Roxio's Flagship CD Software Is Not Heady For Prime Time.

I don't have a test-bench, so I can't--and don't--review new products by confirming or refuting their specs. But I do sometimes try out new products to see how they work; and if I choose to write about them, it's usually because I like them. Sometimes, though, I have to hold a product's feet to the fire.

I really wanted to like Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum, the latest version of CD-writing software from Roxio, nee Adaptec. It was previewed for me last year and is being promoted as a great improvement over its predecessor, Adaptec's Easy CD Creator 4, which is also the software most-frequently-bundled with new CD-RW drives. (Hereafter I'll call the new one "5", and the previous version "4".) Then in February Roxio gave me the full-featured retail version of 5--not a beta--and a pamphlet called a Reviewer's Guide, in addition to the User's Guide documentation in the package.

In some ways 5 certainly is an improvement over 4, which I've used--and have kept updated by downloading patches--for almost two years. 5 presents a more up-to-date-looking "skin" (that's youngsters' slang for the on-screen user interface) and it incorporates features that have become important recently, such as compressing .WAV (CD Audio) files into MP3 files, which raises the song-carrying capacity of a disk ten-fold.

But buyer beware. Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum's installation procedure is counter-intuitive and possibly disruptive. And OEMs and VARs and IT managers need to be aware that there is conflict between 5's important Direct CD function and DVD-writing programs such as Software Architects' Write DVD.

"Sentence First, Verdict Afterward"

That was the Red Queen's judicial procedure in "Alice In Wonderland." But perhaps she also worked on Roxio's development team, because when you go to install 5, the first thing it asks you to do is to un-install 4.

The Reviewer's Guide says it's "recommended" to do this, but in fact the installation will not proceed without it. And anyone who purchases 5 at retail will find nothing about this in the User's Guide. This runs contrary to conventional installation procedures.

Most apps that self-install from distribution disks create a new default directory for their .exe and other files to reside in. They prompt the user to either accept that default or change it, after which they install themselves in the designated directory. Then and only then (and only very rarely) will an app's installation procedure advise the user to un-install the previous version.

Not only is the situation with 5 confusing, it can actually be a bad thing. Sometimes, for a variety of reasons (and it happened to me) Windows' "add/remove programs" utility fails to remove all the files associated with 4. And 5 won't install until all (or enough) of the 4-related stuff is gone. If for whatever reason 5 then fails to install, there's no working version of Easy CD Creator left in the computer for the user to fall back on.

I phoned Roxio tech-support and was walked through a manual un-install routine that involved editing the Windows registry. That did remove 4; but it also apparently removed some ASPI files that my computer needed to talk to my TWAIN scanner. A subsequent call to tech-support fixed that problem. But the entire inconvenience and second call could probably have been avoided by not requiring the removal of 4 in the first place.

My hat's off to Roxio's tech-support staffers, who are extremely intelligent and professional; indeed, one staffer offered an especially ingenious solution to this problem--about which more in a moment.

"This Town Ain't Big Enough For the Both Of Us"

That's what outlaws tell sheriffs in grade-B Western movies, just before their guns blaze. I have a DVD-RAM drive, which came bundled with Software Architects' Write DVD program, which formats DVD-RAM disks and (yes) writes to them. Midway through the installation of 5, the screen prompted me to un-install Write DVD because, if I did not do so, then the Direct CD function of 5 could not be installed.

Conceptually, Direct CD and Write DVD are similar. Both utilities empower the computer to perform packet-writing, which treats rewritable phasechange optical disks (CD-RW and DVD-RAM, respectively) as if they were floppies. That, in turn, enables the user to access those disks directly, through their drive-letter, for "drag-and-drop" or "save-as" copying, etc.

The formatting and packet-writing requirements for their respective operations are different, of course; just as the media's capacities, the drives' data transfer rates, etc., are different. But why should these utilities so forcefully conflict that they cannot coexist in a computer?

If Direct CD were a trivial feature of 5, the issue would be trivial too. But it's an important and desirable feature, and the problem has long-term consequences not only for OEMs, VARs, and users, but for Roxio itself. Many people now have (or have access to) more than one computer; and if those computers can all write CD-RW disks, then interchanging updated files among them is a no-brainer. Cable-connected or wireless programs such as LapLink can accomplish that task, but the computers have to be in physical proximity to one another. Swapping disks makes distance irrelevant.

