Due to increasing "false positives" from AV Software, please view this:
FAQ topic.
Latest News
4/13/08 -Computer Shopper Magazine
Received a nice email from a user last night letting me know UBCD4Win was mentioned in the latest issue of Computer Shopper magazine. I went out this morning to pick up a copy so I could check the issue out. Even though it was a short write up it was to the point and I really liked the false positive mention. The email and the magazine helped push me into updating the site a little today. For at least the last year I've had an "awards and magazine" page on the site, but never found the time to put content on the page. Today I changed that. So now most of our magazine mentions are on that page for everyone to check out. Thank you Computer Shopper magazine and as always I thank the users of UBCD4Win, without your support over the years this would not be possible.
4/10/08 -Version 3.13 released!!
Busy, busy, busy!! Figured it has been a while since we released a new version so we went to work and updated a bunch of stuff in UBCD4Win. We probably missed a few things but that happens. Either way I highly suggest you get rid of 3.12 and download 3.13!! If anyone happens to have any problems with the new version or have questions, please post in the forum. Enjoy the new release!
4/4/08 -more CD's for your needs
Most people know that UBCD4Win was inspired by the "original" Ultimate Boot CD. I started out helping a little with that project and shipping it out on CD. Some people stuck on dialup could not download it or some people just like to order a CD. I also distributed AutoPatcher for several years before MS shut them down. I have always wanted to help people by providing a cheap but professional looking product and I think I have achieved that with all of the CD's I send out. Recently thanks to a mention in Gizmo's newsletter I had another idea. Gizmo's list is awesome when it comes to finding a great tool for the task you need to accomplish and for free. However it can be a pain to download everything on his list, 600+ MB's of great software!! So through communications with him I have been granted the exclusive right to distribute a CD of the software on his list. Soon you will be able to purchase a CD with all distributable tools with a nice menu to select and install them. I really think this will be a big time saver for many people and hope that a lot of people purchase the CD. Eventually I hope to compile his entire 118 list into a DVD, but that will take quite a bit of work!
So if you have something that needs distributed on CD or USB flash drive or know of a tool that should have that option available, please drop me an email and we will discuss the options and pricing. As you can tell with the prices and packages currently offered by me with UBCD and UBCD4Win, prices can be very affordable for your users.
4/3/08 -4 years and going strong!!
Happy 4 years everyone!! I can't believe we are still kicking ass after 4 years. So many good things have happened over the years and I'm sure more are to come. I thank all of you for our continued success because without you we wouldn't be here. Without your feedback we couldn't have fixed problems and without donations we wouldn't be able to pay our bills. Thanks again and I look forward to many more years of helping people with UBCD4Win!
3/16/08 -Minor site updates
I first want to thank all the patient people who had to deal with download.com's SLOW servers. It was an interesting test, one that found that download.com can't handle a big download and another that we do no have the user base to push us up into a newsletter spot in their newsletters. Oh well, we had to try it.
The rest of the mirrors will be up soon so no one should have any problems downloading the latest version of UBCD4Win. I have also done a little updating on the "list of tools" page over the past few days also. They are much closer to being up to date. If anyone notices anything on this site, ever, please feel free to contact me and I'll do my best to fix it as promptly as possible.
The only other thing worth mentioning is the background activity going on in UBCD4Win. Work with the network tool, localization tool, and USB tool are going well. I'm really hoping more of them are ready for the next release of UBCD4Win. Keep checking the site and forum, there is a lot of great stuff going on!!
2/22/08 -3.12 released
Just over a month and we already have a new release? Well there were a few minor issues with 3.11 so we continued to work even though we usually enjoy a few weeks of relaxation. There are a few issues with the newest BTS drivers so we went back to the previous version. I had also mistakenly left out LittlBUGer's DriverPack, that is now included for additional NIC support. We decided to add a few tools, remove a few tools, and of course some had new versions released.
Please download the newest version and ENJOY!!
1/21/08 -3.11 released, thanks Gizmo's List!, orders status
After several weeks of hard work, Version 3.11 is released!! There are a few really exciting things about this release. Other than the normal updates we again have a few more nice tools added to UBCD4Win. For starters, we now have a MultiBoot option that allows you to download a Vista Recovery Console and add it to your CD! Someone also found a free virus removal tool from Kaspersky that looks really good and is also included. Joshua has a very nice Localization tool included in this version also, so a lot of German speaking people will be happy. I would mention more but I honestly have little time at the moment.
Big thanks goes out to Gizmo (Ian Richards)!!! I deeply thank you for mentioning UBCD4Win in a recent newsletter and greatly appreciate that you suggested to your readers to buy a copy of UBCD4Win. Your mention of UBCD4Win was pretty much perfect. You gave your readers the normal "warnings" that we give users, basically that UBCD4Win does require a little work and knowledge. I have checked out your site several times over the years but not much recently because I've been so busy. You provide a great service and a wealth of information for computer users, I highly recommend it and plan to find some time soon to get more software for my systems.
Finally, thanks to all that have ordered. Most of you have received an email from me over the past few days explaining how we were working on a new version and asked if you would like to wait. I want to thank all of you because almost all of you had the same response, appreciating the email and wanting to wait. Thank you for waiting and I am glad that everything worked out the way it did so I could follow through with my promise of mailing them on Wednesday. Well, as long as no one reports any "big" problems with the new version tomorrow!! Anyways, thanks for the friendly responses and understanding. Your orders will be shipped out Wednesday.
1/21/08 -Minor site updates, update soon?
I've made a few minor updates to the site over the past few days. Most notably the "burn ISO" page, it finally has content!! I've also updated some information on the "FAQ" page and added a few more notes to the "how to burn" page. I'm always trying to add more content, update, and make other changes that users suggest. I would like to think that it could be possible that the site be perfect but when I look at it, I don't ever think I will honestly feel happy with it and feel it is complete. There are just too many changes and so much stuff!
Anyways, we are under way with some beta testing for a new 3.11 release. I really hope we can have this released soon.
12/30/07 -Memory problems, Steelers issues
How many of you use or even have heard of Patriot memory?
Well, in the past I've had decent experiences with them. I bought a used stick on eBay years ago, upgraded my laptop almost a year ago with it, and haven't had any problems with their MIR's (Mail In Rebates.) We equipped our systems with Patriot memory this past fall and all was good for about 3 months. Now keep in mind that between 3 systems there are 10 sticks of memory between us, 8 1Gig sticks between John and I and 2 2Gig sticks for Tom. They were all purchased in 2 stick kits, important point as you'll see below.
So late last month I found some problems! My system started to BSOD and I originally thought it was a driver but through good troubleshooting figured out it was memory and I figured out what stick it was. Only 1 out of my 4 was bad so I was OK with the situation. Then even more issues began!
I contacted the RMA department and was sent the forms needed to return my memory. I will admit that I did make a mistake here because I clearly read that "if the memory is part of a kit return both sticks." I didn't think nothing of it because I've returned Kingston memory in the past and had NO problems if it was part of a kit. Then I received the "friendly" email telling me they received my memory but they needed the other stick, unless I wanted to void the warranty??!!? HELL NO, I'll waste another $3.40 in postage and wait longer! There is NO way I'll give up my lifetime warranty especially since one of them has already failed! The thing that really ticks me off about this is the wait. I received notice on the 27th saying my memory was shipped out and will be delivered on the 7th??? A week and a half?? I understand the holidays but damn that is NOT reasonable! Keep in mind that they received the GOOD stick of memory on about the 20th! I sent it on the 17th PRIORITY mail and they evidently didn't have the time to check the GOOD stick several days later! Oh well, I'm done getting mad about it, I just basically want to inform all of you and warn you of the possible RMA issues you could face if you chose Patriot memory. I can say for me, I will not pinch pennies and will get Kingston memory next time! Please feel free to let all of us know of similar situations by posting in our "hardware" area of the forum. We would love to hear of good and bad stories by any manufacturer there and know that it will help others in their decisions.
GOOD purchases!!
Sorry, can't help myself. I've read the same thing on many other sites and I hate to be an echo but I have to mention GOOD companies. APC still has to be the top company in customer service and I'm reminded of that because Randy recently received an APC UPS for Xmas!! Congrats to him on receiving a quality piece of equipment and if he happens to have to get support from them, it will actually be a great experience! I've taken headache medication after a support call MANY times, but after talking to APC it is NOT necessary! I bought a great APC UPS 3 years ago and when I had a problem with it, the experience was unreal. They back up most of their equipment with a 3 year warranty so really, the extra money you may spend when compared to others is WELL worth it! Ok, I"m off my soapbox.
