PowerQuest Download

[Shooter]

Here's a little tale of woe:

To avoid a trip to town, I bought and downloaded some software
electronically from PowerQuest (part of Symantec). The file arrived as an
..iso image file, with instructions saying it could only work if I burned it
to a CDR!

Being out of blank CDRs, I had to make the trip to town I was trying to
avoid.

The software is specifically for Win XP, but the readme then advises that
XPs software can't burn an .ISO image file, and I need a third party CD
burner such as Nero. Now I haven't got a full version of Nero, so I messed
up the original CDR.

So a second trip to town to get another blank CDR, and then a long search on
the Internet to find a workaround. Eventually I found a little powertool
that enables Win XP to burn .iso images to CD.

So I pay for the download, then make 2 trips to town and also have to buy 2
CDRs to get it working.

Now this is what really takes the biscuit - I paid an extra £10 or so with
the electronic download to have the software also mailed to me on a CD for
backup purposes.

Any suggestions (pref. amusing and offensive) as to the contents of my
e-mail to PowerQuest / Symantec?

 

[William B. Lurie]

Here's a little tale of woe:

To avoid a trip to town, I bought and downloaded some software
electronically from PowerQuest (part of Symantec). The file arrived as an
.iso image file, with instructions saying it could only work if I burned it
to a CDR!

Being out of blank CDRs, I had to make the trip to town I was trying to
avoid.

The software is specifically for Win XP, but the readme then advises that
XPs software can't burn an .ISO image file, and I need a third party CD
burner such as Nero. Now I haven't got a full version of Nero, so I messed
up the original CDR.

So a second trip to town to get another blank CDR, and then a long search on
the Internet to find a workaround. Eventually I found a little powertool
that enables Win XP to burn .iso images to CD.

So I pay for the download, then make 2 trips to town and also have to buy 2
CDRs to get it working.

Now this is what really takes the biscuit - I paid an extra £10 or so with
the electronic download to have the software also mailed to me on a CD for
backup purposes.

Any suggestions (pref. amusing and offensive) as to the contents of my
e-mail to PowerQuest / Symantec?

I'll tell you an amusing sidelight. Wait until you contact Symantec
Support, to get information on how to uninstall something of theirs.
I mean, after you wind through the labyrinth of instructions on how
to report your problem.

I have their Norton System Works with a problem, and they want me to
do a 'full uninstall' in order to be able to reload it. Their
instructions, fully printed out (because you could never follow
them interactively) ran to over 25 pages. I just gave up; I'll live
with the fact that the Norton Utilities component of the package
can not be updated. And of course, the error messages while it is
running but runs into trouble are typically unintelligible. Like,
"LU1848--Couldn't create callback object". You will find that their
Tech Support people (in India) have been taught to have infinite
patience. Good luck!

 

[Justme]

I would send a letter complaining about them not giving you a heads up on
what is required if you choose the download version of the software.
Powerquest should have some type of warning when you choose the download
version that a cd burner and special software is required before ever making
the purchase. As for your trips to town I have a hard time imagining anyone
with a cd burner driving any distance and then purchasing just 1 cd-r. I've
never tried to do that and wasn't aware you could purchase just 1. You
could have just waited for the software to be delivered.

 

[Shooter]

Hi William,

Ref:

I have their Norton System Works with a problem, and they want me to
do a 'full uninstall' in order to be able to reload it. Their
instructions, fully printed out (because you could never follow
them interactively) ran to over 25 pages.

25 pages to do an uninstall - almost unbelievable - they should provide a
tool. Norton antivirus is excellent though - unbeatable as a standalone.
But I don't like their packages, they're too invasive.

In my particular case it's probably not worth the time and effort making a
big fuss, as we're only talking about ~ £50. But an electronic download
really ought to work from the local machine without requiring a blank CDR
plus third party software to burn it. If it had stated this at the point of
purchase, I wouldn't have made the purchase!

So I'll wait for this thread to build - in the public domain - and then send
it to Symantec / PowerQuest by way of complaint ;-)

Any more (must be true and honest) Symantec / PowerQuest gripes out there?

