Post Install Options

Dammit Google, I don't want to do ANY of these:

Post Install screen for Picassa 3.8:

Create A Shortcut On Desktop: Stupidest idea ever. People's desktops just become a mess of icons and they can never find anything. I have ONE icon on my home desktop: the Trash Can err Recycle Bin. That's all I need. At least Google asks (see Adobe). Some installers don't ask, and some of them put their icons on the shared desktop which means the only way to get rid of it from one user is for an administrator to get rid of it for all users. I really don't understand how people can work with a desktop over-populated with icons.

Add Shortcut to Quick Launch: First of all I'm running Windows 7, so there is no real "Quick Launch" any more. Second of all if I want your application pinned there, I'll pin it there. Otherwise people's task bars are going to become another desktop (a wasteland of icons that nobody can find anything in).

Set Google as my default search engine in Internet Explorer: If I'm bright enough to know the difference, I have probably taken care of this myself. If I'm not, then I probably won't care one way or another. So this question is reasonable, I suppose, even if it annoys those of us who do know what the difference is. One really has to wonder if capturing the ignorant is worth annoying your current customers.(*)

Send Anonymous Usage Stats to Google: also potentially harmless, but in today's hyper-sensitive privacy atmosphere even asking the question can be considered hostile. Besides, after going to the trouble of clearing the previous three check boxes, I'm not going to hesitate to clear this one too.

Run Picassa 3: Again, reasonable. But in this case I had five minutes so I decided to do the upgrade and didn't want to actually run the program.

But really, asking me all this crap AND pre-setting all of them to affirmative is more than a little annoying.

(*) = Duh, of course it is. The ignorant outnumber the rest of us. In games where volume matters (like the search engine game) you go where the people are.