The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

21 December 2007

The voice of experience is heard

My Usenet reader of choice for over ten years has been Forté Agent. One of its less-enthralling options is to pop you over to the What's New page every so often, to let you know if there's a new build out there, or if there are other changes in the works.

This month they have a new item in the FAQ, and it goes like this:

Only runs once when installed in Vista
This is probably caused by running Agent from the installer when you installed Agent. This is not your fault, the option is there. However, Vista is stupid. It assumes that any and all actions taken from the installer is part of the installation process, which is a protected process, and will not allow those same actions to be taken from a non-administrator account later. Since Agent was initially launched from the installer, Vista is assuming that action is part of the installation process. By uninstalling Agent and re-installing without that option set, the installer finishes before you run Agent and it's therefore not seen as an installation process, but a regular process.

I suspect that this advice could apply to almost anything being installed under Vista: when the installer finishes with "Start [name of software product] now?" you should probably tell it No on general principle.

(Mac guys: What's a good Usenet client for OS X? I may need to know this some day.)

Posted at 8:18 AM to PEBKAC


I use Nemo to access Usenet stuff - although it is rare that I do check anything out there. So I am not sure how well it would hold up to more than the occasional use. With that said: you can get Nemo from the Apple website. It is an Internet Utility and I believe it to be a free download. The most recent version is: Nemo 0.8.175.

Do I smell a new Mac in your future?

Posted by: belhoste at 11:16 AM on 21 December 2007

I've basically decided that when XP finally crumbles to pieces, which it will, I would rather go Macintosh than get Vista.

Posted by: CGHill at 11:21 AM on 21 December 2007

Well, although I have no plans to ever use Vista, this is good to know. Just in case.

After all, once upon a time I had no plans to ever use XP.

Posted by: McGehee at 12:16 PM on 21 December 2007

A lot of people seem to like Unison but, being set in my ways, I prefer MT-Newswatcher. check out macorchard.com for a good list of options.

Posted by: anon at 1:42 PM on 21 December 2007

"I've basically decided that when XP finally crumbles to pieces, which it will, I would rather go Macintosh than get Vista."

Oh how happy I am to hear that. It warms my heart to hear how Vista has sent another user screaming for something that functions the way a computer should.

I run Vista on one of my test work machines and I actually kind of like the interface. With that said - I wouldn't want to have to use it on a machine I needed to rely on for anything (like actual work). I have several Mac machines and I wouldn't trade a single one of them for anything - they just work where other nameless operating systems fail.

Posted by: belhoste at 11:14 PM on 21 December 2007

Thoth used to be a good one, but they gave up because no one paid for it. Unison looked good when I tried it, but TDS (Choctaw & Jones telco) won't store articles more than 48 hours, so a newsreader loses its value.

Posted by: Dan B at 1:46 AM on 22 December 2007