Best wishes

Shooter

 

[William B. Lurie]

Hi, Shooter....
It is indeed unbelievable, but they have prepared
document after document, telling you how to do this
part of the uninstall, and that part, and then there
are links to the various special tools that it
requires, and pages of registry items to be found and
deleted, and they have done actually a tremendously
thorough job. So thorough, that I would not consider
following it. I've considered putting the 25 pages on
my website as a graphic illustration for all to see,
of how not to conduct customer relations and technical
service.

In my case in point, the disease is that it will 'Live
Update' everything except their own Norton Utilities
segment of the package. So I have decided to live
with the disease until the end of the year. Then I
will deactivate their package as well as I can, and
seek a more reasonable supplier of Anti-Virus software.
-------------------------------------------------------
Shooter wrote:
Hi William,

I have their Norton System Works with a problem, and they want me to

25 pages to do an uninstall - almost unbelievable - they should provide a
tool. Norton antivirus is excellent though - unbeatable as a standalone.
But I don't like their packages, they're too invasive.

In my particular case it's probably not worth the time and effort making a
big fuss, as we're only talking about ~ £50. But an electronic download
really ought to work from the local machine without requiring a blank CDR
plus third party software to burn it. If it had stated this at the point of
purchase, I wouldn't have made the purchase!

So I'll wait for this thread to build - in the public domain - and then send
it to Symantec / PowerQuest by way of complaint ;-)

You will not find that simple to do. Just wading through
the maze of input selections they provide is already
discouraging, no doubt by intent.

Any more (must be true and honest) Symantec / PowerQuest gripes out there?

Best wishes

Shooter

Shooter wrote:


an

it

that

messed

search on

powertool

buy 2

 

[Shooter]

Yep - it's always silly to buy just 1 CDR - but you can buy them
individually in the UK.

Regarding waiting for the software to be delivered - it was critical
software (DriveImage 7) needed immediately because I suspected my hard drive
was about to fail - a few funny noises you see.

So I had the option to go out and find it in a store, or download it.
Delivery was the very last option. But as you've read, I opted to have the
CD delivered as well as a backup measure.

But given that I was forced to copy it to CD in any case - this was wasted
money - and it still isn't here.

I'm pleased to report that the hard drive hasn't crashed (yet) - but at
least I have some security in place Justme.

 

[Shooter]

p.s. You must be American - who mentioned 'driving' into town ;-)

We often walk into town in the UK.

It's a small place. I live in London, but I frequently take a stroll to
Glasgow for a few bits and bobs.

;-)

 

[Shooter]

Ref:

"You will not find that simple to do. Just wading through
the maze of input selections they provide is already
discouraging, no doubt by intent."

Many thanks. O.K. - if it turns out to be harder to submit a complaint than
to request a charge back from my credit card company - I'll do the latter.
Maybe more folks should do this.

Best wishes

Hi, Shooter....
It is indeed unbelievable, but they have prepared
document after document, telling you how to do this
part of the uninstall, and that part, and then there
are links to the various special tools that it
requires, and pages of registry items to be found and
deleted, and they have done actually a tremendously
thorough job. So thorough, that I would not consider
following it. I've considered putting the 25 pages on
my website as a graphic illustration for all to see,
of how not to conduct customer relations and technical
service.

In my case in point, the disease is that it will 'Live
Update' everything except their own Norton Utilities
segment of the package. So I have decided to live
with the disease until the end of the year. Then I
will deactivate their package as well as I can, and
seek a more reasonable supplier of Anti-Virus software.
-------------------------------------------------------
Shooter wrote:
Hi William,

I have their Norton System Works with a problem, and they want me to

25 pages to do an uninstall - almost unbelievable - they should provide a
tool. Norton antivirus is excellent though - unbeatable as a standalone.
But I don't like their packages, they're too invasive.

In my particular case it's probably not worth the time and effort making a
big fuss, as we're only talking about ~ £50. But an electronic download
really ought to work from the local machine without requiring a blank CDR
plus third party software to burn it. If it had stated this at the point of
purchase, I wouldn't have made the purchase!

So I'll wait for this thread to build - in the public domain - and then send
it to Symantec / PowerQuest by way of complaint ;-)

You will not find that simple to do. Just wading through
the maze of input selections they provide is already
discouraging, no doubt by intent.