Both my desktop and my laptop computer have new MultiRead CD-RW drives; I'd had 4 on my desktop for a few years, and 4 came pre-installed on the laptop. Each computer read ordinary CD-RW disks that the other had recorded, but the desktop always rejected Direct CD disks. I had always assumed that this was due to some discrepancy between different versions of 4, though (again!) there was nothing in 4's documentation to suggest that Direct CD might not run at all on some systems. Besides, I had periodically downloaded Adaptec's updates to 4. So I was looking forward to installing a common program--Roxio's 5--on both computers, as the solution. But it didn't work, and apparently Write DVD is part of the problem.

Some kind of (what I call) "Easy DVD Creator" is being developed at Roxio. CEO Chris Gorog told me, in person, that Roxio is working on DVD-writing software, but he did not say whether the target medium is the Hitachi/Toshiba/Panasonic DVD-RAM, or Pioneer's alternatives: the four-year-old writeonce DVD-R, or its upcoming sibling, rewritable DVD-RW.

DVD-RW drives, which are due for release in mid-year, will be expensive; and notwithstanding Steve Jobs's January announcement that they'll ship in the newest high-end Macs, there's absolutely no installed base of -RW yet. So Roxio can afford to wait, and de facto cede the DVD-RAM-writing market to Software Architects.

But there is a serious conflict between the packet-writing features in Direct CD and its counterpart under development for DVD-RW. It's not a bug, because it's flagged by a specific dialog-box during the installation process--meaning it's known, understood, and documented. Most likely, it's a legacy from the original (Adaptec) Easy CD Creator, which--in fairness to Adaptec and Roxio--was released before Write DVD was. But there have been several upgrades to Easy CD Creator since, and none, evidently, have addressed this issue.

Since Gorog did not discuss Roxio's progress toward DVD-writing, perhaps a similar conflict exists between Direct CD and the DVD-writer that's in development. This could be an especially thorny problem for Roxio because, while DVD-RAM has been targeted at jukebox vendors and "power" users, Pioneer is targeting DVD-RW at "home" users, which are Roxio's targets too (remember those friendly skins and MP3s).

Readers should note that the conflict is not mentioned in their documentation. I emailed a contact in Roxio's engineering department, asking for an explanation, and received a few paragraphs back, the short version of which is that the conflict with Write DVD is a Windows problem.

Well, Software conflicts are inevitable, especially in the multi-vendor Windows environment; and Microsoft is notorious for making outside developers jump through hoops. Users are frequently advised to shut down all other programs--even anti-virus protection--when installing new Windows software. And it's reasonable for the developers of one program to specify that certain other programs must not be open while theirs is running. But it's very unusual for two programs to so profoundly compete for system resources that they cannot even reside on the same computer.

"Get Back To Where You Once Belonged"

That was one of the Beatles' musical prescriptions for human happiness. And indeed there is a backup-and-recovery program called GoBack, which was developed a few years ago by a company called WildFile. GoBack automatically maintains a backup copy of your hard disk's files as of whatever earlier moment you preset, e.g., "an hour ago" or "yesterday" or "the last boot-up" etc. So if you need to retrieve something that's been lost due to an unintentional shutdown for what Windows calls an "illegal operation" or a "general protection fault" or a power-outage, or whatever, GoBack can restore your system to status quo ante.

I've had a copy of GoBack since its debut, hut never got around to installing it (full backups consume a significant percentage of one's disk space, which is why God invented RAIDs). Obviously, having GoBack would have gone some distance toward relieving my aggravation over 5.

But I mention it here because Roxio now owns GoBack and is branding and retailing it for $49. So a Roxio tech-support staffer had a truly inspired notion: GoBack, she said, is priced so low that Roxio might as well bundle it with every other product. That way, if a new program (like 5) failed to install properly, or created problems for your system, you could "go back" to the previous setup and use again whatever program or version you were required to un-install beforehand.

I did ask: Wouldn't bundling GoBack create the impression that there might be something "wrong" with the new program?

Oh no, she insisted. Since GoBack has usefulness beyond that circumstance, and may never be needed at all, it could be promoted--and would surely be perceived--as a value-add!

I think she deserves a bonus, Mr. Gorog.