The state of documentation for computer software is sad these days.

We have gone from huge volumes documenting every function of a program, sometimes even multi-volume sets for a single program to getting a two page "quick start" guide (which often it leads to a rather anti-quick start) and a set of PDF files which may or may not be actual manuals.

Just after I started working at Allegra Larry handed me a CD and some papers, telling me it was the new antivirus software for the computers and he wanted me to install it. (eTrust from Computer Associates.)

You install the Threat Management Server on one computer and then remotely install the agent to the other computers on the domain. It seemed simple enough. I started reading the PDF files and figured out that they weren't an installation manual, merely a guide to how to set up the implementation depending on the size and infrastructure of your network. So I plowed ahead, trying to figure it out on my own.

I got the server installed on our file server and tested the remote install on one of the other computers with no trouble. I then tried to remote install to a couple of the other computers (there are a total of six, including the server) and ran up against a wall, the admin account apparently didn't have administrator privileges. I checked all the settings and everything should have worked.

It wasn't for another month (of course most weeks I end up getting only one or two half-hour periods to work on this project) that I found out that Windows XP (at least SP2, not sure about the other versions) has a registry entry that forces all remote log-ins to use the guest account. Turning that off fixed my problem.

Now I didn't know how to access the Threat Management Server functions and the installs on the other machines weren't picking up the registration key from the server. The Threat Management stuff required some mysterious log-in and password, and the remote machines needed some mysterious license file located somewhere on some computer.

So today I had more than half-an hour to work on the problem and called the tech support line. Turns out the mysterious username and password the Threat Management Server log-in needed was the LOCAL MACHINE's admin user. I also had to turn off the forceguest registry key on that machine. Then she showed me (she was using a remote access program to use the computer) where the file was located, in a sub-sub-sub directory of the eTrust folder. Yeah. How the am I supposed to know it's the XML file located in this sub-sub-sub folder? How am I supposed to know that the log-in it is requesting is the admin log-in for the local machine?

Stupid software makers.
- posted by Nick @ 3/08/2006 06:06:00 PM | 0 comments