 

[Justme]

You are correct, not too many stores close enough to walk to. I have DI 7
and discovered a shortfall with it compared to DI 2002, which is included
with DI 7. While the image creation worked fine I found out that you cannot
restore to a smaller size disk, regardless of the image size. I had a 120gb
drive with only 10gb used and could not restore that image to a 60gb disk.
The technical folks at Powerquest said that DI 7 won't restore to a smaller
disk and to try DI 2002. Well DI 2002 works just fine regardless of disk
size. I have just downloaded the upgrade to my 7.0 version and will
probably test it some time soon to see if they fixed that problem.
I guess it would not be normal to go from a larger to a smaller disk but I
have quite a few in removable drive trays and it's common for me to move
from larger to smaller.
I do like the product and think it has one of the most user friendly
interfaces of the imaging software's out there.

 

[Jim Macklin]

I usually buy CD-Rs by the spindle, I'm getting low, only
about 50 left.


| Here's a little tale of woe:
|
| To avoid a trip to town, I bought and downloaded some
software
| electronically from PowerQuest (part of Symantec). The
file arrived as an
| .iso image file, with instructions saying it could only
work if I burned it
| to a CDR!
|
| Being out of blank CDRs, I had to make the trip to town I
was trying to
| avoid.
|
| The software is specifically for Win XP, but the readme
then advises that
| XPs software can't burn an .ISO image file, and I need a
third party CD
| burner such as Nero. Now I haven't got a full version of
Nero, so I messed
| up the original CDR.
|
| So a second trip to town to get another blank CDR, and
then a long search on
| the Internet to find a workaround. Eventually I found a
little powertool
| that enables Win XP to burn .iso images to CD.
|
| So I pay for the download, then make 2 trips to town and
also have to buy 2
| CDRs to get it working.
|
| Now this is what really takes the biscuit - I paid an
extra £10 or so with
| the electronic download to have the software also mailed
to me on a CD for
| backup purposes.
|
| Any suggestions (pref. amusing and offensive) as to the
contents of my
| e-mail to PowerQuest / Symantec?
|
|

 

[William B. Lurie]

I usually buy CD-Rs by the spindle, I'm getting low, only
about 50 left.

Not only that....but spindles of 50 or 100 go on sale

quite frequently....with full mail-in rebate.....if you
can still find them on the shelf when you get to the shelf,
a minute after the store's doors open.

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

You are foolish enough to buy 1 CD-R disk at a time? Then you deserve what
you experience!

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Father Guido]

Here's a little tale of woe:

To avoid a trip to town, I bought and downloaded some software
electronically from PowerQuest (part of Symantec). The file arrived as an
.iso image file, with instructions saying it could only work if I burned it
to a CDR!

Being out of blank CDRs, I had to make the trip to town I was trying to
avoid.

The software is specifically for Win XP, but the readme then advises that
XPs software can't burn an .ISO image file, and I need a third party CD
burner such as Nero. Now I haven't got a full version of Nero, so I messed
up the original CDR.

So a second trip to town to get another blank CDR, and then a long search on
the Internet to find a workaround. Eventually I found a little powertool
that enables Win XP to burn .iso images to CD.

So I pay for the download, then make 2 trips to town and also have to buy 2
CDRs to get it working.

Now this is what really takes the biscuit - I paid an extra £10 or so with
the electronic download to have the software also mailed to me on a CD for
backup purposes.

Any suggestions (pref. amusing and offensive) as to the contents of my
e-mail to PowerQuest / Symantec?

When you go to town, buy more than one CDR. 8^)

 

[Father Guido]

You will find that their
Tech Support people (in India) have been taught to have infinite
patience. Good luck!

They helped me OK.

 

[Father Guido]

Hi William,

Ref:


25 pages to do an uninstall - almost unbelievable - they should provide a
tool.

I uninstalled SystemWorks using the Add/Remove programs option of XP.
How could it get any simpler than that?

 

[William B. Lurie]

provide a



I uninstalled SystemWorks using the Add/Remove programs option of XP.
How could it get any simpler than that?

Congratulations to you, Father Guido! The Add/Remove worked for you.
There are obviously flaws or incompatibilities which prevent a
clean uninstall in some cases. If you read their documentation (a
portion of which I provided) you might see that they have ostensibly
observed that the simple Add/Remove is not adequate in some cases.

 

[Shooter]

"The technical folks at Powerquest said that DI 7 won't restore to a smaller
disk "

That's extremely useful info Justme - I'll make a mental note of that.