Boring but important - selling a download product for Windows

[Richmond Mathewson]

How about downloading a zip file from a DropBox account?

Richmond.

On 1/22/17 2:59 pm, Graham Samuel via use-livecode wrote:
> Just to report on how this method worked for me: I chose to have a web page from which the zipped file is downloaded. This worked fine, but not without warnings. The browser of choice, Chrome, offered to discard the file, but this was easy to ignore; then either when the zipped file was an installer or when it was just the original standalone, Norton intervened to prevent it running, but at least gave an option to “Run this program anyway”. So I do need to put a number of warnings on my web site, but at least it is less painful than before.
>
> In another mail in this thread, answering Richmond, I speculate that the zip file could be delivered via an email attachment. I tried this, and although it seemed to get rid of Chrome’s objection (I was using webmail via Chrome), Norton made the same intervention. So that path is probably not worth going down.
>
> Anyway this method certainly improves things, so that’s the one I’m going to use. Pity that code signing doesn’t just sweep this all away, but I suppose to really help naive users there should also be a kind of “harmlessness certificate”, which AFAIK doesn’t exist.
>
> Graham
>
>> On 21 Jan 2017, at 23:37, Graham Samuel via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>>
>> Wow, Jacque, that is such a great idea. Too late where I am to try it out tonight, but I will certainly try it tomorrow.
>>
>> Thanks so much
>>
>> Graham
>>
>>> On 21 Jan 2017, at 20:59, J. Landman Gay via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 1/21/17 1:43 PM, Graham Samuel via use-livecode wrote:
>>>> My question is, what do other people do about this? If you generate a
>>>> new desktop program for Windows and try to sell it as a download, how
>>>> can you strip away all this nonsense for the average purchaser?
>>> One of my clients said she'd had it with Windows installers and now ships the product as a zip file. The user is instructed to move the app folder out of the zip folder. This is just about the only hitch in the process, because Windows presents the zip folder as a regular folder and users think they can just double-click the app inside the zip archive.
>>>
>>> Other than instructing naive Windows users to drag the app folder out of the zip archive, there have been virtually no other issues. The signed app itself works fine without interference from the OS.
>>>
>>> Windows users have become used to installers and expect them, but if your app is self-contained and doesn't require changing registry keys or other OS-level stuff, it works pretty well. I know that's not what you asked, but that's how we solved it.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
>>> HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com
>>>
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