Chris Wiles

Some of these are from the coverdisc promos (we've not even covermounted WinOptimizer 4 yet!) and I notice one was from our server, from a previous Office 2006 disc promo. The author of that blog has gone through various disc promos and then put the info online. Ahem. Actually I might ask Ashampoo if we can put that one up as a legit vnunet.com promo soon. Chris/vnunet.com

You've definitely not missed the promo. They're online for around a month and it's still got 3 weeks to run. I've checked the site and the download and registration page are still working? I know vnunet.com had a few downtime issues between Tuesday and Thursday after moving the servers to a new data centre, but they've been resolved. Next full commercial app should go up next week, I think. Chris/vnunet.com

Thought I'd let you know that the latest full commercial app for download from vnunet.com is VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express, which was recently on-sale through Avanquest for about ?15 and is Vista compatible. You can get it from: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/downloads/221...ilities-express We'll probably keep it online for another 3 or so weeks. We've got a few other apps lined up. Let me know what you think of the app. Chris/vnunet.com

Eh? Why not? What is there not to trust? We've done a fair few commercial apps on vnunet.com/downloads before, which we mainly source through our previous magazine covermounts. We're doing the full VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express from tomorrow and it's the same version Avanquest UK were selling recently and was previously covermounted on PCW in January. Chris/vnunet.com

Your upload speed isn't the same as your download capability. For instance, whereas many 8MB/s broadband deals enable a 1.3MB/s upload capacity, which means the maximum upload speed is 130Kbp/s. However, most ISPs offer a far slower upload rate and most standard broadband users will only be able to upload at around 40Kbp/s, max. Also, the upload speed is degenerated by two things: whether you are downloading at the time of uploading and, secondly, the speed the remote server will enable you to upload. Chris/vnunet.com

Just a quick note to say that I've just put Spyware Doctor 5.5 Starter Edition online, this morning: www.vnunet.com/2213005 Chris/vnunet.com

Good point, never thought that the AV module may cause issues with other AV software. I'll try and get the basic SD 5.5 Starter online by Friday morning. Chris/vnunet.com

5.5 is slightly more 'lightweight' it its use of system resources. The original 5.0 release was fairly heavy on system resources and didn't get a lot of positive feedback. This was the main improvement in the 5.5 release. Yes, the anti-virus module is optional. You can just turn it off. We also have Spyware Doctor 5.5 Starter Edition, which I've not bothered putting online yet. I'll stick that up soon. I had assumed that everyone would just go for the SD 5.5 with AV Starter Edition! Chris/vnunet.com

Yes, ours has the anti-virus module which you can disable. It's also based on v5.5, whereas there's is 5.1. I've just removed Symantec Internet Security 2008 and installed SD with AV Starter as a test and it seems fairly decent, fairly lightweight. You could always give it a blast and make a decision? Chris/vnunet.com

Afternoon, We've not put any full apps on vnunet.com for ages so I need to start getting more up, soon. This will change and our first full app is the exclusive PC Tools Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 5.5 Starter Edition. It ships with an unlimited license, free definition updates for life and you can install on more than one PC. Download from: www.vnunet.com/2212453 Let me know what you think? Chris/vnunet.com

It *is* still available. It shouldn't be! I wish they'd take them down without me having to check, manually.. Remember HDM 8 isn't Vista compatible. Mind you, it's a great app and I suppose you could use it to get a cheap upgrade to the 8.5 edition? We're doing O&O Disk Image 2 in the current Computeractive! Chris/Computeractive

You've nicked my text from Download Junky and linked to Mozilla Labs. Link back to us!! http://www.vnunet.com/2207641 Not a big fan of Personas myself. Anyone tried Weave though (http://www.vnunet.com/2207642)? Chris.

By far and away Directory Opus (www.dopus.com), which is the first app - apart from Firefox - I install on any new PC. Sure, if you're new to the software, it's daunting. However, now Explorer seems lightweight in comparison. Can't live without Fireworks, again as I've used it for so long, I can work around the interface really quickly. Same with Dreamweaver. I use Stuffit (www.stuffit.com), only as it can quickly generate self-extracting apps. Chris.