Finally this brings me to my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers. I'll get off topic quick to mention a few purchases and Xmas presents this year. To start, I made my normal July purchase of the new Steelers hat and was yet again disappointed that Ben wasn't wearing my hat on the sidelines for the second year straight. I think I've noticed a trend though. When the new season hats are "released" there have been two these past two years, one that is a little more "flashy" and one that is more "plain." I've noticed the Ben likes to wear the more "plain" and traditional hats. After last year I almost attempted to write him to make make sure I would buy the right hat, and this year I actually told the girl working at my local shop that if Ben wasn't wearing the hat I just bought I would return it!! I didn't though.
I didn't make too many purchases this year except for a mini helmet. After the first Steelers game in their throw back uniforms I thought the helmets looked pretty cool so I had to have a helmet.
Then Xmas, the boys all received jerseys this year. My oldest Troy got a Polamalu jersey, Ben got a Roethlisberger, and William received a Parker jersey. I would have bought William a "coaches" jacket but someone had to retire so me naming my son after him means nothing!!!!! At least we have Willie Parker so everyone in the family has a player to idolize.
Which brings us to next Saturday! It's going to be tough and the situation isn't the same as 05, but the Steelers have A LOT of talent. I don't know how well it will play out but there is a lot of revenge that could play out in the sudden death playoffs! I do know one thing, someone better damn well knock those Patriots into the dirt and out of the possible "perfect" season. They aren't better than the '72 Dolphins until they win the Super Bowl and for the sake of "good" history, they better not accomplish that!!
Anyways, with Willie Parker out it will be hard.....however there are enough Offensive weapons to take on any team. The Defense should be strong after a few starters rested today. All the announcers have been saying for at least the past week is that Jacksonville will be scary in the playoffs and that no team wants to see them. I ignore all of that because those idiots only say what the networks allow them to say, they have no real opinions just BS. I've watched them do it all season long, jumping from one bandwagon to another. It makes me sick because these "robots" act like they know nothing but they should. I'm getting ticked off again, I better just go to bed now! GO STEELERS!!!!
11/25/07 -Version 3.10 released!!
After a few minor delays, a new version is finally released!
Big thanks to everyone in our development and beta tester teams. Download and enjoy!!
11/19/07 -work in progress
The next release is getting close!! We will hopefully be releasing 3.10 soon!!
10/16/07 -Huge THANKS, rally is over!!
Sorry for the lack of updates for the past few weeks, been busy with the laptop disaster, work, putting our new kick ass systems together, and working on a new beta. Thank you all for your help in getting us our new systems!! Please remember though that we still have our monthly costs so please still consider donating if and when you are able to. If you missed out on the opportunity to donate, you still can. Donations are always used responsibly and go towards purchases to help us make UBCD4Win better. Paying our hosting fees (and our other costs) had an effect on the donation rally, one that I hadn't really thought of. It delayed us reaching our goal. We have always been able to pay our bills thanks to donations. Past "rallies" were for smaller amounts of money so they were completed pretty quickly. This was a HUGE rally and a few times I lost perspective on that, expecting it to be over quicker than it would be. I apologize for acting a little crazy over the past few months, some of you are probably used to it though!
The laptop disaster is taken care of and overall everything is good. They ended up replacing the motherboard (what I thought it was) and I got it back pretty quickly. The only thing I didn't like was the chat and phone support. But for a $600 laptop the experience was acceptable. So HP / Compaq still has me satisfied for the most part.
Beta? Did I mention a beta? Yes I did and I'm hoping we can get it finished up and released soon. I'm sorry to report though that there really isn't anything too big in this release. Just another maintenance release to fix a few minor problems however a lot of software has been updated over the past. Some now known HashCheck issues have been found and we are taking care of them in this release.
Thanks again everyone, I greatly appreciate my new system and know that the other guys really love their new systems!! I'm very happy that I chose Vista Ultimate 64 as our OS for these systems because I've already found 1 bug/problem with UBCD4Win in a 64bit OS.
9/19/07 -Closer to the goal, laptop disasters, etc.
We are extremely close to reaching our goal!! Thanks to everyone who has donated so far, it's been awesome! We only need a few hundred dollars to reach our goal and that is great.
Laptop disaster. I really don't want to get into it too much. I'm honestly at a loss here because it's just too hard! Personal opinions and experiences can vary between manufacturers and models!! I've seen many problematic models of laptops, abused models, etc. It is hard to honestly say what is junk and what is not junk! I can read a review of a laptop that gets 9 out of 10 stars, but then get a "lemon"!! I can read reviews on another laptop that then a year later has a lawsuit is filed against that laptop and company? It's a crap shoot and something that is extremely annoying to me. However, customer support is a very good indicator, right? I have been suggesting HP / Compaq laptops at work for about a year now and I really don't know if that was a good decision. I bought my laptop 7 months ago thinking I bought quality and expected "decent" customer support. Doesn't happen! I will note that after all the "fighting" with Indians, I spoke with a Canadian that was VERY helpful! Only bad thing is I was then transferred to an Indian that was a complete JERK! I'm not at all trying to be racist or anything, just providing the details of my experience. I have NO problems talking to anyone and I generally like everyone, but some of the people I talked to from HP / Compaq were JERKS. Anyways, I hope to have my laptop back within the next week or two.
The data disaster was the worse though!! With all the activity with the "donation rally" things were worse. I have no problems being honest. If I was an idiot or dumbass, I will admit it! Basically I made a few mistakes. I had been very busy with the donation rally and been very busy at work. I fell away from my normal bi-weekly backup routine and made a HUGE mistake when trying to clone my HDD to a new one. Luckily thanks to FREE tools, I was able to recover most of the files I hadn't backed up recently. I want to throw a HUGE shout out to MozBackup and PhotoRec for being FREE and just WORKING as expected!! I've been using MozBackup for quite some time and it's always worked great! I'll admit that it's sad that only NOW after a disaster I personally finally had the thought of donating to them. TestDisk / PhotoRec is a great tool if you use them properly and thanks to those tools, I recovered several important files I really needed. I made a donation to them tonight!
Thanks again to everyone that has donated to our current "new systems" rally. I trust that within a week or two, we will have enough money raised to complete the rally!!
9/6/07 -Been pretty slow
Big thanks to everyone who has donated so far, no matter how much you donated it's greatly appreciated!! There seems to be a few minor issues with NewEgg Gift Certificates.
I've received a few emails and there has been at least one post in the forum from people mentioning they wanted to send a NewEgg Gift Certificate. The problem is that we do not receive them. It's not that the user is being charged and we do not get it, it's basically that users think the process is complete. I did not realize until today that after a user completes the first page of information they must then "login" or create a new account. I apologize for not knowing that sending a gift certificate required a little additional work on the donators end.
So please, if you have not received a "thank you" email for your gift certificate from me....please email me so I can verify if a gift certificate was received or not.
Like I mentioned in the title though, things have been slow. In the last week and a half we've received just under $200 and that was from about 14 donations. I do not want to sound like I'm complaining because I really appreciate everything so far, but I just hoped for this to go a little better and faster. Just makes me think our user base is smaller than what I thought? To be honest it's been a little depressing for me personally. I would rather see 6,000 $1 donations (6,000 because of PayPal fees) than a bunch of $50, $100, or $200 donations. Just because that would help show we have a big user base that appreciates the work and time we put into UBCD4Win. There are about 50 different variables that play into this though so I'm really not taking the slow results too much to heart. I'm probably just being a weirdo anyways.
Thanks again from everyone who has helped so far. Like I've mentioned before, if you are not financially able to help we understand. I will keep you all updated and am really anxious to announce that we have reached our goal.
8/27/07 -Going well and getting closer
First thanks to everyone that has been generous towards our need. We have purchased our first system and it is performing quite well so far. I haven't really had much time for testing because we are still "swamped" at work and my regular duties for UBCD4Win have kept me quite busy. I am currently testing Vista Ultimate 64 and am not really ready to say if I am happy with it. Initially I ran into a few issues that I attributed to drivers but at this point I'm still not sure. I have installed Vista twice on this system and at least with this install and the drivers I've used I have only seen a BSOD once so far. I started over because I had seen about 6-8 before and the system was acting funny. Basically this is what I wanted to do, test! I want and need to make sure that my hardware choices for our systems will work well together and I really think they will.
Over the past few days though donations have slowed, so please consider donating if you can. We have built one out of the three systems that we need. I will continue to post news on the site and will immediately post when we hit our goal. If I haven't posted new news here a week from now do not assume that we are doing good with donations or that we have hit our goal. I am very happy and proud that our users are willing to help us and cannot wait to announce that we have all three systems built!!
Please check out the links below the 8/21 news to send a donation through PayPal, Gift Certificate from NewEgg, or to contact me for alternative methods. Thanks to all!!
8/21/07 -Great donation rally so far!
Great first 5 days everyone!! I thank you all greatly! It's pretty awesome that in less than a week we are only only $200 away from building our first system.
