Negative Press - Is It Justified?

[nexstar]

Originally Posted by carfal

@Runedog

It's hard to argue those points.

I might give it a go

@runedog

I do have sympathy with anyone, challenged or not, that is faced with a mal-functioning system without the expertise to resolve it. There are times when we all have to rely on technical support and it can often be slower in responding than we'd like. After all, we're the one's sitting with a broken PC! .

I wouldn't condone in any way whatever slow response you may have suffered at the hands of HDS. What I would do though is to make a few observations.

You didn't make use of the trial period. For such an all-encompassing piece of software then this is just essential to a) make sure it works with your setup and b) it works in the way you expected it to work. So it was something of an impulse buy.

From what I've read, it would appear that you didn't have an up to date backup prior to installing RB. There is a warning in the RB manual (I appreciate that none of us read manuals!) and an excellent cautionary post to you made by pvsurfer here.

As far as HDS are concerned, their return policy is quite plainly laid out here. They clearly expect you to have made use of the trial facility prior to purchase and they spell out on what basis they will accept any returns. I think they have just dealt with you in accordance with those terms.

Now, having said all that, anyone who deals with software knows that even Microsoft, with their resources, don't manage to cover all the bases when it comes to compatibility and I think that HDS have a very much smaller development team. As you were quite excited by the product and, presumably, the benefits it might bring to your readership, it is a bit of a shame for them that we couldn't have got to the bottom of what was causing the problem.

I know that aladdin linked your problem to his but I don't think you had an error report of 0xc000000f which is what he was getting and installing the new version didn't resolve your problems. SSD may have seemed like a possible connection but, just because you both have it installed, doesn't necessarily make it the culprit. I'm sure you both have a mouse, keyboard and display but we're not likely to blame them .

A couple of questions come out of your previous posts. When you uninstalled RB the first time after you encountered problems, did you uninstall to the baseline? The baseline should be the exact state at the point you installed RB and as you still had some repairing to do it sounds as though you may have gone to a later snapshot where the issues were already present.

Secondly, I noticed that both you and aladdin mentioned using System Restore to get you out of trouble. The interesting thing about this is that SR has always been disabled by RB on installation as it is advised that it is best not to use it with RB installed.

I've just checked here by installing RB with SR enabled and it wasn't disabled and I wasn't asked if I wanted it disabled (which is how it used to work). This meant that I could have used SR to go back to a point prior to RB which doesn't seem like a good idea at all. Once SR is disabled and re-enabled its history is wiped and you mentioned getting your genuine Windows status back using SR after uninstalling RB which is what leads me to believe it was never disabled.

Sorry for the long post and I have no intention of getting at anyone. I'm just trying to echo the basis of this thread in presenting some balance .

Graham

[aladdin™]

Originally Posted by nexstar

I might give it a go
Secondly, I noticed that both you and aladdin mentioned using System Restore to get you out of trouble. The interesting thing about this is that SR has always been disabled by RB on installation as it is advised that it is best not to use it with RB installed.

Graham

Dear Graham,

I don't think that I made the above comment. On all my systems, the system restore is disabled.

I legally own tons of imaging programs, and what I said that I had to restore an image.

Best regards,

aladdin.

[aladdin™]

Originally Posted by nexstar

I might give it a go
A couple of questions come out of your previous posts. When you uninstalled RB the first time after you encountered problems, did you uninstall to the baseline? The baseline should be the exact state at the point you installed RB and as you still had some repairing to do it sounds as though you may have gone to a later snapshot where the issues were already present.

Graham

Dear Graham,

Yes, uninstalled to baseline. Couldn't boot, had to repair mbr and bcd store. After booting nothing worked. Had to restore from image. Had to do about 30+ times on three computers.

Wasted 10 days, 14 hours a day due to old version. I would like HDS to acknowledge this, let alone an apology.

Best regards,

aladdin.

[nexstar]

Originally Posted by aladdin™

Dear Graham,

Yes, uninstalled to baseline. Couldn't boot, had to repair mbr and bcd store. After booting nothing worked. Had to restore from image. Had to do about 30+ times on three computers.

Wasted 10 days, 14 hours a day due to old version. I would like HDS to acknowledge this, let alone an apology.

Best regards,

aladdin.

Sorry, aladdin. That bit was for runedog. I wanted to reply to your post here so I may as well do that now .

Originally Posted by aladdin™

Dear Carfal,

With due respect I don't agree with most of the things you have written above. Blind following is one thing, however critical and self criticism is a must for success.

I think most here would agree with that and I think we all just look to put forward a balanced view.

Originally Posted by aladdin™

1. A system drive and/or partition is about 60 GB, these days. SSDs are now out for more than three years, and they are in the third generation. A 64 GB SSD can be picked up for less $60 USD on sale and/or with rebate.

100% agree. SSD is not new technology and should be supported if it can be. I don't think SSD is, in itself, the problem for HDS. The problem is that along came the Trim command to resolve issues with SSD and that has a direct bearing on the very basis on which RollBack works ie using unused sectors.

