I suppose Windows is the slowest-installing program I know (and that’s on my mind because I’m going to have to upgrade my home desktop, my last XP box, to Win 7 soon), but Libre Office, the free and open source substitute for MS Office, has to come in second place. I have just been watching the installer for version 3.6.6 sit on my screen for more than the time it took Lou Reed to sing “Pale Blue Eyes”.
Oh #$**#U$W#**%$.
I got the 3.6.6 update by clicking the ‘download update’ button in response to a Libre Office popup (the automatic download has not worked pretty much ever). Fair enough. But now I just googled Libre Office to be sure I linked to the right website in the first paragraph above. And, guess what, THERE’S A VERSION 4.0.3 WAITING THERE that the updater didn’t tell me about. Being vaguely OCD about updates, I guess I get to watch some more paint dry. Bob Dylan will be long done with “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” before these (help files are separate) are downloaded, much less installed.
To be honest, I use the Libre Office spreadsheet much more than the word processor. I’m still using Wordperfect as my word processor of choice, and will use genuine Office when people send me files to collaborate on. Many versions ago the track changes feature of Libre Office didn’t play nice with Word, and I’ve been shy about it ever since.
Anyway at least I posted something here so my mother won’t call up to see what’s wrong. Talk about creating expectations.
PS If you download Libre Office, and I recommend it, it seems to install real fast until one of the later steps, when it just sits there a long time. Don’t panic. The progress bar is for each step, not for the whole process.
