Registering TT Fonts freezes SB installer

Hi,

I am giving up on installing and registering TT fonts from SB because it just looks bad when potential customers call me to say that the install is not finishing and the last file being copied is the TT font before it freezes.
This is not to suggest that this problem is SB's fault. I am just bringing this up so that others that experience this may know about it and maybe SB could find a workaround design to deal with this problem.

This is what I know at this point:
1. My installer is using the latest SB 6.9.2581
2. I've seen this lock-up happen now on both Vista and XP installs.
3. It doesn't happen to all vista/xp boxes... in fact it probably happens very infrequently. It is hard to say exactly because I may not always getting calls from prospects who want to tell me that my install is not working.
4. On Vista, the lockup I experienced was related to the Windows Sidebar on my pc. IOW, whatever the Windows Sidebar is doing, it is causing SB to not be able to register the TT font. Maybe it was a specific gadget on the sidebar that is interfering with the Font Register API? Don't know... just know that it does happen on some systems.
5. On XP... the lockup just started happening recently. I have no explanation for this, but a customer called me on it and I replicated the issue on one of two of my XP boxes. I tried shutting down all running services to see if I could identify a conflict on my xp box, but I was unsuccessful.

I want to emphasize that I don't believe SB is to blame here. I think that the Font Registration API is susceptible to getting hung or tied up by another process and that this may cause the installer to stop and wait indefinitely for the OS to register the font. Since this looks horrible to the end-user, I am going to abandon this font registering on my demo installs because it causes me potential sales.

What I'd like to see to remedy this problem in the future? Maybe SB could come up with a way to identify the lengthy registering of the font file and simply skip the font file in question. IOW, if it takes more than 20 sec. to register, it is likely never going to register so popup a message and give the customer the option to continue without registering the font. I don't know how realistic something like this is, but it would be nice if there was some exit strategy during the installation versus being stuck indefinitely.

Later,
Doug