Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow?

Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by brudgers on Saturday April 21, 2018 @09:16AM (#16891315)

On Windows, software installation/removal involves a deep analysis of machine configuration state. This takes time but accounts for the high probability of binary compatibility between the operating system and third party software of arbitrary functionality and variable engineering quality that might be a decade old.

The Windows software system has different tradeoffs than Linux where distributions are compatible with specific versions of software -- i.e. if the distro doesn't have a package there may not be binary compatibility. With Linux changes to the kernel can require cascading upgrades to packages or make packages obsolete or break packages.

Windows' tradeoffs are also different than those made by BSD and similar systems that eschew binary distribution --- systems where everything gets compiled from source on the user's machine. In terms of speed, compiling a large application from source can take significant time though it will probably require few if any reboots.

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Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by thwarted on Saturday April 21, 2018 @10:48AM (#16891606)

With Linux changes to the kernel can require cascading upgrades to packages or make packages obsolete or break packages.

This is the exact opposite of Linus's well known and ranted about position on kernel compatibility with user space.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/235335/why-is-there...

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Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by slavik81 on Saturday April 21, 2018 @03:57PM (#16893095)

His philosophy is "don't break user space" but the cascading changes are mostly related to kernel modules, which are not user space. Proprietary graphics and wifi drivers seem to be the cause of a lot of that.

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Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by wsh on Saturday April 21, 2018 @04:52PM (#16893376)

Microsoft’s term for part of this, by the way, is “Component-Based Servicing”:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askperf/2008/04/23/under...

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/joscon/2010/06/15/servic... https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/joscon/2010/07/06/servic...

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Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by kazinator on Saturday April 21, 2018 @02:14PM (#16892517)

What third-party software? This is about Microsoft software on Microsoft Windows.

A handful of Windows calls can be used to detect the version, if necessary.

What new Microsoft software will install on ancient windows anyway?

E.g. Office 2016 system requirements: https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4026853/office-offi...: Windows 7 or newer, or Server 2008 or newer.

Do we need deep analysis to sort out whether we're on 7, 8, or 10?

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Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by brudgers on Sunday April 22, 2018 @10:33AM (#16896321)

The OP's response to my comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16891398

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Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by blablabla123 on Saturday April 21, 2018 @07:04PM (#16893842)

Some years ago, when Vista was still a thing I had to package a .Net application. I think the tool was called Wix and creating an .msi package meant to declare each file separately in a giant XML file. A quite crazy task to do this manually, but I guess this speaks for the system and also that Microsoft learned from the past. (I remember using Windows 3.1 and I was aware of 3 significantly different version I could install for this Winsock.dll...)

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Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by nextos on Saturday April 21, 2018 @12:45PM (#16892128)

Different Linux distributions have different tradeoffs. For example, NixOS won't break your binaries.

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Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by zipotm on Saturday April 21, 2018 @09:45AM (#16891398)

Thank you, that's good answer!

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Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by my123 on Saturday April 21, 2018 @05:20PM (#16893502)

AppX is a neat way to fix the issues,

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Re:Ask HN: Why are Microsoft software installations so slow? by Precrime on Saturday April 21, 2018 @07:11PM (#16893869)

> On Windows, software installation/removal involves a deep analysis of machine configuration state ..

Windows installers are designed to fail if they detect software piracy. For instance a machine with MS Office installed, install Delphi, uninstall Delphi and Office refuses to run. Presumably because it thinks it's been copied from another machine.

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