UNCTUOUS
29th Apr 2004, 08:54
Here's a REAL Money-saving hint for you
Stay away from Scansoft Products. Why? Well here's a little story for you.
I bought their ScanSoft PDF Converter and installed it and very shortly afterwards my desktop crashed (unknown reasons but it had been operating very well for quite a few months). I usually don't find that any great hassle as I'm used to the MS Restore function malfunctioning and I usually just paste a Norton Ghosted copy over the top, reinstall a few programs and I'm back in business.
Didn't work this time around however (freezes, hang-ups, slowdowns and eventual BSOD on boot) and PDF converter did not work upon re-install either.
Still, no great drama because I habitually keep the boot-drive hard disk totally free of any data and just use it for the OS and installed programs. Like many people who cannot afford to be off the air (or have frequent computer hassles) - or who are "road warriors", I have a laptop and I configure it so that I can seamlessly carry on with that whilst the other machine (desktop usually) is brought back up to speed (which as you know can take some time).
In the interim I installed the PDF converter on my laptop because I needed to use it. I got three uses (actually not "uses" as such, just program entries) before it demanded activation (whereupon I got the message "installed on too many machines" and the only clickable option became "exit"). At this stage it wasn't resident upon the desktop that was being reinstalled (but had been some time before its reformatting).
I was presented with the only option of long-distance ringing the $33 Scansoft User Support line and they maintained that they had a full record of my installation attempts and claimed that it just wasn't feasible that anybody should need to install it three times over such a short period and, horror of horrors, on two different machines. I explained in great detail just why that was and they told me politely that it wasn't company policy to authorize reactivation in these circumstances. So $159 later and no use out of it - and I was just out of luck. You can hear the smirk in their voice. And all that getting hot under the collar with them achieves is that they hang up on you - and it would cost another $33 to call them back for another "support call" (if you were silly enough to). No talkees before credit card authorisation (which all takes time when you're on hold on long distance). I knew that businesses would soon find something mch more profitable than the penny-ante 1900 numbers to scam you with - and Scamsoft has done it....
So if you are a true masochist and enjoy this sort of customer abuse, by all means buy their products. If not, steer clear by a country mile. There are viable shareware alternatives and I daresay I shall be exploring and exploiting those. Meanwhile my ScanSoft PDF Converter original disk has now become a coffee-mug depository. HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH IT? I do so look forward to their demise.
Oh, and the other thing is that it won't work with all PDF files. It is highly format dependent - but they only tell you that in the post-install readme (and program entry after installation counts as "use" number one (of the limited number you get before enforced activation)). Wot a gyp......
Stay away from Scansoft Products. Why? Well here's a little story for you.
I bought their ScanSoft PDF Converter and installed it and very shortly afterwards my desktop crashed (unknown reasons but it had been operating very well for quite a few months). I usually don't find that any great hassle as I'm used to the MS Restore function malfunctioning and I usually just paste a Norton Ghosted copy over the top, reinstall a few programs and I'm back in business.
Didn't work this time around however (freezes, hang-ups, slowdowns and eventual BSOD on boot) and PDF converter did not work upon re-install either.
Still, no great drama because I habitually keep the boot-drive hard disk totally free of any data and just use it for the OS and installed programs. Like many people who cannot afford to be off the air (or have frequent computer hassles) - or who are "road warriors", I have a laptop and I configure it so that I can seamlessly carry on with that whilst the other machine (desktop usually) is brought back up to speed (which as you know can take some time).
In the interim I installed the PDF converter on my laptop because I needed to use it. I got three uses (actually not "uses" as such, just program entries) before it demanded activation (whereupon I got the message "installed on too many machines" and the only clickable option became "exit"). At this stage it wasn't resident upon the desktop that was being reinstalled (but had been some time before its reformatting).
I was presented with the only option of long-distance ringing the $33 Scansoft User Support line and they maintained that they had a full record of my installation attempts and claimed that it just wasn't feasible that anybody should need to install it three times over such a short period and, horror of horrors, on two different machines. I explained in great detail just why that was and they told me politely that it wasn't company policy to authorize reactivation in these circumstances. So $159 later and no use out of it - and I was just out of luck. You can hear the smirk in their voice. And all that getting hot under the collar with them achieves is that they hang up on you - and it would cost another $33 to call them back for another "support call" (if you were silly enough to). No talkees before credit card authorisation (which all takes time when you're on hold on long distance). I knew that businesses would soon find something mch more profitable than the penny-ante 1900 numbers to scam you with - and Scamsoft has done it....
So if you are a true masochist and enjoy this sort of customer abuse, by all means buy their products. If not, steer clear by a country mile. There are viable shareware alternatives and I daresay I shall be exploring and exploiting those. Meanwhile my ScanSoft PDF Converter original disk has now become a coffee-mug depository. HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH IT? I do so look forward to their demise.
Oh, and the other thing is that it won't work with all PDF files. It is highly format dependent - but they only tell you that in the post-install readme (and program entry after installation counts as "use" number one (of the limited number you get before enforced activation)). Wot a gyp......