Table of Contents for This Page

• Focus on Grammar
• Allyn and Bacon Word of Psychology

Overview

I hate the state of CDROM educational software today. It's like the authors and vendors have never tried to see how this stuff is actually used in a lab environment. They make assumptions about the installation and force that assumption on the user.

Plus, why are CDROMs even needed these days? Most schools have direct Internet access. Publish it to a web site, open it only to textbook owners via a key in the textbook or something, and be done with it. Then the data on the site can be kept up-to-date far better than any CDROM could.

User (i.e. Student and Teacher) Assumptions

The user gets a CDROM with a textbook. They expect to be able to walk into a lab, insert the CDROM and run the program. End of story. With autorun support, this should be a no-brainer.

Faculty often never test this ahead of time. Just assume it will work and direct students to the lab. It doesn't work this way, and therefore there are a lot of confused users, delayed assignments, and barriers to using the product.

Reality

CDROM resource will not operate correctly unless they run a setup program first. This program usually installs runtime programs, start menu items, and support programs like quicktime. What's worse, the autorun feature is usually configured to run the setup program, regardless of whether or not all of the necessary support programs and libraries are already on the machine.

This is ridiculous. There is no reason why programs can not run directly from CDROMs. If they need to write temporary data, plug it into the directory identified by the %TEMP% variable. If they need to save user data, write it into HKCU registry -- where it belongs. If the program requires large amounts of data to be saved, let the user choose where to save it (don't assume) and take a default value for this location from HKLM registry tree.

Furthermore, CDROM software installs want to install an icon into the start menu. Why? It's useless unless the CD is in the drive. Use autorun to run the program and forget the start menu.

Weave's CDROM Seal of Approval

(Yeah, right...)

To pacify me and make the life of all system techs, educational CDROM programs should meet all of the below requirements:

• Use standard off-the-shelf features that are more than likely already on the computer, such as Windows Video, Quicktime, etc.
• Program must run from CDROM without being installed on hard drive
• User config data must be written to HKCU registry
• Do not expect to write anywhere on hard drive except for the directory pointed to by %TEMP%. Certain braindead Microsoft-forced exceptions might have to override this, like the help file system that expects to write index data to %systemroot% area.. :-(
• If data needs to be saved in files, let the user chose where to save it and/or take a value out of HKLM so the sys admin can set up an appopriate default (example, to user's home share on the server)
• Autorun technology should be used run the program on the CDROM. This autorun program may optionally check the system for various components (like quicktime) and warn that the setup program should be run first. However, if everything is in order, the autorun should just run the main CDROM program FROM THE CD.
• Set up programs should only be used to install standard system software, like Quicktime.
• Do not clutter the holy start menu with your junk. That is what autorun is for. With autorun, there is no need for start menu items.
• Should work under NT.
• Should print using the OS print subsystem. Don't try and print directly to LPT1:

The main goal is to insert disk and run with it.

Conclusion

Focus on Grammar

Reference Web Sites

• Work Order #1114 (tech staff only)

Observations

• CDROM uses quicktime. Hopefully we'll be lucky and it won't require an install.
• Looks good so far. Runs from CD-ROM under standard install, standard permissions, no additional install requied (at least the first cd-rom does)
• Will need to make a shortcut to a batch file that looks for CD-ROM disk and runs mtb40run fog_b.tbk in cdromdrive:\fog directory
• Following are commands for each CDROM:
  • Beginning: mtb40run fog_b.tbk
  • Intermediate: mtb40run fog_i.tbk
  • Advanced: mtb40run fog_a.tbk
• We probably should use kixtart to generate some msgboxes to guide user along.

Install Steps

• No install needed! (Yippe). Just need to create a launch script (see below) to search for CD and run it, then put a shortcut in the main start menu that points to the script.

Launch Script

• runfog.kix (kixtart script)

Reference Web Sites

• Vendor Site (next to useless for install support)
• Work Order #1315 (tech staff only)

Observations

• Uses quicktime
• Uses Acrobat Reader
• Seems like install program just installs an icon that runs the WOODMAIN.PDF program in the root of the CD.
• This CDROM almost can clain the Weave's CDROM Seal of Approval. All it needs is an autorun feature to auto run the WOODMAIN.PDF file.