proof. I've spent the last 12 years of my career focusing in just this area.

My question is in all of this talk of Agile, TDD, ALT.NET and so on... how much does the .NET development community do to actually walk the walk when it comes to setup? Do you know/teach MSI, InstallShield, WiX and DTF? Do you know that VDPROJ, InstallerClass custom actions. SelfReg and Script custom actions suck? Do you plan for deployment from the beginning or does it still get done at the end?

Testing is important, but it's not the source of the problem that is so often the case in our industry.