DefragExpress Launched

Banshee,

I've forwarded your information to management and received an answer that they'll look into it. I'm pretty sure you'll receive your refund shortly - don't worry about it.

 

Hi Isso

Thanks for the response and all the suggestions (in case I forget to say so).

In terms of my suggested next step I was thinking more in terms of performance due to better file placement, etc., rather than better defragmentation. Would a further tilt at it with 2nd & 3rd options checked give me that or would the performance improvement be marginal...I do not have any worry about time at present?

I am running Win XP SP3 WITH System Restore but given what you say about there not being a problem with that OS I will save the information for when I get moved to Vista (hopefully not) or WIndows 7 (hopefully yes).

In terms of the possibility of a file system corruption I will run chkdsk and if that reveals something I will try a correction and then a 'Thorough' with NO sub options & "Exclude files greater than" unchecked...and see what that gives.

I am still interested in knowing about the possible benefits of a 'Thorough' with 2nd & 3rd options checked, though.

Cheers




Balders

PS. Hope that you have a peaceful and restful weekend!

 

Hi Isso

Assuming that I shell out for a license for DE and then decide (having got into this defragging lark a bit more) that I would like to use UD2009 as and when it comes out (given it will have a number of additional options), could you ask management if there is a plan to offer an upgrade path (on favourable terms, of course ) from DE to UD2009?

Would be go to know and a factor in deciding how to go forward.

Cheers



Balders

PS. And a BIG, BIG thank you for all your help so far...it has made a great difference and inspires confidence.

 

Just a thought.Would this be more effective if it was ran in safe mode?

 

Isso,

Thanks, let me know when they are done "looking into it".They have been at it for over a month now.

 

Hi Balders,

Once you completed a single pass with second and third options checked there is no point in doing it again now. You may do it a couple of weeks later. For subsequent defrags use only the first option checked. Actually >90% of optimization is a good result. But I'm still worried about that dozen of files that remained fragmented. If you by any chance decide to try UltimateDefrag please run an analyze pass, select Volume information and send a screenshot of fragmented files list to me - I'd really like to know which files are remaining fragmented.

As for upgrade plan from DE to UD - I'll ask management, although I suspect that because of low DE price they won't offer significant discount.

P.S. You are very welcome Balders and thank you for all the positive posts! I'll be happy to answer any further questions.

 

The only problem here, seems to be with management. First a user wants a refund and its been taking over a month. Second a user wants more than a 7 day trial and it's up to management.

The product seems to be great and working as it should but the management seems to be making it look worse. I am wondering if Rob F purposely sent the developer instead of himself to avoid these management questions.

Thanks for coming to answer questions Isso, i have nothing against your product but the company behind it seems to be giving it a bad reputation. I hope they are treating you well. Is it still in the plans to fix the boot-time module or are you just trying to release UD 2009?

 

Yes, because that didn't hurt the product before.........Don't blame DE, blame management.

 

rookieman,

The advantage of the safe mode is that you have a minimum number of processes running and thus there is little interference of them with the defragmenter. So yes - in theory defragmentation will be faster and resulting layout will be better. But in reality - considering the time that double restarting takes - the advantages are rendered minimal. So if you have enough free time then yes - just go ahead and defrag in safe mode.

 

Coolio10,

Thank you for being positive on the program. As for the management: first - I can assure you that I decided to come here myself, it's just interesting for me to talk about the programs that I wrote. Second - all the features of these products - including round disk metaphor, various defragmenting methods, file placement options, and everything else that sets them apart from other defraggers are his inventions. And finally Rob is the most honest person I've ever had a chance to work with and I'm honored to cooperate with him.

The only problem is that he has too little free time to work on both promotion and support. I'm sad to hear that company reputation is suffering because of it, but it's his business and I think he knows it better than me.

Good news is that he agreed to extend the trial to 14 days, so I think you'll soon have a new release with some minor changes we are going to make and with extended trial.

