My experience installing CF7 (From a long-time CF admin and user)

Question

I am a long-time administrator of Coldfusion and a serious
designer. I've used Coldfusion since version 2 and am the person
who brought CF into our architecture as a keystone technology.
In all of that time, I've *never* had the problems I've had
with installing version 7 to a number of servers in my research
laboratory. I'm a paying client who has serious investment in
Coldfusion through quite a serious chunk of my enterprise. I'm the
corporate webmaster for my company, and to be honest, I'm less than
pleased with this inferior release and seeming inability of
Abobe/Macromedia to insure quality control on ALL apsects of their
operation.
I have just spent the last 3 days in a knock-down drag out
battle with my simple Windows XP dev laptop to install the product
for a project I'd like to work on. Similarly, a number of my
laboratory systems have had equally interesting issues with their
installation process and once again, equally unacceptable results
until I arm-wrestled these systems into place.
So... For the benefit of those who have been around the block
like myself, I offer some of my experience:
1. Use install disks rather than the horrid download that
flat DOES NOT WORK from Macromedia for "tryout" of product... What
a waste of time and effort. The effect of this has been to turn off
many prospective customers and fans of the product. Who is driving
the boat on this disasterous course and quality control issue? Is
this some kind of "drive the customer" away ploy for some new
product or platform to be offered?
2. Followed instructions at
http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_19575
- This finally worked IF you pay detailed attention to every last
detail. You can "borrow" jrun.dll from another successful install
of CF 7 if you can get your hands on the DLL or go spend more time
learning how to extract the file as noted in some of the
literature, which, to a paying customer, should be documented in
detail with the article... Quit sending people on wild-goose
chases.
3. Once install occured for me on laptop, I had problems with
the login for cfide/admin - The migration wizard would not let me
go further. It always returned me back to login prompt. I looked
into the matter further and decided to "borrow" the neo-query.xml
file from a seasoned system and use it on my laptop to kick-start
the final part of my install. This worked and I now can control my
server.
Summary: I've fought version 7 from day one. My advice is to
abandon downloads from Macromedia on the product and go with
requesting install disks that actually do give you a shot at making
the product work. Secondly, realize that there may be other issues
with the install once you do get the product to communicate with
your server and be willing to research the issues, since, once you
find the answers, the product actually works pretty nicely.
Thirdly, Write letters like I am doing now to tell Macromedia/Abobe
how you feel about this inferior and totally unacceptable
installation procedure and to improve the quality of their download
trials.
Personally, I think there should be a kit made available with
a full copy of the CFusionMX7 directory set up as a virgin and
workable install to fix the rash of issues out there. If not
available from Macromedia, then I'd suggest that it be made
available on user Coldfusion forums and sites to ease the pain and
let the bloody system work for those who just want to build cool
things with what has always been the superior web development
toolset.
I love Coldfusion, but if this is the future, I certainly
know my options with Blue Dragon and other platforms... I'd hate to
lose my confidence in Adobe/Macromedia, but this latest set of
issues has me wondering exactly what is going on over at the
Coldfusion labs...
I hope my experience and advice help others who may be going
through the same challenges I have faced...
Jon

Answer 1

Jon,
As another long time CF Admin/Dev I second everything you've
said here..
I've been using the CFMX/JRun mix for years now and love it;
but I'm always finding myself spending way too much valuable time
looking through these boards for solutions.
I particularly like the idea of setting up a 'kit' with a
full dir structure, etc. - That would be a great idea for newer
users.. I'd also like to see better commenting or readmes that
fully explain the configuration options for all files - such as all
of the xml files under the WEB-INF dir..
There have been a few too many times that I've looked in the
documentation only to have it tell me to get a book for 'advanced
config options' - and I wouldn't consider any of what I'm looking
to do to be 'advanced'.. thank god for Ben Forta!
-mw