Still Confused After All These Years...

[jlove]

Hi Jim. I suppose this is a continuation of my blather on another thread, but...

 

This seemed like the right article to read since I am trying to figure out whether I should bother uninstalling Roxio Creator 10 before installing Creator 2009. But as near as I can tell, it's all about uninstalling Creator 2009 rather than installing it. I did see the comment that a similar approach will work for uninstalling other Roxio products, so I'm guessing that I could follow the bouncing ball and use this procedure for uninstalling Creator 10, and then go ahead with the Creator 2009 install.

 

The other alternative I can think of is not bothering to uninstall v10. On another computer I had both 9 and 10 running at the same time without noticeable problems. The "neat freak" in me would prefer to have just one version of the program rather than occupying close to a gig of space for something I would never use.

 

Any advice appreciated.

 

(I asked the same question of Roxio tech support two days ago, but I'm still waiting for an answer.)

 

Thanks,

 

-- Jack

[ggrussell]

Why does this say "clean install" when it's an Uninstall?

People have a way of shortening what they really want to say. LOL Technically you are 'cleaning' everything Roxio from a machine so you can install Creator 2009. Doesn't matter if that is a previous version or an install of C2009 that failed. There are several things that can cause the C2009 installation to fail. This can leave bad entries in the registry that will cause a reinstall attempt to also fail.

 

Personally, I prefer to have only one version installed at any one time. Some of the other 'gurus' have several versions installed at the same time with no issues so they can answer questions in the other forums, too.

[Brendon]

We always [back in versions 4 and 5] used to call it "Clean Uninstall", but someone in the sales department changed the name

[jlove]

Thanks to the several people who replied, and I even received an email from someone trying to help! As one way of attempting to thank the community, I'm going to add some material here based on what I was told by Roxio tech support. Although none of this is likely to be news to the old-timers here, perhaps my follow-up notes will be useful for others thinking about the various "upgrade/ install" issues.

 

First of all, despite the total of three days involved, I still didn't get a sensible reply from the email tech support group at Roxio. After staring at the Roxio support page for a while, I noticed that there actually is a toll-free installation support line for Creator 2009. I think there must be some psychological reason why I didn't see this before, but actually there is a more prosaic explanation--the support hours are 11am to 6pm EST, and I am never near my home computer during those hours. But since this time my question was general rather than specific, I could call them from my work place, and so I did.

 

After about a 10 minute wait (not bad compared to other tech support lines) I was connected to someone who was both friendly and competent--another pleasant surprise.

 

So here is the advice I received. It is best to uninstall a prior version of Roxio before installing any new version. The likely reason for my prior very serious problems was that I first installed the newer version, then ran the uninstall routine for the older version. The Roxio support tech suggested that this commonly causes problems because newer versions re-use some file locations and registry keys, so the older installer is capable of corrupting or deleting files and/or registry keys needed by the O/S or the newer Roxio software.

 

Roxio support states that the detailed uninstall (aka "Clean Install") of the prior version is the best way to assure a good install for the newer version. However, most users do not report any problems using Add/Drop programs (XP) or Programs and Features (Vista) to remove Creator--as long as the newer version has not been installed yet.

 

One person here commented about the rationale for installing the newer version over the older. In my case it was because several people had contributed to the forums indicating that the older version of this-or-that module was better than the new. I was a frequent user of one such module, so I thought I would keep them both. I later discovered that while perhaps requiring an extra keystroke or two for some tasks, the newer version (at least for my purposes) was just as good as the old, so I elected at that point to uninstall the older. The rest is history--computer meltdown, $300 to the support of my local computer techs, etc.

 

Another reason commonly mentioned is that Roxio does not engineer backward compatibility for project files and the like. So far I wouldn't consider this a major factor, but your mileage might vary.

 

The "bottom line" here seems to be, if you install the newer version over the old, just keep the old version, don't try to uninstall it later. If you can, uninstall the older version prior to touching the installer for the new.

 

So, with all this in mind, I will likely back up my registry, uninstall 10 and install 2009 later this evening. I hope I'll be able to report success later on.