I want to take a moment to help explain the NewEgg gift certificates and other ways you can help us. First if you can not afford a monetary donation, please visit our sponsor links which are generally on the right side of the pages on this site. NewEgg gift certificates are about the best way for us to reach our goal. They generally have the best prices and I plan to order a majority of our hardware from them. The biggest benefit though, NO fees! With all transactions through PayPal, there are always fees. With gift certificates we get every penny you sent to help us. I have added a link below to the gift certificate page on the NewEgg site. If you need to know who/where to send send the gift certificate to, click on the "contact me" button below to find out my email address. I would list my email address here but I already receive too much spam. Bots scour web sites all the time looking for email addresses to spam and I apologize for the inconvenience to you, but I do not want to take any chances on getting more spam!
Finally, alternatives to PayPal and NewEgg gift certificates. I understand that some people are not comfortable with putting their credit card information online. So if you would like to donate and do not like PayPal, etc., please contact me and we can discuss alternatives. Thanks again everyone, I really appreciate your great support for our need!!
8/15/07 -What can you get for $1?
How about a few computers?? I think most users of UBCD4Win understand that UBCD4Win is freeware run by volunteers. We do our best to help as many people as possible by providing our hard work at no cost. All we have ever asked for is donations to help us recover hosting, license, etc., costs that we have had and currently have. It's an unfortunate fact that several members of the development team are currently in need and I am asking all of you for some help. About a year ago I started talking about upgrading my system, at the time it had been close to 2 years since my last upgrade. Now it is going on 3 years and I am basically still talking about it but unable to actually do anything. My computer has been acting strange lately so I'm afraid that it's about time for something to die in it?? I've been trying to figure out a way to save the money but with 3 boys and just regular bills, I can't figure out a way to do it. 2 weeks ago Tom's (pcuser) computer died and I've been trying to figure out a way to help him also. Then I thought about the Athlon 750 that John (hilander999) is running in his system. I've been thinking for the past week, what can we do???
So I turn to you. Is it unreasonable for me to ask the users of the project for help with getting new systems for a few members of our development team? Will a "donation rally" be successful? We have over 5,000 registered members in the forum, so if only half the members of the forum donated just $1 we would have enough money for the systems. I think most people have appreciated our hard work on this project enough to donate a $1. I do not expect donations from users but greatly appreciate them, donations keep us going by paying our bills. I understand that some people cannot afford to send anything and that is fine. I've been between jobs and I have a family of 5 so I understand completely.
I was contacted by a user a few days ago asking if we needed any hardware or software. We exchanged a few emails, like I mentioned above I've been trying to figure out a way to get a new system so I had created a "wish list" at NewEgg last week, so I sent it to him. To my surprise I received a "gift certificate" for NewEgg in the amount of $250!! All I can say is WOW, that is amazing. So I am confident in starting a new "donation rally" to help us get new systems. I am sure we have enough users that are financially able to help us out in our time of need. Please if you are able to, send us a donation or a gift certificate for NewEgg. As always with "donation rallies" I will post news on the site as soon as we reach our goal. If you have any questions, suggestions, etc. please feel free to email me. I will start a post in our forum soon listing what I have spec'd out for our systems. I thank you all for your past and future donations to help keep this project going.
8/4/07 -3.06 released!!
After several days of testing and yet a few minor mix ups, 3.06 is finally released. We did find a last minute problem with HashCheck so a few of the mirrors have a version of 3.06 with a different MD5 than the one published on the "downloads" page. I have contacted those mirrors and hope they get the files changed soon. Mirrors also provided a slight delay in the release. Contacting people on a Friday night isn't the best time for most people to be reached. I don't like to announce a new version unless most of the mirrors are up, just so their servers don't get overloaded.
Version 3.06 is more of a maintenance release. Since HashCheck was updated we couldn't release a patch. No tools were updated but several other things were fixed or updated. Most notable is the NOD32 issue that was present in 3.05. The BTS drivers were updated and Joshua's nVidia NIC package was added to the build. For more information check out the Version History page.
7/31/07 -3.06 release coming soon!
Well, NOD32 users will soon be happy again. Due to a lot of emails/posts from NOD32 users we have taken the time to try and figure out why this is happening. It took several hours of testing and checking hundreds of lines of source code, but Tom has figured it out!! Seems there was ONE line of code that NOD32 did not like. Luckily it wasn't something we needed and was just an old line that we forgot to remove. So we shouldn't have any more false positives from NOD32.
We are double checking a few things but I am confident that we'll be able to release a new 3.06 "false positive" free version by this weekend.
7/14/07 -More downloads and Feedback
I posted news about this in the forum and completely forgot to update the site! In the last few releases of UBCD4Win we have trimmed away a few useful tools. AntiVirus companies prefer to scare their users (and potential UBCD4Win users) by stating we have Viruses and Hack Tools in the project. It's really sad because we've removed some useful tools from the UBCD4Win because of this mess. In the past we tried our best to inform users as to what is really going on, but some just do not take the time to read and understand. It's not fair that we get negative comments or ratings on sites because a user doesn't have or take the time to understand what is really going on.
So, www.UBCD4WinDownloads.com is here! I have been promising users for a few months now that any tools removed from the project would still be available for download. I was trying to figure out the best way to do it. It finally struck me one day, buy another domain and setup a "cheaper" hosting account for that domain! I just hope that hosting account can handle the traffic that it receives. Please if you have any problems downloading, email me so I can check into it and fix any possible problems. Also please post any "requests" for plugins in our forum, we will gladly point you in the right direction. If you need a plugin hosted, please contact me and I should be able to help you out. At the moment I do not have an elaborate plans with the domain, I probably won't even create viewable pages for it? Right now it is only going to be used to provide direct download links for plugins listed on the "downloads" page of this site. After time though I could possibly setup a "downloads" page for that domain, but I only see that happening if a lot of users would like me/us to host plugins for them. So I hope you users understand that we do our best to provide you all with easy options and quick updates. It's unfortunate that sometimes it requires us to spend money to provide something free for everyone.
So now with even more monthly expenses now it more important than ever that we receive donations to help with these costs. If you have ever thought about donating, please think about it again because it is more important than ever. I'm sure the project has saved you repair costs so please just send a fraction of what you would have had to spend at a "shop" to us to help us pay our bills.
Lack of feedback from my 7/2 news. In a way I'm surprised that I didn't receive any email about that news post? Then again with all my rambling, maybe I'm the only person who could even understand what I was trying to say??!! I apologize for some aspects of that post and it's a reminder as to why I do not do any "professional" writing. I have the tendency of getting a little fired up with topics that I strongly believe in. When that happens it seems I cannot focus on getting the point across. So I apologize for my rambling and hope you can figure out and understand the points I was really trying to get across. Maybe someday I'll revisit that subject and take a little more time when writing it.
7/2/07 -Embracing PE
I think I must mention a "disclaimer" before even starting my thoughts, and even before that a little more information. First, I have tried very hard (and failed on a few occasions) to keep many of my thoughts and feelings off this site. The main focus of this site is to talk about this project (UBCD4Win) and basically that is about all. I've tried to keep my personal opinions and personal issues from the "news", because I worried that some users would find it unprofessional? However have thought that some users would like more information from me? I'm not the super smart guy working for Google, MS, or cNet.....but I'm no dumbass either. I do have a lot of knowledge built up regarding computers. I have had thoughts of turning this news page into more of a "blog" so users KNOW that I am extremely active with this project. Do my thoughts really matter and will anyone care what I think? That's a good question, one that I surely cannot answer! Will users visit the site on a more regular basis because I post news/thoughts a few times a week rather than once a month? Does that really matter anyway's? Ok, now I'm getting too "goofy" so I'll just start with my disclaimer. The following paragraph contains my opinions and is not meant to offend anyone. These are what I see and what I perceive is going on, based on a lot of information. I frequent several forums, read many email newsletters, magazines, etc., so I think I know what is going on in our computing world.
The subject at hand is Embracing PE. I have had issues with this for years!! I thought after SpyBot S&D added the ability to it's software to recognize it was booted in PE over 2 years ago, everything was going to get better. I thought that after contacting several other software companies requesting features in their software to help it work better in PE, things would get better? UBCD4Win has gained a lot of popularity since it first started, we have helped get additional features added to numerous software titles. We have worked out "deals" with good software companies to help make us (UBCD4Win), their software, and your abilities better! We have worked with NirSoft, and Grisoft to name a few. We spend our time trying to help make all of our lives and UBCD4Win better!
