The new (forced) UnitedPlugins ​Manager is terrible

[SiliconDeath]

I've been enjoying some of the UnitedPlugins (especially JMG plugins), but for some reason out of nowhere, UnitedPlugins decided to take the Melda stance, and now only way for me to download updates for plugins is to use some bloatware installer/manager

I call it bloatware because it's forced on me, there's no option to download updates without installing this (yet another) plugin manager. What's worse it doesn't seem to have detection for existing/already installed plugins, and it's bad if you have individual plugins vst2, and others vst3, because it forces you to download both versions for all (if you want to use v2 or v3 or certain plugins), since if you select/delect plugins you want to install vst and vst3, it will assume you want non-selected plugins uninstalled and just automatically removes them, giving no way to have mix of vst2 and vst3

Basically, this is plugin manager thing is probably something nobody asked, but just like Melda, they just had to force this down our throats. If only they offered option to manually download also, but no they are now forcing all new plugin updates to be handled through this terrible manager, no way for doing this manually. This is just so bad how did they think this would be good idea?

[telecharge]

FWIW, I can still download individual installers under "My Licences"

united-plugins.png

[e@rs]

Unfortunately those are not the latest versions.

[0degree]

Oh great, another useless download manager nobody asked for. I don't uderstand why devs are doing this

[FatGuy]

This is frustrating. Another unnecessary step just to install my plugins. One of the reasons I chose both Melda and UP was because of their simple installer systems, and now they've gone down this path. They should definitely offer users the option to use the older system. I’m really annoyed by these changes from companies.

If anyone from Melda or UP sees this, PLEASE bring back the old, straightforward installers!

[Held]

Keeping my plugins up to date manually was a pain. I prefer the downloader.

[DNAudio]

Oh great, another useless download manager nobody asked for. I don't uderstand why devs are doing this

Same in the gaming industry, but thank GOD it seems some of those launchers are starting to die out.

My preferred installation method is a damn .vst3 file to place in my plugins folder. Call me a boomer but I find this the simplest and most straightforwards way

[_leras]

Oh great, another useless download manager nobody asked for. I don't uderstand why devs are doing this

To make it easier to install, update and manage plugs ins when people have multiple plug ins from a single company of course.

Could you imagine trying to manually keep everything in e.g. NI Komplete up to date without one? You wouldn't even know what had been updated and what has not.

I haven't used the one in question, but am glad I have them available from other companies.

You'd really rather install everything manually. What a luddite. Get with the times. It's 2025.

U-he don't have one (for example), but have individual installers, and are a pain to install compared to NI, arturias, plug in alliance even...

[diroxe7660]

Does anyone know where/if they keep release notes? I can't find anything for FirePresser.

[plexuss]

Thanks for the reminder to install this. I like plugin managers, I find them way more convienent than more manual ways. It worked fine for me for intalling VST3 and AU on my mac. Thanks UnitedPlugins for the downloader.

[Morty-C-137]

Oh great, another useless download manager nobody asked for. I don't uderstand why devs are doing this

To make it easier to install, update and manage plugs ins when people have multiple plug ins from a single company of course.

Could you imagine trying to manually keep everything in e.g. NI Komplete up to date without one? You wouldn't even know what had been updated and what has not.

I haven't used the one in question, but am glad I have them available from other companies.

You'd really rather install everything manually. What a luddite. Get with the times. It's 2025.

U-he don't have one (for example), but have individual installers, and are a pain to install compared to NI, arturias, plug in alliance even...

The PA one is pretty useless though as it doesn’t tell you if there’s an update. It’s just an installer app.

[Dombaeb]

When you, as developer, has more than 3 plugins you must make flawlessly working installer. It’s cool. Nothing wrong about that. It’s much more convenient than install and update dozens of plugins one by one.

[mothra]

Oh great, another useless download manager nobody asked for. I don't uderstand why devs are doing this

To make it easier to install, update and manage plugs ins when people have multiple plug ins from a single company of course.

Could you imagine trying to manually keep everything in e.g. NI Komplete up to date without one? You wouldn't even know what had been updated and what has not.

I haven't used the one in question, but am glad I have them available from other companies.

You'd really rather install everything manually. What a luddite. Get with the times. It's 2025.

U-he don't have one (for example), but have individual installers, and are a pain to install compared to NI, arturias, plug in alliance even...

Looking at you EVENTIDE!!! I have so many and gave up, and now I just download the gigantic Anthology installer and go through unchecking the ones I down own. Having to grab the individual installers for each and every one of those on its own was a nightmare.

A PSP one would be nice too!

[0degree]

Oh great, another useless download manager nobody asked for. I don't uderstand why devs are doing this

You'd really rather install everything manually. What a luddite. Get with the times. It's 2025.

U-he don't have one (for example), but have individual installers, and are a pain to install compared to NI, arturias, plug in alliance even...

Let me give a real life example of how amazing managers/download assistants are in 2025. I own only 3 Steinberg products and I'm forced to use their fanstastic download assistant. Since I have a fresh windows 11 installation today I was forced to use this tool so I did and during the installation it crashed my machine because something went wrong with elicenser driver. After that I couln't authenticate my PC because the auth URL from the web didn't open the license manager so after wasting 2 hours I finally found a solution on their forums to manually delete whatever was left by the installer. Finally it opened up so I thought I could download my plugins (after all it's a downloader manager!) and guess what - I can't download anything because of some other bug (https://forums.steinberg.net/t/steinber ... /954234/36). I still can't get and use my software and will have to waste some more time to make it work.
The other day Native Access has crashed and again I needed to do some hacks to uninstall some of the plugins to make it work again.
No to mention if you use plugins from different companies you'll have tons of different installers/managers and quite often they come with installed services that run in the background doing who knows what and wasting your PC resources.

So yeah, amazing "times"!

[Dombaeb]

Softube is real example of amazing manager. You can install/update/uninstall plugins, it’s always showing actual license information and all the stuff.

Steinberg manager is awful from any perspective. Native Access would be great if they add uninstall option, but it’s not there yet so it’s still sucks.

So, in total, Softube one is the king.

Oh great, another useless download manager nobody asked for. I don't uderstand why devs are doing this

You'd really rather install everything manually. What a luddite. Get with the times. It's 2025.

U-he don't have one (for example), but have individual installers, and are a pain to install compared to NI, arturias, plug in alliance even...

Let me give a real life example of how amazing managers/download assistants are in 2025. I own only 3 Steinberg products and I'm forced to use their fanstastic download assistant. Since I have a fresh windows 11 installation today I was forced to use this tool so I did and during the installation it crashed my machine because something went wrong with elicenser driver. After that I couln't authenticate my PC because the auth URL from the web didn't open the license manager so after wasting 2 hours I finally found a solution on their forums to manually delete whatever was left by the installer. Finally it opened up so I thought I could download my plugins (after all it's a downloader manager!) and guess what - I can't download anything because of some other bug (https://forums.steinberg.net/t/steinber ... /954234/36). I still can't get and use my software and will have to waste some more time to make it work.
The other day Native Access has crashed and again I needed to do some hacks to uninstall some of the plugins to make it work again.
No to mention if you use plugins from different companies you'll have tons of different installers/managers and quite often they come with installed services that run in the background doing who knows what and wasting your PC resources.

So yeah, amazing "times"!