This is the most embarrassingly bad software I've ever seen.

Love the instruments, but Native Access is so bad, every developer at NI should feel a real sense of embarrassment. (seriously, if you're a dev and reading this, you should)

I'm new to Komplete, but I see this incompetence has been going on for years. No uninstaller for NI stuff? Who in their right mind thought that was a good idea? Plus, the app fails at being clear about what is and isn't installed, even after you hack away at things in 10 different directories to remove things on a Mac. I feel like my job is to break the install just enough so NA allows me to reinstall.

Plus, if you're reinstalling from a HD, the app doesn't recognise that when you're repairing! Good one guys!

For goodness sakes devs, stop embarrassing yourselves and implement a basic removal tool of some sort to clean things up. If I were on the team working on Native Access I'd feel ashamed about the job I'd done. Take some pride in your work for goodness sakes.

 

Well.... not to interrupt your little tantrum there, but...

1. No uninstallers is a Mac thing. On Windows there are uninstallers for every NI product. Adding uninstallers for the products is also not a Native Access thing, but something the installers for the products have to provide. They don't on Mac. It is what it is.

2. "The app fails at being clear what is and what isn't installed" - no problem with that. The products you own which aren't installed appear under "Not installed", the ones which are installed appear under "Installed products". Not that difficult.

Native Access has some problems, I already had products which weren't installed because of error, or I wasn't able to install updates, and had to run the NI key reg repair tool, or, the latest, I have a update for Replika XT constantly displayed on one machine, even though I already have the latest version, and it always shows the update again, even when I install the update repeatedly.

I don't think your points are real issues though. And, I don't think anyone should be embarassed either, or that it helps your point to exaggerate.

 

Well, whatever you think of my post, there really is no excuse for not having a basic uninstaller on Mac. Zero. It would take... maybe an hour to add in that kind of functionality. Why even bother saying, "It is what it is."? I never would have guessed, Sherlock. Thanks for that. That really helps improve the UX.

For point 2, point taken that what I said was overly ambiguous and sounded like I don't know my way around the app. But, long story short it's a confusing mess on the Mac when you're trying to get NA to list something as ready for reinstall.

Sure, none of this is end of world type stuff. But it *is* embarrassing. The whole system behind the app makes the developers look like a bunch of imbeciles. Maybe not to you, but to anyone who knows what's normal in the world of software. Buggy, badly designed software is one thing. Leaving out an uninstaller for an app that deals with this many files? It's nuts.

 

Speaking of bugs though - NA failed to delete installers to the total of 150GB. I wondered why I was being told there wasn't enough room to install things. It wasn't on my external, but on my internal drive...

 

You should understand one thing. NA in not responsible for uninstaller, NA just installs programs. I am on Win, and on Win programs installed by NA do have uninstallers. To uninstall them one has to go to Win uninstall part and uninstall it from there or to go to the particular folder and manuály start its uninstaller. I have no idea, how it works on Mac, but on Win things work as expected.

OK, it would be cool to push a button in NA and uninstall, but NI probably know, why it is not there.... (Maybe they are affraid people would uninstall it by accident and then complained it is missing and "randomly" disappearing...)

Concerning repair. The best is to switch NA to list view. Than the very right collumn clearly indicates, whether repair is needed. It works fine, I have used it recently to relocate instruments to a new location to free my main disk....

NA is not perfect, but it is not by far bad.

 

It's one thing to criticize something, it's something else to come up with a good alternative of your own. Native Access does exactly what it's supposed to do, so I don't quite agree with your disrespectful comments here.

The people behind the modern operating systems did. And it's not as if N.I. is alone here either; pretty much all modern software has stopped to provide an uninstaller of their own but instead relies on the operating system.

Guess what Ableton Live 10, Reason 11 and Max 8 have in common? Melodyne anyone? Or what about Vocaloid? Highly professional software with a ditto approach. And they all lack an uninstaller (on Windows), I wonder why....

I can't help wonder if you ever checked documentation such as this:

https://www.wikihow.com/Uninstall-Programs-on-Mac-Computers

... I also can't help wonder if all that hacking of yours isn't what caused your issues in the first place. But.. that's an assumption on my end. Fact remains that most software components make it pretty obvious what gets installed and where. Usually it consists of the program folder, the data folder (think about samples and default presets and such) and of course your personal data. Nothing more or less.

 

You should use it on Mac and try and uninstall everything in Komplete. It's bad. NA should definitely include an installer... like (almost) every other company in the world does.

