Sometimes I hate software. I have 3 working PCs in my "network", and sometimes it's a full time job just to keep ahead. I like my systems very stable and try hard to keep them that way. My friend up in New York professes the same, but he is constantly churning his systems and ends up putting in a lot more software maintenance time than I do.
I actually had some spare time the other day, and I got myself in some trouble again. The subject this time was PowerDVD. PowerDVD is one of the leading two software players to play DVDs on your PC. The other is WinDVD, but I have tried both and been a PowerDVD user for years.
The first question you might ask is why I am playing DVDs on my PC at all, instead of in the living room (oh, sorry, media room). The answer is obscure, but has something to do with my wife who still thinks TVs are furniture. In this case, she exercises a certain amount of eminent domain with respect to the main TV, and often banishes me to the PC room if the DVD I want to play is on the unacceptable list. The list starts with Star Trek reruns, old Sci-Fi (such as "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers") and goes on from there. Thus, I have a large screen (for a PC) and a good surround sound system with subwoofer on my PC.
There are lots of free DVD players available, so you might ask why I am actually paying for one. Besides the fact that the good player software shows a better picture and has a lot more options, there is one key factor: sound. Many DVDs use DTS (Digital Theater Sound) and do not have full surround in the other (Dolby) format. No free player that I know of plays DTS because of licensing issues. So, PowerDVD and I are old friends.
My PowerDVD version was fairly old, however - probably three years or more. It was Version 4. I decided to upgrade to V6 online. I placed the order, which was delivered through the Digital River service that is used for billing and distribution by a large number of programs. They are usually pretty good. But when I got the billing email, I noticed that a charge of $6.99 was added for something called an "extended download" feature. This feature allows you to download the file again later if something goes wrong. I don't think that I ordered that feature, and this is the second time that I recall that this has happened with Digital River. But, a quick call to their support line fixed the problem and got me a refund.
So, I install the program, and it seems to install just fine. Try to run it, nothing - nothing at all, not even an error. Reboot, same problem. I went to the PowerDVD support site and placed a support request. Haven't heard from 'em yet. But I went to the Internet source for all knowledge - Google - and very quickly found out that the solution was that I needed to install the program without having my anti-spyware program running.
OK. So I uninstall the program and prepare to reinstall. BUT, the version I purchased was an upgrade. The first installation deleted the original, and now the upgrade failed saying that the original was not there! Luckily I keep all on CDs. So I had to go back to the original program I purchased, V3, install it, then apply the upgrade to V4, and finally then the new V6. The V6 upgrade would not upgrade from V3, which is why I had to then go to V4! But, it worked!
Total elapsed time - perhaps two hours. Was the upgrade worth the time and about $30 - I don't know. Perhaps. Or perhaps not. But a techie does as techies do, and I proved that adage once again!
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport - Oak Island area. You can visit his Website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail questions or column ideas to him at bsc@bobseidel.com. For specific inquiries, please call Bob Seidel Consulting, LLC at 278-1007.)