Your chance to comment - what do you all think?

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Peter Jarrett, Technical Director
Broadcast Radio Ltd.

Bill Bailey: No win, no fee, no basis in reality. Just a room above a minicab office in Acton and a steady stream of greedy simpletons whose delusion is only matched by their clumsiness

Hi,

Tried it the other day, and generally like it.  A few little bits of feedback though.  Some more pedantic than others :-)

I did a standard install, on a ( as far as I'm aware) standard W2k Sp4 box, which already has myriad v2.6 installed

1) The help file didn't work.  The chm was there, and if I clicked it directly, it loaded, but the link on the front of boot-it didn't seen to do anything.

2) On the setup actions screen, none of the +[edit]- buttons had tool tips.  Tut tut.

3) It'd be useful whilst it's performing a test, or waiting before it moves to the next test, if there was a countdown clock / progress bar showing how long is left and that the process is still alive.  As when you're watching it it seems like it's taking an awful long time (watching paint dry...)

4) Button colours.  Were they white buttons on a white background? Can they be made to be a bit more "buttony", or to follow what is set in windows ?

5) Update manager.  Perhaps I didn't spot it being mentioned in the literature,  but it would be nice to tell people you're installing more than what they signed up for. It surprised me, and I don't know if I can un-install it without affecting boot-it (I'm guessing yes, but then...)

Apart from those few niggles, a good product and a useful addition

Simon

HB Sheffield

Hi Simon,

Thanks for letting us know how you've found it

1) Hmm... not sure about this one, we've checked it out here and all seems to work.  Can you try pressing F1 and see if it works that way?

2) Done - thanks for letting us know

3) Not something that can be done easily unfortunately as each test is actually performed by a helper app, and some of aren't actually able to do anything while testing becuase they are so intensive whilst checking. We'll keep this one in the to do though as it would be nice to have. So you know, the tests are actually all performed concurrently, and only when they have all passed will the action occur.

4) The buttons are deliberately white - though I suspect the main reason your display seems a little strange is becuase the app is primarily designed for Windows XP users with modern flat buttons instead of the older chunky style buttons which get displayed when it's run under Windows 2000. I have to admit that we didn't even test it on Windows 2000 as it's no longer a supported operating system - for more info about supported OS's please have a look at http://support.psquared.net/softsupport.htm

5) It's actually part of the Installshield System that we use to install the application and doesn't do anything other than check for software updates. In itself it's harmless as we don't actually use it at present, so future installers may well have this removed.

Anything else you find please let us know.

As a heads-up, the next release of Boot-It also includes a section that allows you to set the computer to automatically logon rather than sit and wait for Ctrl-Alt-Delete. This can be done using Windows tweaks, and most of our new generation of products have it as well, but we thought it would be a good addition!

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Peter Jarrett, Technical Director
Broadcast Radio Ltd.

Bill Bailey: No win, no fee, no basis in reality. Just a room above a minicab office in Acton and a steady stream of greedy simpletons whose delusion is only matched by their clumsiness

Item 3, Yeh, I realise that watching for shares to appear is intensive and you can't really quantify them.  I was possibly thinking more of a count down bar to when the backup options are activated, as you must have a backgound timer to run that bit.

Simon

I think you have a slight misconception about how it works. When the test sequence starts, all of the tests (primary and alternate configurations) start at the same time.



When all of the primary tests complete the primary action sequence is initiated.



When all of the alternate tests complete there are two possibilities:



1) The primary action sequence has started. In this case nothing more happens.



2) The primary action sequence has still waiting for the primary test sequence to complete. In this case a countdown is started (30 seconds by default). If when that countdown has finished the primary action sequence has not started then the alternate action sequence is started.



The alternation action sequence count down is displayed on the front end.

Quick thought.  Should Boot Stuff check that the SQL server is running?  Not sure how to config that...

Craig Arthur

Engineering & IT Manager
Radio Royal, Royal 2 & Royal Gold.

I can't figure out how you'd do this either. Perhaps it's possible to write a batch script with an 'if' command that says end (allowing Boot-It to continue) if a port can be connected to?

Hi All,

Good news - BootStuff can now test for a SQL Server being available

http://forum.psquared.net/7164//BootStuff-v1.0.16-Beta-Release-now-available

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Peter Jarrett, Technical Director
Broadcast Radio Ltd.

Bill Bailey: No win, no fee, no basis in reality. Just a room above a minicab office in Acton and a steady stream of greedy simpletons whose delusion is only matched by their clumsiness