While we are still successful in getting some things done, there are just too many to address. With SpyWare, Phlishing, etc., killing our ability to even attempt to "surf the net", why aren't more companies willing to REALLY help?? I'm not trying to only point one piece of software out, but then again maybe I am?? AdAware 2007 in my opinion is a piece of garbage. I could understand some of the "bloat", but only if the software actually WORKED!! The free version is now bloated with a service that isn't used in the free version, so maybe it's punishment to those of us who do not want to pay for it? They did NO work towards making it work in PE, and actually BROKE it so we can't even get it to work when booted in Bart PE or UBCD4Win?? What is up with that?
I and thousands of others have realized that the only GOOD way to remove spyware, viruses, etc., from a system is to boot PE, hopefully UBCD4Win! It is almost the PERFECT platform to remove all that crap from our computers. I'll even give you a real example to this. I have cleaned hundreds of computers using UBCD4Win and a lot of time it is NOT perfect. That is only because AdAware, Asquared, SpyBot, Kaspersky, AVG's, etc., honestly do not even attempt to remove some "hard" items. SmitFraud is the example I will use now. I think it is SpyBot that is the only tool that will even attempt to find it, but fails to remove it. All of these tools are built to run in WINDOWS. They know that some of these bad boys cannot be removed, so why bother attempting to remove it?? It really ticks me off that these tools DO NOT take into consideration that it CAN be removed if you are in PE. Why not code/create your tools to where they will know they are in PE so everything can be removed?
Money!! Honestly, I hope that is the only reason. I don't know, I mean at least most of the companies I've mentioned do have "paid" versions so it's not like they are starving. They do not drive a '94 crappy Buick and live in a crappy 50K house. I appreciate what I have and the (most of the time) low bills I have. I didn't start UBCD4Win to get rich and I understood that 80-90% of our users would not have a conscience. It's a sad fact, people use free software all the time and save themselves $50-$150 if a "pro" fixed their computer. How many actually appreciate that or feel that they should at least give a fraction of that to the software that helped them, maybe 10-20%, if that. I'm not telling you to go out and buy the paid versions of these software titles because I doubt that it will make a difference. There are several tools that I do stand by because they do kick some butt. Kaspersky is just honestly the best AV software you can buy. I'm at a mix between AVG AntiSpyware and Asquared. AVG AS has found a lot of stuff for me in the past, but so has Asquared. At the moment I'm not liking aSquared though because it promised that it worked with Vista and after a week of problems, I had to get rid of it. I have to mention again the fact that SpyBot did attempt to go above and beyond the others years ago by adding the functionality of recognizing when it was booted in PE. However I had to wait for them to get a Vista compatible version of their software released before I continue to talk them up too much.
6/28/07 -UBCD4NASA!
I received an email from a 10yr. tech that works for NASA a few weeks ago. Here is a quote from the email:
"Some of the software I've had to disable due to license or security concerns, but even so the CD is more useful than any other diagnostic or recovery tool we've ever found. You have no idea how many computers your tool has recovered or how much user data you've been responsible for rescuing."
He also wanted to send a little "token" of appreciation. Last week I received a "mission coin" with a card describing the mission. The really cool part is what the coin is made of.
After each mission they take the frames that hold the experiments, space station components, etc and melt them down and make coins out of them.
Thanks for the gift!! It's really appreciated!
6/27/07 -SoftPedia!!
I received an email late last night from SoftPedia. Seems they have found the time to check out and evaluate UBCD4Win. So we now have the honor of having their 100% Clean award! I've only added it to the "home" page and "downloads" page so far, but will probably add it to the rest. This should help prove to users that whenever they see a problem with the program, it is truly a "false positive"!!
6/23/07 -Version 3.05 RELEASED!!
Many updates and a few changes have made there way into the latest release of UBCD4Win. For the long list of updated tools and other changes check out the Version History page. I think the biggest news is the addition of AVG AntiVirus!! We have been in contact with them for months working together on a good PE plugin for their software and getting permission to include it in our download. Because we now have AVG a few of our old AV buddies had to go. ClamWin and SysClean. While they are probably good pieces of software, I (and other members of our development team) have never really gotten them to work very well in our builds. For those die hard fans though, we will be releasing individual plugins for those tools and anything else we have or will remove from the project. I just have to work out more details on that and get the html setup on the downloads page.
HashCheck has been updated again and addresses many more issues than it has in the past. I hope the users really understand what we are trying to accomplish with this tool. These tools are created and added to the project to help us and the user figure out extraction problems with the project if they have any. Tom worked really hard to add additional "checks" into the tool that should help users figure out what went wrong if something does.
BTS drivers have been added and our old storage drivers have been removed. The NIC drivers are still there but we have moved to a newer and better method with the BTS drivers. The only word of caution.....the are currently disabled by default. If you will need or think you will need storage drivers in your build, "Config" and then enable the plugin before building. It will automatically download the latest BTS driver pack and integrate it for you.
Slight changes to help control the size of the project. We have been discussing "pruning" the project and have done that a little with this release. We are pretty busy working on about 3 other things for the project so we couldn't really focus on it much in this release. I also need to find the time to post some polls in the forum to get a better idea of what YOU think could be removed and considered optional in the build. After all you are the reason why we do what we do and we try to make you as happy as possible.
A few disappointments in this release though. AdAware 2007 and AVG AntiSpyware did not make it into this release. We worked hard to try and get them to work, but could not. We are still working on them and hope to figure out what changes were made to the programs and how to get them to work in the project.
Finally, site and "how to" updates. I apologize now for not having the time to get all of the site updated. Not much has really changed with building the project but I do need to get a little documentation out there to help people with a few questions. Most notably the BTS drivers and how to setup the AVG AV plugin. If you happen to have questions or problems before I am able to get that information updated on the site, please search and/or post in the forum.
6/12/07 -Patch, 3.05, and RC Updates
Patch, recently it came to my attention that I made a mistake with a few recent orders. I always try to update the AntiVirus, AntiSpyware, and any other definition files that need updated regularly at least every 3-4 weeks for the ordered CD of the project. I figure most people that order the CD are stuck on dialup and it would take that person a long time to update all definition files. The last time I did this though, I updated a few other things I normally do not update. It's not that big of a bug and can actually be fixed pretty easily. My development team was on top of things and created instructions and a fix for MY bug, thanks John!! You can download the fix in this post in our support forum: http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=8505&view=findpost&p=47976
Remember, this bug ONLY effects ordered CD's. The volume label for the effected CD's should read "UBCD4Win30401."
3.05, due to the above error I am trying to get more testing done with our current beta. We will hopefully release 3.05 next week. Testing has been going very well so I truly believe that we will be able to "wrap up" 3.05 and get it released.
RC, just wanted to give everyone a little update on my root canal issues. Luckily the pain went away for a few days but came back a little today. I have been wanting to give everyone an update on it but was afraid I would jinx my luck and the pain would come back. So I have been feeling better and trying to get more work done. It's been much easier since I haven't had to take pain killers for the past few days. Thanks to the few that sent me emails and advice about my tooth, I really do appreciate it but have not had time to get responses sent out to all of you.
6/5/07 -Root Canal update, and apologies
The past few weeks have been quite trying for me. I've had a toothache for over a month and found that I needed a root canal. Sure it sucked that my insurance won't cover it all but that really is the least of my worries. Dealing with the pain has been hell. Thanks to someone canceling their appointment last week I was able to have my root canal done. I was actually pretty happy because I figured that after an hour of hell, I would finally find relief. WRONG. I have actually been in more pain this past week and I don't know when I will finally be pain free. I hope it happens before my next appoint early next month.
So that brings me to apologies. I am sorry that I haven't been that active in the forum and have barely been answering any emails. The painkillers I've been taking have had me feeling a bit "loopy." So I really haven't been able to concentrate on much of anything. At least somehow I have been able to handle work pretty well for the most part, but by the end of the day I really can't cope with anything else. I am very sorry to everyone that I haven't emailed back yet. Slowly but surely my inbox will be taken care of but I don't know how soon. So if you need support please now more than ever, post in the forum.
5/28/07 -Beta testing, RSS, CSS, and HTML
I thought all the "bad" words were supposed to be four letter words? Anyway's, beta2 for version 3.05 was released to beta testers yesterday and everything is looking good so far. Today was a holiday though so I'm thinking it just hasn't been tested too much yet? There are a lot of tool updates in this upcoming release so it might take a little more time to find any problems.
