I am selling a PHP script that clients can install and run on their sites. Currently, the installation process is somewhat "standard" ... that is:
1. Check if your hosting meets installation requirements
2. Download the mail package
3. Unzip
4. Download to the server
5. Read the installation instructions
6. Create mysql DB
7. Configure folder permissions if necessary. 8. Run install.php
9. FINALLY. We are done!
All this may not be rocket science, but even for an experienced user it is too clumsy procedures. So, I'm going to start providing only one setup.php file instead of the whole package. The user will create the / myscript folder on the server, load setup.php and run it. Then setup.php downloads all the necessary files from my server, and the entire installation is performed automatically (except for creating a database that the user must do himself). This should be much more user friendly and you don’t need to read the manual so you can install this damn thing.
So, I'm going to create such a setup script, but before I start, my question is: why don't everyone do this? Laziness is the most obvious excuse - let the user sweat over the installation, if they want the software to be bad enough, they will somehow install it. But even large companies follow the same “standard”, so there must be something else. Can you come up with any technical hurdles that would prevent such a script installation from working well enough and why does everyone resort to using downloadable email packages?
Thank!
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