Reduce dialog overload on extension pack upgrade

[Forage]

Hi,

When you've updated VirtualBox to a newer version and you had the extension pack installed before, you'll get presented with the notification that a newer extension pack is available when you start VirtualBox again after the VirtualBox update.

It's nice to get the reminder and the option to upgrade the extension pack, but the amount of subsequent dialogs the user is presented with is just madness. 7 in total just to perform the upgrade.

These are the action the user has to perform at the moment:

1. Press "Download" button on the upgrade available dialog
2. Press "Download" button on the download dialog
3. Press "Install" button on the download complete dialog
4. Press "Upgrade" button on a confirmation dialog
5. Press "I agree" button on the license dialog
6. Supply password on the system's admin rights needed dialog
7. Press "OK" button on the installed confirmation dialog

This makes a handy feature just tedious instead of being helpful and efficient.

I understand that there are different situations in which a user can install the extension pack and that there are different dialogs needed in those situations, but those dialogs should only be displayed when they actually apply.

The first 4 actions can, and IMHO should, be combined into just 1 when we are dealing the the update available notification. There's a new upgrade -> download and install. Having to agree to the license could even be considered redundant on upgrade. You already agreed on it on the first install. If the license hasn't changed there's no point in displaying it again.

Would it be possible and desired to reduce the extension pack upgrade step to 3 or 4 steps instead of the current 7? The current situation only makes it tedious and leaves a messy impression.

[Frank Mehnert]

I agree that's really a lot of dialogs but the chances are low that this will happen due to legal reasons. But I will keep this ticket open.

[ptomato]

I can see why the license dialog is still needed for legal reasons. And of course the administrator rights are needed for technical reasons. But the current state of things:

• You must indicate in two nearly identical dialogs that you want to download the extension pack upgrade.
• Once the upgrade is downloaded you must click another dialog to indicate that you want to install it (what else would I have wanted to do with it?)
• You then have to click another dialog to confirm that you want to upgrade the existing version of the extension pack (this question makes no sense because you can't have both versions installed side by side, so what else can you do besides upgrade?)
• The final "OK" dialog is just extra noise.

Are any of the above dialogs necessary for legal reasons?

To me, ideally the upgrade process would look like this:

• Start VirtualBox
• A dialog indicates that an upgrade to the extension pack is available - you can click "Upgrade" or "Don't upgrade".
• While the upgrade is downloading in the background, you accept the license agreement and enter your administrator password. (If you fail to do either of those things, the download is simply interrupted and deleted.)
• Once those are out of the way, no more human intervention is required for the upgrade to proceed to the end.

Even more ideally, all the extension packs would just upgrade as part of the install process of my VirtualBox upgrade in the first place.

[pggiarrusso]

+10⁶ on ptomato's comment — I created an Oracle account just to "vote" on this, and I'm looking for more votes through ​https://twitter.com/Blaisorblade/status/693174652848467968. I understand and accept that one needs to accept the license and that the extension packs must have a separate one — but that alone can't explain the issue.

Ranting on bugtrackers for issues is bad style, but this is SO annoying I'm really tempted.

[Forage]

Instead of reducing the amount of actions to perform, it has gotten worse by adding another question.

Since recently you now get presented with the question to remove the download at the end. One button more to click. And talking about confusing: the way it's been written gives you the feeling it's asking you to remove that what you've just been installing. Thus implying that VB wants to undo the update.