Gryphon Mountain Journals » Adobe

Problem and Solution: Adobe CS4 Installer Stops at "Preparing to Install"

Ben — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:48:10 +0000

I’ve spent a lot of time this week trying to install Adobe Creative Suite 4 on my work machine. I was the last of four of us on a group license to install it. And I was the lucky one who ran into problems with the installation.

Specifically, when I got past entering the serial number and telling the installer where to install the programs, I got to a page saying “Preparing to Install…” The Install button was disabled for about ten seconds, and then it was enabled. If I clicked it, the same thing happened. It was one of those “how to keep an idiot busy” situations.

I installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 and got some help disabling the anti-virus software on the computer (which I didn’t have rights to do). So if you encounter this problem, try these first (if you’re running Vista, try Service Pack 1).

After trying a lot of different things with one of my department’s technical support reps, we managed to install Fireworks only. After that, I could install Dreamweaver and Acrobat 9. But nothing else would go. I even tried searching on Adobe’s site for some information and found a forum thread that wasn’t completely resolved.

If you’ve heard anything about Adobe technical support’s reputation, you probably don’t blame me for waiting so long to call them. That, and their phone number is virtually impossible to find on Adobe.com. So after hunting for it for a while (I found it once before), I googled for it. And I came across a helpful site called contacthelp.com that listed the number and other information.

So I called and got someone whom I’d guess is from Asia. He didn’t sound real excited, but after he spent a few minutes looking for the solution after I’d explained the problem, he pointed me to KB article #403995. This article explains how to run the CS4 Clean Utility to wipe out any extraneous files that could be interfering with the installation. I discovered that I had Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit 2 and also the CS4 version from somewhere. I wiped them out using this utility. Lo and behold, CS4 installed successfully.

Chalk one up for Adobe support. According to the Adobe page on contacthelp.com, some people come away extremely dissatisfied (to put it mildly), and others have a good experience. Adobe support seems to be hit and miss, but their reputation is largely negative. I understand that it’s impossible for one person to know everything about every Adobe product, so perhaps it’s a training issue with getting the information. But that KB article should have come up in the results when I searched broadly for information about the CS4 installation. There’s probably some work behind the scenes to do there. But ever the helpful type, I went back to that forum thread and posted a link to the KB article. And this post here increases the chances that someone having this same problem will find a timely resolution.

Apparently, this was an issue with CS3 because there is a CS3 cleanup utility. So look for this solution for the next Creative Suite as well if you hit this problem.

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The Technical Communicator Getting Involved in User Forums

Ben — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:52:36 +0000

At the STC conference, I remember someone—possibly Scott Abel in a presentation—saying that technical communicators really ought to be out in the online support forums for the products that they document. I agree; in the forums you can see the problems that real users are having and what the answers are if anyone has provided them. Being the technical writer, you may know some of those answers yourself. But at the very least, you can find out how people are using the product and what frustrates them.

It seems that Adobe heard the call. Within the last couple of days, a self-identified “technical writer for RH working at Adobe” has begun participating in the RoboHelp forums on Adobe’s site.

The RoboHelp experts, Peter Grainge and Rick Stone, have warned forum users that Adobe management does not monitor the forums and use them as sources of feedback about the software. Peter has used his status as an expert to pass some of the more dire problems back to Adobe, and occasionally a RoboHelp product manager will post, but for the most part, until now there has been a disconnect between the forum users and the RoboHelp team.

I don’t know if there are technical writers now participating in other Adobe forums, but this is a good sign. I can’t say whether this technical writer is new, but the fact that she is now participating in the forums indicates that this may be the first attempt at giving the forums some attention.

I would say, however, that this RoboHelp writer has her work cut out for her. Months and months of forum posts and discussions await her perusal and incorporation into the documentation. Many, myself included, have been dissatisfied with RoboHelp’s help system (an irony pointed out by not a few forum users). I imagine I’m not the only RoboHelp user waiting to see what this technical writer will do with this HAT’s own help. I’m sure it can only be improved with the wealth of information she can glean from the forums.

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RoboHelp and Flare: Room at the Table

Ben — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:55:10 +0000

A couple of years ago, I was using RoboHelp X5, a help authoring tool (HAT) that was several years old. In the software industry, letting your product go that long out of date is bad for business. RoboHelp still had a lot of users for a couple of reasons: Many had used RoboHelp and its predecessors for years, and there weren’t very many alternatives.

Macromedia had shelved RoboHelp and disbanded the product management team and RoboHelp developers in 2005. Mike Hamilton, the product manager, left about that same time. On the Internet, Hamilton criticized Macromedia, and by extension Adobe Systems, who had purchased Macromedia. He announced his joining a new company, MadCap Software, and that they would be releasing Flare, their flagship product and new HAT.

About the same time, Adobe announced plans to pick RoboHelp back up. I watched the back and forth on the Internet and, since I was already using RoboHelp, I wanted to see what Adobe would do with it. I tried out Flare, but it didn’t offer enough of an improvement that I wouldn’t be able to wait and see what Adobe came up with. (That was Flare version 1, so I’m sure MadCap has added many more features.) Adobe released RoboHelp 6, which was more of an update than a full release, and subsequently RoboHelp 7, which was a big step forward.

Marketing by Mudslinging

The thing that has bothered me the most about what has happened with RoboHelp and Flare is MadCap’s marketing approach, which caused “Flare” and “MadCap” to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Granted, Macromedia’s treatment of the original RoboHelp team was probably less than professional. However, Hamilton seemed to make it his quest to blow RoboHelp to smithereens. It wasn’t business—it was personal. If he could carry that little ring to Mount Doom and throw it in the fire, it would be worth everything that happened in between.

At least, that’s how he came across in some of the material I read.

Flare… I Am Your Father

The funny thing is that Flare owes a lot to RoboHelp. Hamilton was involved with RoboHelp for years, and if it weren’t for his team’s work on that software, there would most likely be no Flare and no MadCap Software. As much as Hamilton seems to hate RoboHelp, it’s Flare’s direct ancestor. Flare is the carrier of RoboHelp genetics.

Years later, it would seem time to let bygones be bygones, but Flare toots its horn by boasting about being the replacement for your “legacy” HAT. I’d like to see MadCap promote Flare as standing on its own merit rather than trying to stand on other software’s shoulders and thereby push them into the ground. That seems to be a politician’s approach rather than that of someone who is confident in his product’s capabilities.

I haven’t seen Adobe try to sell RoboHelp by knocking down Flare. They may understand that they don’t need to; RoboHelp stands on its own.

There’s room in a capitalistic market for both RoboHelp and Flare. The competition will drive their respective development teams to improve the functionality set of the products. RoboHelp does what one person needs, and Flare does what another needs. You can have bears riding bicycles and freaky clowns in the same circus.

I use RoboHelp, but that doesn’t mean that you need to. I’m not trying to sell it to anyone. If Flare works for you, use it. If RoboHelp works, use it. There’s room for both HATs at the dinner table—along with plenty of room for good manners.

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