John
Some of it is due I think because CW wanted to have as much flexibility in how users can install Sonar as possible. Many DL the various parts and install them themselves. Command Center is not for everyone. For me for example it works fine. For others its too confining for them. CW had to balance various interests of its users against ease of use. I think they did a good job. Yet there is still room for improvement.
Please look at XLN's online installer - it sacrifices absolutely no flexibility, yet it manages to let you choose everything you want done ONCE - at the start - and then it will go through the whole heap unfailingly, without you EVER having to click anything further.
So - the important part - you can leave the computer, go to lunch, go to sleep, go to the lake, anything rather than watching for dialogues popping up that need the OK button clicked.
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This really is akin to how it took Microsoft more than a decade to duplicate the simple and excellent functionality of DOS' "xcopy" command in Windows. In windows you were ceaselessly confronted with dialog boxes, upon which the entire process would be halted until someone showed up to click on it. I guess Microsoft was assuming for a long time, that people stay at the computer to watch progress bars(!)
Now, finally, if you do a large copy, Windows will keep copying and save any issues for last, after everything that *could be copied* got copied, before Windows prompts for the issues list "hey, this file path is too long, what do you want me to do with it?" or "can't locate file, skip? try again?" Once you click through the issues, you find all the rest was completed. Now that's "proper" and "intelligent", without requiring Steve Hawking to think of it.