 

I'm kicking up a stink because I got a bit tired of going back through forums, reading two things - how the UI is tiny (which I can understand to a degree - it'd be a tricky thing to update) and how much of a pain it is there's no uninstaller. At first I thought it wouldn't be a huge issue. Then I tried it for myself.

And...? What's your point? Why is that any reason an app like this doesn't have an uninstaller? Like I said, this would take no time at all to implement. Rummaging around through a folder of vsts and components, trying to search for the names of each individual item you want to remove... I mean, why even have an installer? Why not just put all the files in a folder and get people to individually put them in the correct folders? That would be similarly great software design and user experience!

(oops accidentally posted it)

Look I'm not trying to offend anyone, but I do think someone needs to say something strongly about this. Of course the community is going to come in guns a blazing and defend NI. Fair enough. But this is stupid. And no, I didn't hack anything. I just followed these...


https://support.native-instruments....tive-Instruments-Software-from-a-Mac-Computer

And I'll say it again - it would be *really* easy to add something to the app that goes through these folders, finds the appropriate files and removes them. So amazingly easy.

 

It's not about defending, rather because your point, and the kind you present it, is unreasonable.

Especially when you should rather direct your concerns to NI, not post them in a user forum, where nobody will take notice anyway.

I can assure you though that the motivation to help might suffer when you go on lamenting about "embarassing coding", like you do here. I doubt you have any idea about coding, otherwise you wouldn't talk like that.

 

I don't think it's unreasonable.

Well, I plan to do both. But, I have noticed NI do swing by the forums now and then.

 

I have plugins from several other companies. And no has by far anything close to Native Access. One has to download instalator from web pages, one has to search if there is any update for given plugin, one has to uninstall it by hand. And I am speaking about plugins that are more expensive than those by NI.

So, be happy, you have NA App. by NI and not plugins from other companies. NA is not perfect, but still the best, so far, for maintaining plugins in my computer....

 

The OP's first post? Most definitely. But his other post is IMO on the mark. I still don't agree with the OP, but that's besides the point. OP clearly stated that he didn't mean to offend people and well, everyone can be a bit agitated or frustrated over something. Happens to all of us from time to time.

OP shared their opinion and well, I know several NI guys are also reading here so who knows...

 

One thing I know is that, if I had such a problem, I would state the problem, and not make the developers appear as useless dorks whose code is embarrassing. Seriously.

 

I’m happy to admit that in my frustration I did overdo my first post. I actually wasn’t trying to say the app as a whole is embarrassing. I’ve certainly used a lot worse.

I was trying to say it is embarrassing to have a company as large as NI, who have produced some excellent software, to not include something like an uninstaller. I personally see that as embarrassing, and I’ll stand by what I said before - if I was on the dev team and knew I’d created a bit of software that installed hundreds (if not thousands) of files and did nothing to assist the user in removing them beyond handing them some directories to trawl through, I’d feel a bit embarrassed about it. Or maybe even a bit ashamed. Take your pick of whatever term you feel fits best here. I certainly wouldn’t feel good about it, and it doesn’t look good for a company that produces industry standard software.

 

I should also say, it was wrong of me to assume the dev team is at fault here. Someone at NI is, but it might not be in their ability to change things. The fault lies with the company.

 

There are uninstallers under Windows. So, if there are not uninstalers under Mac, it is Mac specific thing. I do not know, how it works on Mac, but Mac should handle uninstalation somehow.

 

It doesn’t work like Windows. Apps generally fall into one of three types - App Store apps that can be simply uninstalled with a click, apps with their own uninstallers, and apps that don’t have installers but can be deleted from the Applications folder.

 

OK, so there are applications that do not have uninstaller. Mac is designed so.
And is not it like that by chance, that some NI plugins have uninstaller and some do not have?

Because there are three different types of NI products. Programs, Plugins and Content. Does music that you download by iTunes or other way uninstaller? The Kontakt libraries by NI is something like mp3 files....

 

They’re all files. It doesn’t matter what type they are - they’re all files. If a program can put the files somewhere, it can also keep track of where they were put, making it easy to remove them.

 

Does iTunes remove downloaded music? Does it keep track where it is copied and so on?

NA just helps to install and update things. Yes, it could also help to uninstall stuff. But most companies like NI do not provide by far even functionality of NA. NI is therefore much better in this aspect than many competitors..... You may like, you may dislike it....