Craig, how on earth can it wind you up? I've not pulled it, just politely asked people not to spread the info around the net (apart from on here). This is fair request - do you want the free commercial apps or not? If not, spread it like wildfire and see how the suppliers react. A coupon would make no difference. People would simply quote the coupon over the net, too All I was saying is that it's a closed promo, but I don't mind you guys sharing the info, but I'd rather the info not spread all over the net. If this was what we'd have wanted (or were allowed), it would be up on the regular computeractive.co.uk website. Chris.

Guys, remember these are full app promos for our magazine readers, not for general Internet consumption (ie. I've 'found' an offer). Our contracts with software suppliers do not allow this, so be careful of spreading this info too far and wide. No kidding, but we can be asked to remove the promo - like what happened when we did Acronis True Image 7. On a more positive note, you'll be surprised to see what we're giving away with issue 257, on-sale 27th of December. Chris/Computeractive.

I think the key words there are 'years ago'. Ashampoo software has improved a lot in the last couple of years.

WinOptimizer 4 is the upgrade from WinOptimizer 2008. WinOptimizer 2008 is a slightly cut-down version of the current v4. We're doing Ashampoo Burning Studio 2008 soon and that's a Lite version of Burning Studio 7 (doesn't contain the backup feature). Chris/vnunet.com

I'll pass that on, I think. I know Paragon Total Defrag 2008 is out later this year, which is an updated version of their defrag tool. If anyone has any notes, ideas or thoughts on Paragon Software improvements, let me know. They genuinely listen to our ideas and are keen to listen to end-users. Chris/vnunet.com.

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5 is Vista compatible and Paragon Partition Manager 8.5 (Vista compatible) also has a defrag option, within one of the menus. Chris/vnunet.com

Glad you like the free downloads. We have more exclusive Ashampoo full commercial downloads lined up for Autumn/Winter 2007. I'm pretty pleased with the Ashampoo guys as a) they pro-actively develop new features for their software and any upgrades are nominal in value (ie worth the upgrade). We've got some decent stuff lined up this year, but I need to make sure the Computeractive guys remove the links after the offers have expired Chris/vnunet.com

Thanks Andrew. I must admit, I've been a bit slack getting full apps on vnunet.com/downloads recently (busy with all sorts these days). Will try and publish more of our covermounted apps from next week onwards! Yes, was a tad surprised myself it retails for ?60 Chris/vnunet.com

Sadly that's still a test (nightly) release. Opera told me "Opera 9.10 has not been released officially. Build 8679 is still considered as a weekly test release." Chris.

The servers are all working correctly. Bear in mind that the software is supplied through FTP, so if your setup is designed to prevent access from FTP sites (believe me, we have this problem where security software will allow a HTTP download, but not by FTP), it will start to download, get to about 200Kb, then stop downloading. That's not the server, that's your security software. Chris.

Guys, I understand some of your frustration, but this is the nature of dynamic software. What works brilliantly on one computer won't work at all on another - it all depends on your configuration, operating system, setup and, of course, security software. For instance, I work on our Computeractive magazine and the amount of emails I receive telling me how our free downloads are 'rubbish' as they can't download them. Yes, can't download them. Some people can't even download the apps, never mind install them. Paragon Software is ok, but like any dynamic hard drive management software, it has potential to go wrong. I absolutely love Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 for example, but I wouldn't ever perform a partition or a disk clone, without backing up my data first. That also applies to the same software from Acronis and others. What we're doing as a publishing company is making software available free of charge. The end user can then determine whether they a) like the application or hate. That's why we also recommend testing the apps under virtual scenarios, such as using the free Virtual PC 2004 from Microsoft or VMWare technology. Opinions? Chris/vnunet.com

Correct, it's supposed to be a 'closed' download for readers (this isn't one that supposed to appear on the web, in public), although we can't stop readers from giving out the download URL :-/ Acronis went a bit ballistic when the last 'closed download' leaked and I had to pull it. Ahem. Some good apps going up on vnunet.com/downloads soon though. I can only realistically put up 1 per week and I have more apps than we need right now. I'll get Xara XS up tomorrow morning and then another Paragon app up at the end of the week. Chris/vnunet.com