RSS, CSS, etc., were things I worked on today. After a long day of testing and compiling yesterday, I needed something else to work on!! Users have requested RSS feeds in the past so yesterday and today I found time to work on it. I have heard plenty about RSS but never really found the need or time to check into them more. If you like RSS feeds, use a reader regularly, and enjoy the project please subscribe to our new feed. I'm still new to this so please report any errors or problems to me via email. In my RSS adventures I spent a little time updating the site today also. CSS has always been a thorn in my side, but today I found the time to learn a little more about it. My main focus has always been the project in general, but the project makes me learn and deal with A LOT of different things. Today I made several cosmetic changes to the site thanks to CSS. In the process I learned a few more things about HTML and was reminded of W3C compliance. A few years ago I found that important and spent some time ensuring that the site was compliant with all the W3C rules. Today I checked a few pages and found several minor issues. All pages of the site are not yet completely compliant but I'll spend some time over the next few days to get the rest "up to snuff." The only sad thing about being compliant, is the fact that MS doesn't care. IE7 was a step in the right direction, but MS still talks about making their own standards. I don't think that IE7 follows all the rules, but it does follow them better than IE6. I just wish they would follow the rules instead of always trying to MAKE them!!
5/25/07
Well I made a huge mistake with my previous news post. I thank everyone who has emailed me over the past 2 days. The responses I've received to my "cry baby" news is very nice. Life is life, it is what it is. Sometimes I am overwhelmed and I try my best to control "freak out" moments like I just had. I try to be as professional as possible but my emotions get the best of me at times. It's a flaw in myself that is annoying. With so many things going on I just have my moments. I honestly think the real problem at the moment is pain. I've had a toothache that has given me a headache pretty much daily for the past month. I can't stand being in pain and it just kills my motivation/ability to get anything done. Sucks because I have two options, extraction or root canal. My crappy insurance doesn't help either because it's not an "important" tooth to them??!! They'll cover the extraction but not all of the root canal. So I basically I have to figure out how to come up with about $350 just so I can save it. I'll figure out a way, doesn't matter how because I want my tooth!
I got a little side tracked, kind of. Thank you again to everyone that has emailed me. I know the project kicks ass and I apologize for giving the impression that I was considering giving up. I have a great group of guys in my "development team" that help me A LOT with the project. I'm a bit frustrated with support. There was a HUGE mess a few weeks ago with cNet/download.com that was really just a bunch of BS. We've had a few server issues over the past few weeks. IPB (our forum software) support really SUCKS! These "behind the scene" problems that only I have to deal with and are very frustrating.
Let's do some GOOD news now! Beta testing for 3.05 will continue soon once I find the time to get a few finishing touches to Beta2 done. It looks pretty good and includes a lot of updates. The best news though is our "deal" with AVG/Grisoft is almost finished!! I can't remember if I've ever posted news about this here on the site, but I do know that we've talked about it in the forum on a few occasions. We've been in contact/talks with Grisoft for a while now. We've been working together to create a plugin for UBCD4Win to include their AntiVirus software. It is almost final now. I really hope to get the official OK within the next several days so we can include it in 3.05.
5/23/07
Does anyone like or use the project anymore? I'm just curious because I receive few emails and they are generally users with problems and/or mistakes on their part. I'm starting to think that I've wasted the last 3+ years of my life?? I think made a huge mistake? I should have been a father and enjoyed my children.
4/16/07
Apologies for some confusion!
Our server went down "hard" over the weekend and I sadly reported in the forum that we lost 4-5 days worth of posts and new user registrations. I apologize to all for any inconvenience and am working on a better backup plan. If this every happens again, we should only lose a few hours of posts. To set the record straight also, NO ONE has been banned from the forum. NO posts were removed, it was just an innocent loss of data.
Download.com link is temporarily removed. In an attempt to be "courteous," they automatically updated our UBCD4Win listing to the newest version! Newest version? Hmmm, I don't recall releasing a new version? Even though it clearly states in the listing that we are UBCD4Win and our domain is ubcd4win.com. Someone in their office became confused and though they would be nice and update our listing with the newest Ultimate Boot CD version 4.0.3!! I have sent them emails and hope that this situation will be fixed soon. Once it is, then the download.com link will be placed on the "downloads" page again.
4/6/07
BTS driver support is officially released! After over a year of my development team working with the development team of the BTS driverpack, we now have support for UBCD4Win and really any BartPE build. Thanks goes out to Bashrat the Sneaky and OverFlow from the BTS team. Without those two adding these capabilities to their BTS driverpacks this would not be possible. Thanks to LittlBUGer for starting the initial conversations between us and BTS, rdsok and pcuser deserve thanks for testing and providing some input, hilander999 and cdob for working with their team on the really technical stuff. For more information visit the official BTS driverpacks website and/or check out the "official" announcement with a download link and instructions in our forum.
4/1/07
NO April fool's day jokes from me. All of these "holidays" or "special" days kind of annoy me. Maybe I'm turning into a grumpy old man? Seems like today is only fun for kids, that's the only time I can remember having fun on this day.
I'm a day early but I'm going to say it anyways.....HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! Yes, as of tomorrow this project has been alive and kicking for 3 years now! What a great 3 years! All the people who have joined our development and beta teams, all the people I have talked to on the phone and through emails, all the people we have been able to help with this project!! It's quite amazing if you really think about it. Thanks to everyone who has helped make UBCD4Win what it is, whether you've donated to help us cover our hosting costs, donated time testing things.....whatever you have done to help us, THANK YOU!
Apologies. I do want to apologize to some people for the lack of support I've provided over the past week, in emails and in the forum. I should have the time tonight to get to my email and respond a little more in the forum. This has been a very busy week for me because I'm taking care of a serious issue. Basically people ripping other people and us off! Last week I found some auctions that seemed questionable. Luckily we had a little extra money in our PayPal accounts so several members of the development team and myself started investigating. We found ISO images of UBCD4Win available for download!! Not only is it illegal to distribute any of the UBCD4Win files (read the ordering page and EULA for the project) but these were completed ISO images! I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't appreciate that!
So I've spent most of my free time this week speaking with an attorney and organizing the "evidence" against this individual. This should all be resolved this week or next week. The biggest problem with all of this is the poor people that were "ripped off" by purchasing something that is FREE! If any of these people need support for their "illegal CD", I at least hope they find this site so they can get honest and true support. Even though someone else made money for our work, I feel we still need to support these people. We will of course hold absolutely no liability if this seller did something bad (such as include a virus, keylogger, etc.) to the build they sold.
3/7/07
Version 3.04 Released!!!! Thanks to all our "regular" beta testers, PRC beta testers, "development team", and everyone else that has helped me/us get this latest version released! To download, go to the "downloads" page of the site. To see what is new/changed, visit the "version history" page. Thanks also to all users that have supported us and this awesome project! Especially the ones that donated towards our NEW RamDrive OEM license!! Now with 3.04, you can have up to a 2Gig RamDrive with NO "nag screens"!!! Well, now you just need a system that can actually do a 2Gig RAM drive!
Additional noteworthy news, thanks to the help of the "development team".....I actually found time over the weekend to get more work done on the site! The "list of tools" page of the site is more up to date than it has been in a LONG time! While I do not have all URL's setup for the tools included in the project and version numbers aren't all probably correct....it's an awesome step in the right direction. I will continue to update and provide all of you with the most up to date information. I also took the time to create a "privacy" page on the site. This was something that a user actually asked about a few weeks ago! We strive very hard for everyone to understand that we are "good guys/gals" of the Internet. With so many "bad guys" out there, it's hard to build trust. I have a hell of a time personally trying to figure out who and what I can trust!!! Words are just words though, no matter how well a "privacy" page is setup it's words won't build trust. We've been around for very close to 3 years now, so I would think that most people take that into consideration?
3/2/07
Would anyone like to check out version 3.04? We have been beta testing the new version for the past week and are currently on a third beta for the next version. Everything seems very stable and I would like to release it, but I want to make sure there aren't any problems. The only thing that I ask is that you spend some time testing and post any questions or problems in the forum. I will create a post after a few people "sign up." If you have the time and want to test the new version, please email me. I will then send you information on where and how to download. Send your request to: Ben [at] ubcd4win.com. Thank you for your help and support!! Also please understand that it may take me a few hours to reply to your email, I have to sleep and work so I'm not always at my computer.
BTW- Happy Birthday Ben!!!
2/28/07
After 2 weeks, more information! I failed to mention here on the site the fact that I have upgraded!! For the past 3 weeks I've been playing with a new laptop loaded with Vista!! It's only Home Premium and only cost $600, but it is honestly pretty nice! For a few weeks, the migration to Vista did slow down some progress for me. But, it has really been a great experience so far! I normally do not like "eye candy", but Vista's "candy" has made me say "Wow" a few times. Especially considering the fact this laptop only cost $600! While $600 is honestly a lot to me and my income, I only mention it so much because I think it's a great deal for a Vista laptop. I really couldn't afford it, but luckily I have a "kick ass" boss that has allowed me to make payments on the system! Soon I will have it paid off and be able to really call it mine.
Version 3.04?? When and where? Very soon!! Just so the users of the project know, we have been busy. Even though our work and personal lives have been very busy, we have found the time to get more work done on the project. Beta2 was released tonight and I really hope and trust that we will be able to get the next version of the project released next week? Please do not hold me to that though. We could possibly find issues that need addressed that could mess up when I think we will be able to release the next version.