Originally Posted by aladdin™

2. Graham has used one SSD with success, with my three SSDs and one SSD for Runedog, it makes a total of five SSDs. Thus, a failure rate of 80% with Rollback Rx.

Sorry, I didn't know we were keeping a tally! For the record, at home I've got one netbook with non-Trim SSD, one laptop with SSD, a desktop PC with SSD and a HTPC with SSD. Also, at the office I have another desktop with SSD. I think that makes six for me all using RB.

Of course, most people who don't have a problem never have the need to visit a forum like this anyway so I don't really think the numbers are of much use.

Originally Posted by aladdin™

3. We don't know how many more other people have reported their problems with SSDs, as most people don't use forum, so the failure rate might be much higher.

Or much lower

Originally Posted by aladdin™

4. Horizon is a reactive company, and not a proactive company on the forefronts, with SSDs out for more than three years, third generation and cheap prices it is the future, not the regular HD.

As I said above, it presents particular difficulties for them which needs to be understood.

Originally Posted by aladdin™

5. I have not found Rollback Rx any better than CTM. CTM is a free product and thus, it doesn't have support and/or future development. Where as, Rollback Rx is a very expensive product with yearly maintenance charges. Both still have problems with snapshots filling your HD and then crashing your HD.

Having suffered at the hands of CTM I'd have to disagree on this one but this is all down to each individual's personal experience with the products.

Originally Posted by aladdin™

6. I don't want to get into discussion about CTM and Rollback Rx. Of course, with Rollback Rx being very expansive and with yearly maintenance charges, it should be better than CTM, a free product which is no longer developed any more. Thus, it would not be a fair comparison, nor a productive discussion.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by aladdin™

7. With Rollback Rx installed, I still have to do imagining. Imaging is not very easy with Rollback Rx installed.

Which is why the official line is to image with RB uninstalled.

Originally Posted by aladdin™

8. Shadow Protect again a very expensive product with no yearly maintenance charges, images each of my three systems between 3 to 10 minutes. If I do this weakly the most I can lose is one's week system being exposed. Which is not a big deal.

I'm slightly baffled as to why, with licences for Shadow Protect, you are even using RollBack. I tried SP a few years ago and funnily enough had an issue installing the imagemanager which I couldn't resolve with their technical support. But it was a good product and had the ability to take incremental backups every 15 minutes which were automatically consolidated. So it was easy to go back to any point in time.

Originally Posted by aladdin™

9. The other imaging programs are little slower than Shadow Protect, but much cheaper. IFW is for less than $30 on sale all the time, and it is legally allowed to be used on three home computers. Thus, a cost per computer is about $10.

But if you already have SP then would you need anything else?

Originally Posted by aladdin™

10. I was sent a link for the old version of Rollback Rx which doesn't work on SSDs. I was really stressed for 10 complete days spending almost 14 hours a day to sort this out. Almost destroying my SSDs. Froggie came to my rescue. Till today, I am still waiting an acknowledgment from Horizon, let alone an apology for this. This doesn't say very much about the character of Horizon.

I'm not even going to try and defend this! 100% agree that it is inexcusable.

Originally Posted by aladdin™

11. On about 30+ install, I did check while installing, if it is the current version, it came back and said yes. A definite bug in supposedly a very mature product. If this option had worked, I wouldn't have to suffer for complete 10 days, 14 hours a day and being very stressed. And, very grouchy to my family. Is Horizon going to correct this bug for future releases.

See item 10 above!

Originally Posted by aladdin™

12. I have not found Horizon correcting many bugs reported on this forum, one such thing which comes to mind, is the "update" issue.

The 'update issue' I presume you refer to is the requirement to uninstall RB to update it. This is something which seems like it should be easy to resolve but which, once again, affects the fundamental way RB works. CTM was changed to allow this to happen, but as far as I can see, they broke it in the process. Sometimes it is better to stick with what works.

Originally Posted by aladdin™

13. On 5th of this month I bought 3 licenses with Lifetime Update and Gold Support. I don't know what Gold Support means, but till right now my systems are not activated.

I'm hoping you are now activated. Please tell me you are!

Originally Posted by aladdin™

14. They told me they are trying to call me. I told them that I am not in the USA, about five days ago I gave them my contact numbers in Oman. Still yet to get a call and/or email from them.

See point 13!

Originally Posted by aladdin™

15. Yes, I did get an email for me to call a number in North America. I told them it costs an arm and a leg to call from Oman to North America. Since, they wanted to contact me, they have my contact numbers.

See point 13!

Originally Posted by aladdin™

I can go on and on, but the above is sufficient for right now. No hard feelings, my dear friend.

Everybody here just wants to help out if they can but it is not a perfect world

Graham

[aladdin™]

Originally Posted by nexstar

Sorry, aladdin.

I'm hoping you are now activated. Please tell me you are!

Graham

Dear Graham,

No, I am not activated. I was forced to ask for a refund.

Please see here:

I was banned and my money refunded.

Kindest regards,

aladdin.