I just had the worst software install since I tried to change my screen resolution on a Linux machine. I was trying to install Macromedia Captivate, and it only took 3 hours! Now, it can take 3 hours to install a whole OS, or even Visual Studio if your machine is slow enough. But this was 3 hours of 20 or 30 installs, 10 or 20 uninstalls, and more than a few reboots.

I’ll save myself the pain of going into every detail. In case any of you have the misfortune of needing to install this software, here are the highlights. This software, which has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WEB, needs a whole lot of access to IE. Captivate turns things into flash movies, so it needs to have flash installed. How does it verify that flash is installed? By firing up IE and checking. But it doesn’t fire up IE to check, it fires up your default web browser to check. And if that’s not IE, you’re screwed. And if you have some resc\trictive security options set up in IE like any sane person should, you’re screwed. So to summarize, to install Macromedia Captivate, make sure IE is your default browser, you have enhanced secuirty disabled, and flash is installed.