 

This topic is interesting me - as for DE I used a new protection scheme and now I'm wondering how much time hackers will need to crack it. I estimate it to take them a month or so. After that I'm planning to have a better protection.

 

Does this defrag program have a vss compatibility mode??

 

I just ran this program on my Vista Home premium and this is the results I got.
It started at 49.95 and when it ended I was at 99.61.I used default settings and it took 26.51 minutes!So if this is correct my other defragger wasn't doing half the job?To make the best of it I ran my other defragger just before I ran DefragExpress.I'm going to try this on my other computer which is 3 years old and see what the results will be.

 

hawki,

Good question. No we haven't added VSS compatability mode yet, so on VSS-enabled volumes the defragmenting may take longer time. We are planning to add VSS compatibility mode in a couple of weeks, but please note the following:

VSS and defragmentation aren't doing well together. VSS compatibility mode significantly reduces the defragmentation flexibity and effectively prevents using any file placement optimization (this applies to all defraggers, including Diskeeper that first introduced VSS-aware mode). Moreover - even in that mode the defragmentation process is slower - compared to volumes that don't have VSS enabled.


So - VSS compatibilty mode is not solving the problem and the only way to get decently defragmented drives is to turn VSS off during defragmentation. This is a Windows Vista (and Windows 2003) issue and applies to all defraggers, not only DE.

 

rookieman,

You are correct - your previous defragmenter wasn't defragging properly, 50% of optimization is a rather low result. It means there is lot of file and/or free space fragmentation.

 

It won't work. they will "fix" it anyway.The only thing you can do is "improve" support imo which at the moment is nonexistent..that way potential customers will feel safe in the knowledge that they can expect some help.As it is now ppl who are interested in the software and want to test it "100 money back guarantee no questions asked" have no choice but to go the piratebay route.

You can't complain you are losing money because of pirates when you ignore your customers.And all these excuses for not getting back to your customers are hogwash.

 

Banshee,

Your refund has been processed - please confirm.

I know that they will eventually crack it, but at the time they will I'm planning to have a new version with new protection. We'll see who wins - I like challenges.

As for improving support - of course I agree with you. And I don't compain about losing money - I just try to make protection that is hard to crack - that's all.

 

Well if symantec could change their reputation, i am sure you can

 

This was the results on my second computer.It started at 62.72 and ended at 99.92.
To bad I missed the trial change from 7 to 14 days.It was 7 when I installed it on my own computer and when i tried it on my son's it changed to 14 days.

 

Thanks, Isso
Your predicament is understandable.

 

Protection Plus 4 hmmm...

Ok, it took me 1 hour, including finding a guide (in flash) and installing the required tools. And I'm no cracker, this was the first time I did something like this (was just curious). Using the guide it was a no-brainer. So for a professional cracker it would be 10s dumping the file and 5 minutes fixing imports and header sections. So much for protection.

 

khagaroth,

I know that Protection Plus is a piece of cake to crack. But for DE it's basically used only for order processing. The program won't defrag properly if cracked and this is what I think will take some time for hackers to find a workaround.

 

Hi Isso,Is there a way I can use the 14 day trial?I missed the change day trial by about 20 mins.

 

rookieman,

I'm not sure - it's Rob's area of competence. I would just suggest uninstall the old version and install the new one. If it doesn't help then I suppose there is no way, sorry.

 

OK, so will use 'Thorough' + Sub opt 1 checked as the usual approach but give 'Thorough' + Sub opts 2 & 3 checked a whirl every month or so.

I have UD v1.72 Free also installed on the same rig (was trying it out before DE was released) so is will try what you ask and PM the list requested if I can get the screenshot sorted.

No problems...understand what you are saying. It was just a thought.

Positive comments for what is IMHO a very promising product and good support. I appreciate that it must take some of your time to join us but I think that it pays dividends in the long run re. customer trust and satisfaction.