2/14/07
More information for the patch. A few people complained that the new patch wasn't mentioned on the download page when released. I made the assumption and trusted that users would check out this "news" page for information. I also wanted people to read the post in the forum for more information. Anyway's, it is now listed on the download page and the "Version History" page is updated to list the fixes included in the patch.
I also want to warn everyone that has placed orders over the past 24-48 hours, they will be delayed. Northern Ohio was hit with a huge snow storm which started early yesterday morning and isn't going to until later this morning today. Mail will not run today but hopefully resume on Thursday? It has and is affecting a lot of major cities so I get the feeling that deliveries could possibly be delayed even more?
I will attempt to get all orders out to the post office sometime this afternoon when the roads are a little safer. Then hopefully they will start their journey to you Thursday.
2/11/07
Lately we came across a program called Patch Maker. Users of the project have always asked if it was possible for us to release patches. I always thought that it would require too much time to create updates or patches for the project, time that I could not find in my busy schedule.
Well, until now! This program looks very promising and seems very easy to use. The free version includes ads, but at least their is a paid version and it's very affordable. We plan on testing this for several weeks and will decide if it's worth the $59. I am quite excited about the project having the possibility of being updated rather than have users have to download another 170+MB version.
With the Prelogon issue and a few other minor fixes, we have created a patch for version 3.03. Please check out this post in the forum and download the patch:
http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7537&hl=
If you test the patch, please let us know what you think about it. Like I said above, if this works it will save users a lot of time downloading the project.
2/2/07
Happy HOG day!! Well anyways, in the US we have "groundhog day", a day that is supposed to predict when Spring will being. It's silly, but fun also! Luckily things are looking up at the moment for my Grandmother-in-law, so I've had time today to take care of a few things with the project today.
The BIG announcement is Google Checkout! For the past few months they have been nice enough to waive their fees to sellers. Their rates are A LOT better than PayPal's so I always appreciated that. The few cents per order from Google I gained when they were charging their fees weren't enough for me to change prices for the ordered CD's. I thought it was a short term promotion until I checked into it more tonight. Evidently they are doing it for this entire year! For the rest of the year I actually get the entire amount that YOU pay when you order the project on CD!!
So please, if you want to or need to order UBCD4Win on CD......use Google Checkout! I am actually only saving about 50 cents per order, but I believe in Google so much more than PayPal.....I am willing to give up the other 50 cents. The prices for the project on CD has always been low because it's free. I've always offered the service just to help people and I think it's only fair that when it's cheaper and a better deal for me, I must pass that on to the users and/or possible users of the project.
2/1/07
Good news always has to bring bad news. I'll start with bad news, good news, and finally really bad news.
Ok, I made a BIG mistake in the latest version of the project. Evidently I messed up the PreLogon plugin before zipping up the last version and sending it out to the mirrors. There is also another problem with PreLogon on some systems. When a user clicks the "Config" button to setup PreLogon, they could possibly see an error message. There are resolutions to each problem. Please check out the first link for help with configuring PreLogon, if you receive an error message when trying to configure it check out the instructions in the second link:
http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=7406&view=findpost&p=42132
http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=7430&view=findpost&p=42224
Some people have speculated that we enforce an expiration on the project. That is not true at all! I hate those kinds of tactics by other companies and would never do that to the users of this project. It was an honest mistake made by me when working on the last version of the project when I was testing some stuff. It passed by beta testing because no one every thought to check that out. This feature is included for responsibility reasons. While this security measure can be easily broken (provided a person even knows about it), it's still a good idea. It is mostly because of "shops" using the project and possible theft. If a shop accidentally leave the CD in a computer they worked on, that really isn't good. Especially if they have commercial software included in their personalized version of UBCD4Win. They have just given away paid software and became a software pirate by accident! So I always recommend that shops or people who use it a lot do initiate an expiration date.
PC Magazine rocks!! We received their latest issue in the mail today, it had a front cover that said something about the Best Free software (sorry, I had to leave the magazine at work and I can't remember the exact wording). UBCD4Win was of course mentioned along with 91 other great free tools!! It's awesome because it's the second mention in their magazine over the past 2 months. Now I just hope for a top 10 free list, well hope for it as long as UBCD4Win is ranked pretty high up there!
Really bad news. Death sucks. It is possibly affecting me once again in less than 2 weeks. Last week the woman I work with lost her 2 month old son. She is one of the most sweet women I have ever met. She was already going through some tough times and this really messed thing up bad. She brought Evan into work many times and I really regret never holding him or playing with him. It honestly messed me up for a few days and I thought about taking some time off away from the project then but didn't. Today was the worst because "the question" was finally asked, the one we all regretted to hear. A customer came in and asked her how her boy was doing. She handled it ok but man it really sucked.
Things aren't looking good for my grandmother-in-law. She has been having some serious heart issues over the past few months. She has had pneumonia for the past couple of weeks and a blockage broke off a couple of days ago, the later of course sent her to the hospital. Luckily it went down to her leg instead of giving her a stroke. Over the past few days it has just been getting worse. We are fearing the worse, so I think I'm going to be taking some time off to spend with my wife.
We have a couple of issues with the project currently so the timing really sucks. We also have our new license which I would really like to get out to everyone, but I think all of you will understand. I want to quickly apologize to the donators also, I haven't found the time to send my thank you emails out. I will hopefully find time tomorrow to thank all of you.
1/31/07
Didn't even take 24 hours!! You all effin rock!!!
I makes me extremely proud, really. This project has helped and touched enough people over the years that anytime we have an idea and/or need money, you are always there to help! It's an awesome testament to the project and it's ideal. You all appreciate our hard work so much that you are willing to help us make it better with donations towards licenses, etc. Luckily most of our work can be done freely (no out of pocket expense) but sometimes to make the project better as a whole, we do need licenses for some software. Individuals could have easily said "Pay for a license for others? Whatever!! I can get a license for that tool for MYSELF for only $5 or $10! Why give more and help others?"
Thank all that have donated for this "rally" and all that have donated in the past! You have all helped to keep this project alive and make it the ULTIMATE!! If you considered donating and didn't, please remember also that we do have monthly expenses....so please donate anytime if you are able to. Donations are always used for our expenses and to help make the project better.
1/30/07
It's on!!! Well, little response has been made in the forum about the possibility of a "donation rally" so we can purchase the OEM license for the RAM Drive used in the project. I really didn't think we would be doing the "rally", well until this morning when we received a donation for $100!!
A long time user and donator to the project dropped more than half the cost of the license today!! This individual has made many donations in the past, many to help us pay the costs involved with making the project available and some to help with our past license purchases. We only need to raise an additional $75, so that should be pretty easy. If you think it's a good idea and would like us to get this license, please donate.
Here is how I would like to work this "donation rally." Again I want to have a time limit. If we do not reach the $175 within 2 weeks, we will give up on the idea and I will refund all donations. Please, when you send a donation email me also letting me know if it's for the license or to help with our monthly costs for the project.
Once enough money is donated, I will let everyone know by posting news here on the site and also in the forum.
1/28/07
"Nag" screens, do they bother you too? While I understand their purpose, they still annoy me. Since I've been using UBCD4Win more at work lately, I've been reminded of a "nag" screen. In the past people have complained about this, but recently I don't recall anyone mentioning it. I started a discussion about this in our support forum a few days ago. I basically asked what people thought of us getting an OEM license for it. Does it bother enough people? Should we start a "donation rally" to purchase the license?
So if you have an opinion on this, please check out the forum. If you think this is a good idea, please check out the forum. You can either register (if you aren't already) to post your comments in the forum or email me what you think. Check out the post here: http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?s=647b20f8e14ac7c495aa4baa281be833&showtopic=7382
1/10/07
Evidently there is NO love for the Steelers this year, oh well.
I guess I should stay focused on "project news" anyways? This isn't really a blog, it's supposed to be an area for information about the project. I do like to share a few opinions and share opinions/views so everyone does know that I am a normal person! Anyways, onto the NEWS...........
Updates, Forum Policy Change, and Questions.
Updates. I've made a few updates to the site again, mostly to the FAQ and "list of tools" page. Several questions have been asked over the past few weeks that I haven't had the time to add to the site. I also found a few changes that needed to be made on the "list of tools" page. It is not completely perfect yet, but is at least 90% accurate now.
