This is my call to all programers who use, and especially those that make installer programs.
SHOW THE README FILE AS THE APPLICATION IS INSTALLING, NOT AFTERWARDS!!!
If it takes me 5mins to find and download the app, then 2mins to go through the installer and another 5mins to actually install the program, then before that 5mins at the end you could have easily opened up the readme file and showed the user something possibly interesting or required. At the moment only once the application is installed does the readme file get briefly flashed up to the user, who, wanting to actually use the program closes it and everything else down.
The biggest problem was when I went to install Nero 7. It took NEARLY AN HOUR, and at the end of it they opened up the readme. To me it’s just a bad waste of users time.
If you want to go another step then how about using the installation time to actually show something interesting and useful. Some computer games kinda do this, but not to the full extent they could. With the dual/quad core, 2GB+ ram, NVida/ATI graphics card nature of most computers these days it would be easy to show tutorial information as the program is installing.
Imagine this : As you are waiting for a big program to install it actually shows you a screencast of how to use the program. A getting started guide, or even a trailer.
Note : With Steam and the prominence of Internet download/preloading this issue isn’t such a big issue for computer games, but some apps could still do with an updated installer.
