Client: Windows app needs polishing

[TinoDidriksen]

The website is really nice and useful, but the Windows app needs a lot of polishing before I'll want to keep it installed.

• You install a virtual drive by default. DON'T DO THAT. This should be optional during install and default to not selected. Ideally just use a monitored folder like Google Drive and Dropbox do. Regardless, the rest of the app should function without this.
• The virtual drive is persistent, even if the governing process is killed. There must be a way to unmount this without rebooting. Again, just use a folder.
• You make the app start automatically. DON'T. This should be optional during install and possible to disable later.
• The GUI can't start if the background services aren't running. Have the GUI manage the services when needed.
• Quit doesn't. Quit should close ALL Keybase related processes, ideally also the services. If I'm not using the app, just go away.

For now, the Windows app is uninstalled and I have no desire to install Keybase apps anywhere else since other tickets show similar and worse problems for other platforms, going back at least 6 months. Don't advocate installing the app until it's ready for use in a non-intrusive way.

[maxtaco]

Thanks for the feedback. Cc: @zanderz

[zanderz]

Are there any actionable items on here that are not as designed @maxtaco ?

As far as not running at startup, one can move the shortcuts from %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup and start them manually instead..

[TinoDidriksen]

If everything is "as designed", then the design is flat out wrong. I was originally going to compare it to malware tactics, but felt that was a bit strong for things that you probably didn't mean to do. If your intention was to do these intrusive things from the start, that's a much bigger issue.

A security-minded app that takes over your system without so much as notifying you about it in the installer? Immediate failure of trust. And I am not the only one to complain about these things, from what I can see.

Manually fiddling with shortcuts is not good enough. It should be possible to disable and enable this from the GUI.

[danvctr]

@maxtaco @zanderz I just found this issue after searching for "unmounting kbfs" on Google, and I had the exact same thoughts as @TinoDidriksen before I read his posts.

I love what this project is doing -- but the Windows app needs some serious attention...

[valtron]

And right-clicking the context menu icon should open a normal menu (with "Quit" at the bottom) rather than this:

[peteraldous]

There's an option in the settings to disable launch at startup, but no way to start it minimized. Many users leave their computers suspended to disk or to memory, so this doesn't affect them. However, those of us who shut our computers down have to deal with a window popping up after startup and stealing focus.

My specific suggestion is to replace the check box with a drop-down menu with three options: No, Yes (minimized), and Yes.

[zanderz]

It should start minimized if it was minimized at shutdown, otherwise there is a bug in this existing mechanism. Will check it out, thanks.
A lot of this other stuff in the original issue has been changed, too: services now close when app closes (or will on next release), installing drive mount is optional, GUI control for not starting at startup will soon be shipped, etc.

[peteraldous]

A point of clarification: when I said minimized, I actually meant in the system tray (and not in the taskbar at all). Maybe the drop-down menu needs a fourth option :)