*hypf*

Right now a new Firefox update appeared, apparently out of nowhere. So I started up Firefox and waited. And then, right when the Chrome appeared a dialog jumped into my face, hooray. Lesson No. 1 from the usability labs (read many times by now): Unexpected things in the user's view just cause him to get rid of the damn thing as soon as possible and they won't read it.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, right, the dialog that popped into my view:

The fun thing starts right here, though. Who'd suspected that upon clicking „Later“ (which should be pretty clear in meaning as in „Not now, I don't want to be bothered anymore. I'll restart Firefox sooner or later, rest assured.“) just another message box would appear, telling me something I really need to know that instant:

Great. Thanks. If I actually would read that (which I did, yes) the „Later“ button already took more time (and one more click) than simply updating. I really wonder whether this is really necessary.

And one more thing: The message box is of course a XUL-generated one, without one of the nicenesses that message boxes have on Windows: Pressing Ctrl-C did exactly nothing (normal message boxes put their contents in the clipboard upon hitting Ctrl-C).

And just to complement all that: The update didn't work. I suspect me running Windows as non-administrator might be the reason. Sigh. Haven't those people learned? I mean, Vista didn't just drop into the stores yesterday …

UPDATE (2008–03–27): The update didn't request administrative privileges (and thus failed) because the updater.exe program (used to install the update) fails to request it. They rely on Windows to detect that this is an installer-type application and do the magic for them. Definitely not the best way to do this. For completeness: Here's their manifest:

<?xml version=„1.0“ encoding=„UTF-8“ standalone=„yes“?> <assembly xmlns=„urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1“ manifestVersi­on=„1.0“> <assemblyIdentity
version=„1.0.0.0“
processorArchi­tecture=„X86“
name=„Updater“
type=„win32“ /> <description>Up­dater</descrip­tion> <dependency>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity
type=„win32“
name=„Microsof­t.Windows.Com­mon-Controls“
version=„6.0.0.0“
processorArchi­tecture=„X86“
publicKeyToken=„6595b64­144ccf1df“
language=„*“
/>
</dependentAs­sembly> </dependency> </assembly> 

See a <requestedPri­vileges> block in there? I don't. Hey Mozilla guys: Not everyone is an admin.