Forum changes. Due to an ever increasing amount of "spam" in the forum, I regret to announce that registrations will be delayed. Even with the latest version of IPB software, spammers have still been able to register, login, and post spam in the forum. Because the project continues to gain more users and popularity, the "evil forces" on the Internet have found us!! We've been dealing with 5-15 spam messages per day in the forum for at least the last 3 months. While my Moderating/Development teams have done a kick ass job getting questionable posts out of sight from the public, more needs to be done. I did NOT want to ever have to do this, but now registration to the forum has to be controlled by me. I now have to spend time everyday, throughout the day OK'ing registrations. While it is more work for me (which I do not worry about), it causes possible problems with new users. I WANT users of the project to be able to post their questions without waiting. I hate the fact that because of "criminals" and "con-artists" REAL users of the project have to suffer!! Please everyone understand, we have your best interests in mind. Please also understand if it takes 1-3 days for me to "OK" you registration. While a pain for all of us, I think it's best that after registration......email me asking to be validated. That way I KNOW you are a legit user and not a spammer, hopefully I am not busy at the time and will be able to approve your account.
Questions. Other questions have been asked. Most noteably, questions about our "driver pack 1.9." A few users have asked if it is included in version 3.03 of the project. It was included in 3.02 and 3.03, however I messed up by forgetting to add that information on the "Version History" page of the site. I have updated that page. Version 3.02+ does have the latest "driver pack" version included.
1/6/07
Depression, is almost all I can say. I think this will probably last a while too?
How many head coaches has your NFL football team had since 1969?? No other team has had stable, good head coaches such as Noll and Cowher! 2 coaches in 37 years! I don't know if I've ever admitted it on the site before, but my youngest son after Cowher! The Steelers were 7-9 (1998) and 6-10 (1999), my youngest was born in 1999....even after both of those crappy season I KNEW and had faith in Cowher. I love(d) that jerk enough to name my last child after him!!!!!
Back when Cowher first started I felt and knew that he had a good team to start with. He was a bit lucky to start his career with the Steelers when he did. His first year with them they had a 11-5 record! After only 4 seasons, he took them to a Super Bowl! Only to be screwed up because we had an idiot for a QB (O'Donnell)!! It took Noll 6 seasons to reach the Super Bowl. However his first year was pretty bad, the team was 1-13! He built the team up to win 2 consecutive Super Bowls TWICE though! Cowher could have easily done this also. While this year was "strange", I think the team has learned A LOT after winning Super Bowl XL and then having this crappy season. I don't know who will be up for free agency this year and who will leave. Every year that scares me because we always lose great players in the off-season and especially when we have a good year. Bettis retired last year, but "Willie" kicks ass. He isn't the big fat punch you in the face back that Bettis is, but how many RB's run for 50-70 yard TD's? He did it in SB XL and in a couple of games this year (I think?). I know he ran at least one 50+ TD and think there was at least another. I know the last one he ran, I thought "what the heck! Almost always in the 3rd quarter?"
Anyways, I'm going to be depressed for a while. I really hope the Steelers find a good coach so my depression doesn't turn into anger. We have pride in the fact that we pick good people and we really have. "Willie" is a good example of that, not drafted but picked up and has kicked a lot of ass in the NFL. Enough to have a SB record run!
Please check out my "Steelers" page on this site. It's not up to date and as a matter of fact I didn't even update it after the Steelers won SB XL! I didn't want to brag too much after the win. I've moved many things around in my office since then and picked up a few SB items after last year. Heck, I haven't even posted a pic of my SB XL Porter jersey. Actually, I think I only wore it once this year during a game??!! Maybe that's why we had a crappy season? I dunno? I do know that I don't want to ruin it though, so I've been very careful with it. So watch my "Steelers" page, as I'm probably going to take more pictures and post them soon? I dunno? Will that help me cope with it, or make it worse?
1/4/07
Version 3.03 released! We have hopefully patched up all bugs in our new "Integrity Checker" tool that has been included in the project since version 3.02. There were issues with FAT32 volumes, Compressed NTFS volumes, etc., that wouldn't allow the Integrity Checker to do it's job. Another feature included is some additional missing file checks. Basically this part of the check makes sure that certain files exist, one's that AV software tags as a virus or "riskware." One of the problems that users have is when their AV software silently deletes files from the project while it's being extracted. Another problem is when users have their AV software to make decisions for them, the software then deletes whatever files it wishes to delete. Then there are problems with some AV companies that like to act irresponsible. These companies will tag "riskware" programs as viruses. That stance scares people into thinking that it is in fact a virus! "Riskware" is simply tools that can revel information about your system. For example, KeyFinder will show you the Product Key for your Windows install. While someone could use it to steal your PK, it is an invaluable tool when you misplaced your key, the system isn't bootable, and you need to reinstall your OS!!
We have tried to be as proactive as possible to inform users that these are not viruses and everything included in the project is safe. For well over a year now we have had a FAQ topic on this site explaining this situation: http://www.ubcd4win.com/faq.htm#false
Wow what was a bit long!! Anyways, basically now if one of these files are missing.....the "Integrity Checker" will inform you after extraction. In the past you would go through the whole build process and receive errors. I think this feature will help many people.
Please check out the "Version History" page for all changes in this new version. The only new additions worth mentioning is a Go Back removal tool being added to MultiBoot and a Go Back detection tool that runs when the project is booting up. If the tool finds a Go Back partition, it will display a pop up message warning the user that Go Back is installed on the HDD.
If you have any problems or receive error messages from the "Integrity Checker," please post in our support forum or email me. We have tried hard to make sure there are no bugs, but are unable to catch every situation that may cause problems. Thank you all for your continued support!!
12/30/06
Almost time to start a new year!! Thanks to yet another "extra" day off, I'm going to try again to get more work done that I usually do not have to time to complete. Since Ohio weather has been so goofy this year I thought I would attempt more work on my car. I am pretty sure I have a warped rotor on the driver's side of my car. After fighting with the caliper bolts for close to an hour, I had to give up and do something that would make me happy. So I thought I would update the site a little, add more content, and add a few new pages. I of course didn't have the time this evening to get everything done, I hope to get more done over the next couple of days. NFL and BCS football may get in the way a little though since there will be a lot of good games to watch.
12/28/06
No new version yet, I apologize for not "coming through" for you all. After posting the news about 3.021 I regretted it. Simply because I thought about it more and changed my mind. After thinking about it more and noticing that everyone was busy with holiday festivities, I couldn't do it. I also didn't and don't want to give up on our new "Integrity Checker" so quickly. The issues and bugs with the initial version of the "Integrity Checker" were very limited. Thanks to dedicated users we think we have found all the bugs and are testing a new version of the tool. I would also like to stress to users that had no problems with 3.02, please do not download 3.02.1. There will be no big changes or additions to that release, basically just fixes for bugs in the "Integrity checker" that was included in 3.02. Hopefully beta testing will go well and we will be able to release the new version within the next couple of days.
I would like to thank the people that sent emails to me over the past week also. The news posted then was possibly a little "whiney" but a lot of people sent me emails thanking us for the project. I make the mistake of taking negatives to heart. I receive emails from people that are just pushy, rude, and/or arrogant. It's too bad those still get me a bit "fired up" at times. "Close minded" people email me and that tends to bother me because no matter what I say to them they refuse to accept it. We are here to just help people and they refuse to accept the fact that "false positives" DO exist. One fact though, will NEVER go away. The 100,000's (maybe more) people we have helped with this project!! We can only do so much, and I've slowly learned that over the close to 3 years we have been doing this! Thank you all!!
12/22/06
Have you ever tried to run a freeware project? Have you ever tried to please everyone?
I'm honestly not trying to be a prick, just trying to make people understand a little. I'm not trying to make people feel bad either, just please understand.
My development team, beta testers, and self try our best to do what we think is the right thing and the best thing to do for this project. Making decisions that people want and/or are in their best interest is not an easy job. Currently there are a few minor issues with the latest 3.02 release. These issues reside within a new security/usability feature we coded called the "integrity checker." Basically it runs after the project files are extracted and checks those files to make sure they have not been modified. It also checks the path that the files were extracted to, making sure the files were not extracted to a bad path (one with spaces, something mentioned in the "how to build" instructions but missed by some users). We (development team and beta testers) tested the "integrity checker" for several weeks and were confident that there were no bugs in it. Evidently we didn't have enough scenarios to test with because some users are coming up with unexpected errors.
I apologize for the 3.02 inconvenience and was hoping that a fix would have been figured out and problem users would have the time to test fixes. However, it's the holiday season so EVERYONE is busy. So since a fix is not possible quickly, I will start uploading a 3.021 version either tomorrow or Sunday. I will try my best to get this done tomorrow but cannot promise it since I have a lot of plans tomorrow (work, family gatherings, etc.). If you have problems with the current 3.02 version of the project please check out the topics in our support forum or send me an email. I thank all users and helpers of the project for keeping this project popular and alive! Thank you and Merry Christmas!!!
12/19/06
After way too long, a new version is finally released!!
Version 3.02 is available for download now!!