 

Finally, one note for Roxio (Sonic Solutions) should anyone be monitoring this. This situation is really unacceptable. I understand any vendor's frustration with Microsoft, and I agree that MS has the lion's share of blame for these sorts of problems. The Windows installers and uninstallers have been notorious for many years for poor functionality. But the customer should not be the repository of problems when trouble erupts. A customer who installs or uninstalls a vendor's product should be entitled to a (prompt) email and phone connection with competent staff to help resolve the problem. Most vendors have found either workarounds for buggy MS installers or programmatic approaches that spare users from turmoil. If you want us to upgrade Roxio software every year, then I think you owe us that much.

 

'nuff said. Probably too much.

 

-- Jack

 

 

 

 

[jlove]

Thanks to the several people who replied, and I even received an email from someone trying to help! As one way of attempting to thank the community, I'm going to add some material here based on what I was told by Roxio tech support. Although none of this is likely to be news to the old-timers here, perhaps my follow-up notes will be useful for others thinking about the various "upgrade/ install" issues.

 

First of all, despite the total of three days involved, I still didn't get a sensible reply from the email tech support group at Roxio. After staring at the Roxio support page for a while, I noticed that there actually is a toll-free installation support line for Creator 2009. I think there must be some psychological reason why I didn't see this before, but actually there is a more prosaic explanation--the support hours are 11am to 6pm EST, and I am never near my home computer during those hours. But since this time my question was general rather than specific, I could call them from my work place, and so I did.

 

After about a 10 minute wait (not bad compared to other tech support lines) I was connected to someone who was both friendly and competent--another pleasant surprise.

 

So here is the advice I received. It is best to uninstall a prior version of Roxio before installing any new version. The likely reason for my prior very serious problems was that I first installed the newer version, then ran the uninstall routine for the older version. The Roxio support tech suggested that this commonly causes problems because newer versions re-use some file locations and registry keys, so the older installer is capable of corrupting or deleting files and/or registry keys needed by the O/S or the newer Roxio software.

 

Roxio support states that the detailed uninstall (aka "Clean Install") of the prior version is the best way to assure a good install for the newer version. However, most users do not report any problems using Add/Drop programs (XP) or Programs and Features (Vista) to remove Creator--as long as the newer version has not been installed yet.

 

One person here commented about the rationale for installing the newer version over the older. In my case it was because several people had contributed to the forums indicating that the older version of this-or-that module was better than the new. I was a frequent user of one such module, so I thought I would keep them both. I later discovered that while perhaps requiring an extra keystroke or two for some tasks, the newer version (at least for my purposes) was just as good as the old, so I elected at that point to uninstall the older. The rest is history--computer meltdown, $300 to the support of my local computer techs, etc.

 

Another reason commonly mentioned is that Roxio does not engineer backward compatibility for project files and the like. So far I wouldn't consider this a major factor, but your mileage might vary.

 

The "bottom line" here seems to be, if you install the newer version over the old, just keep the old version, don't try to uninstall it later. If you can, uninstall the older version prior to touching the installer for the new.

 

So, with all this in mind, I will likely back up my registry, uninstall 10 and install 2009 later this evening. I hope I'll be able to report success later on.

 

Finally, one note for Roxio (Sonic Solutions) should anyone be monitoring this. This situation is really unacceptable. I understand any vendor's frustration with Microsoft, and I agree that MS has the lion's share of blame for these sorts of problems. The Windows installers and uninstallers have been notorious for many years for poor functionality. But the customer should not be the repository of problems when trouble erupts. A customer who installs or uninstalls a vendor's product should be entitled to a (prompt) email and phone connection with competent staff to help resolve the problem. Most vendors have found either workarounds for buggy MS installers or programmatic approaches that spare users from turmoil. If you want us to upgrade Roxio software every year, then I think you owe us that much.

 

'nuff said. Probably too much.

 

-- Jack

 

Well, it took 45 minutes to uninstall Creator 10, and another 90 minutes to install 2009. I'm not quite done yet--once Creator 2009 launched it found an update to load and now wants to reboot my machine for the third time. But all my disc drives seem to be functional, the software seems to have loaded, and I must admit the new menu system is a lot prettier than the old one. So I'm looking forward to trying out my new toys, but that will have to wait for another day. Thanks again to everyone who offered advice.