There are many updates, fixes, and new additions in this new release. I have finally taken the time to create a "version history" page to list out changes between new versions. The "list of tools" page is also completely updated with the most current information on what is included in the project.
11/16/06
Bad, sad news....but then some good!
RIP- Bo Schembechler. Legendary head coach of the University of Michigan Wolverines. It's a very sad day for us Michigan fans and very bad timing. The BIGGEST game of the year is at hand tomorrow when we play OSU! It's even better than ever, it will be the game of your lifetime!! Michigan and Ohio State have never been ranked #2 and #1 when facing each other. It's pretty awesome to have a pre-championship game, one before the "official" BCS championship game.
The forum!! Is finally back up. Like I've mentioned before, there were a few "roadblocks" but it was finally fixed. I really have to give the tech support at our new host a big hand!! They were very nice and spent a lot of time fixing it. Most hosts do not provide support for "third party software", but these guys/gals went the extra mile. It also helped given the fact who we are....UBCD4Win. Several of their techs have used the project a lot so I think that helped us get a little better support.
11/16/06 -9am EST
Frustrating. That is almost all I can say at this moment. The issues and stress continue to mount. I've mentioned in emails and to people that luckily I had funds available on my credit card so I could make our latest host move. That at least allowed the site to be back up and for me to have email again. I am extremely thankful at the fact that there have been a few people nice enough to donate over the past couple of day. Thanks to you I have "recovered" almost all that I spent on our new host and enough to get me out of a tight spot! I have been having car problems for the past few weeks, but haven't been able to figure out the exact source. We all know troubleshooting can suck, but with a car.....it can be costly!! If you try an alternator ($140), then battery ($100), maybe a coil ($30), what about the starter ($150), or the whole ignition module ($180), it really sucks when the last item you try fixes the problem!! Luckily, there are ways to test some of these components. It's just too bad that almost all of these parts are greasy and can take a lot of time to remove for testing. Troubleshooting a computer is SO much easier!! Well, most of the time that is. Sure the parts can be costly, but us "pros" can figure out the issue and fix a system in one shot! Well, I guess that depends on where you take the system to and the techs they employ though.
Regardless, the whole point to this is THANK YOU! There was a reason why I was saving that money on my credit card. Luckily the site died first so I could take care of that and ask for help with the new higher hosting costs. Thanks to great users, I was able to fix my car today. It did break down and I was extremely frustrated trying to fix it today, but I am happy that I was able to. Also very happy that I figured out what was causing the problem (I really hope!!). If the car doesn't start again tomorrow, I really don't care......I'll just walk to work!!
The forum is still DOWN! I'm sorry. I've been doing as much as I can do and trust that our new host is doing the same. I really hope they will be able to fix it by at least tomorrow. If not, then I will be forced to pay IPB to take care of it.
Some of you have been emailing me questions, that is fine.....please do that. We need to support the project and I do not mind the emails, as long as you do not mind a possible delay in getting a response. If you catch me at a good time, you could get a response in only 5 minutes!! However, if I'm very busy at work.....it could take a few hours, if not more. So if you have problems, questions, etc., please feel free to email me. I will try my best to reply as quickly as possible.
11/15/06
What a horrible day. Most of you haven't been able to read yesterday's news yet because the site has been down!! I will keep this short. Yesterday's outage was the final straw and I had to do more. After work last night I started researching hosts and am pretty sure I found a winner. Luckily I had some money in my PayPal account so I could purchase a plan. So, the site is now backup except for the forum. I have to contact our old host and get our database so I can install it to our new hosting plan. I thank you all for your patience. Donations are even more important than in the past since the cost for this new host is substantially more every month. So if you are able, please consider donating to the project.
11/14/06
Wow have I been slacking again!! Just wanted to give everyone a few updates. We are currently working on a 3.02 build and hope to release it by the end of the month. It may appear that we are slacking off, but we are all actually quite busy. A lot of good things have been going on and we are working on many new features and tools for up coming versions of the project. Speaking of tools, I have updated the "download" page to include a few more great tools that should help many of you. The first is WinDriversBackup. This tool basically allows you to backup drivers from your system, useful if you have a system crash....now you won't have to download all of them or run multiple CD's to get all your drivers installed. This helps users of the project also, because you should be able to use it to pull drivers from your system and include them in your UBCD4Win build.
The next tool is XP-ISO-Builder, don't let the name fool you....it is supposed to work with other versions of Windows. This tool does many great things but my interest is in the fact that you can sometimes create an XP CD from the "crappy" recovery or repair CD. Many users have a hard time getting a "source" that will work for building UBCD4Win. That shouldn't be a problem anymore!! I have recommended this tool to several users so far and it works about 90% of the time.
We've had some issues over the past two months with hosting also. I've wanted to beat my head against the wall on several occasions but am still optimistic. I really hope these issues stop soon! We've made several moves to different hosts but still continue to end up with issues?? I just do not understand why we can't find good and honest hosting? I apologize for all of the down time and am trying my best to make sure this does not continue to happen.
UBCD4Win was recently mentioned in "PC World Komputer" magazine, in their October issue. They did a 3 page "workshop tutorial." They were even kind enough to send me several copies of the magazine so I could check it out and send copies out to our Moderators and Development team. Again, thank you very much for the additional publicity for the project!!
We also received a few awards from WinTotal. The awards are on the "home" or index page of the site. We were first awarded the honor of "Download of the week" in late September. Then at the end of each month the visitors of the site vote on the "User Award" of the month. Thanks to all the great users that helped vote UBCD4Win as "User Award" of the month for September 06!!
9/5/06
I failed to mention a few things yesterday. I guess I didn't want to "overload" everyone with too much news??
Steve Irwin.....RIP buddy! I really can't think of everything that needs to be said about this guy. He was my oldest (10) son's hero. Troy wanted to grow up and be just like him. I don't think anyone will ever come close to being Steve Irwin, he was "original." He sparks millions of peoples interests and inspired many of them also.
Google Checkout!! Has anyone checked it out?? Do you hate PayPal? Feel insecure about sending payments online? Google Checkout may help you and reassure you that most of the time it is safe to do online transactions!! Uhhh, wow.....sorry for that. I swear Google didn't pay me to say that! Anyways the truth to the matter is some people that want to order the project on CD do not like PayPal! I have checked into other payment methods but in all honesty they are too expensive. I have been wishing and waiting for an alternative and personally hoped that Google would do it. Why Google? For me, I really like Google. There aren't hate posts about Google like there are about Microsoft, Sony, etc. I trust Google and A LOT of other people do too!! I signed up for a "Checkout" account and it is now in available on the ordering page!! I added the "buy now" buttons yesterday in my round of site updates and am happy at the fact that someone has already used this service!! I received my first order tonight. Thank you for using this new alternative payment method, it's very reassuring that I didn't "waste" my time by signing up for this new payment method.
The "Config Tool." Does anyone know about it or remember it?? The idea was awesome and is over a year old now. Great progress was made in the development of the tool, however BIG changes with the 3.0 release almost killed it's development. We of course did not want to kill the Config Tool with the 3.0 release, but there were a lot of changes that needed to be made to the project and those changes did require a lot of NEW work to be done with the tool.
Enter the future! With more members in the development team now, new life has been brought to the Config Tool. I and many others in the project are extremely excited that development of the tool has been brought to new life. Now Tom (pcuser) doesn't have the entire load of coding the tool because Bernd (Joshua) is helping with more ideas and the coding of the NEW Config Tool. These guys have already programmed awesome tools such as EzPCFix and PreShell........together they will kick ASS with Config Tool 2.0!! It is still in early development and there is no expected release date, but from what we (the development team) have seen so far.....it is and will be AWESOME!! Hopefully these guys will have a lot of free time so this can get released to all of you asap! You will be happy and impressed, the few who have seen it so far are very impressed. SO, keep checking out the site or forum....the NEW Config Tool is coming your way, just for you!
9/4/06
Ok, it's been a while since I've posted any news or updates on the progress of the project. This summer has been a difficult one for almost all members of the development team. Some of us have moved, some have switched jobs, and the rest have just been BUSY! Thanks to the holiday weekend I have had 3 consecutive days off from work!! I hoped to clean up and organize my home office a little, get some work done on the project, etc. I of course had some other personal items to fix up such as a few network, phone, and cable connections in the house. The wife also had a few things she wanted me to do, luckily I didn't get sucked into her latest home project......new floor in the living room!
I did find the time however to update several pages on the site. This page is now setup like several of the other pages on the site with my new layout. I hope to get the entire site on this layout soon. The "list of tools" page has been fixed up a little and updated. More content has been added to the FAQ and Customize pages as well.
Finally I thank all users of the project for being patient since we have been unable to get a new version released. We have started working on a few betas and of course have many great ideas for a hopeful release sometime in October.