More Roxio news on this beautiful sunday. I was just checking the Roxio forum again and saw a great reply from one of our Moderators Inertia.
The question was from one of our other Moderators OC-Freak:
Why do Easy CD-Creator cause so many problems/conflicts with other programs?
Let's take a look what Inertia thinks about this:
 This is my take on this perception: |
Easy CD Creator (starting with Easy CD Pro 95) was one of the first successful full featured burning sofware packages and had very broad acceptance. In the early days of burning, the programs were not designed for compatibility, since there were few people with burners and not too much software to choose from. DirectCD would probably also be loaded, but people using it probably didn't have much of a technical understanding.
In the early days, some Adaptec drivers might conflict with Nero and vice versa. WinOnCD could cause conflicts with either. Many problems, then as now, were probably caused by people trying to install more than one packet writing program. This can result in blue screen failures, but the perception was that of a software conflict, not an unworkable installation. Because of the way packet writing programs are integrated into the operating system, only one can be successfully installed.
DirectCD could cause conflicts with Nero even if installed alone, but there were workarounds that developed for this that did not require a boot menu. Somehow out of this, and probably related to the fact that Easy CD Creator had most of the market, the idea started circulating that it would "take over" your computer and not allow other burning software to operate without problems. The reality is that all burning software had these early compatibility problems. They were designed separately to do similar functions, and their drivers could conflict with other burning software loaded at the same time.
As the state of the art progressed, more people were experimenting with different burning software and experiencing conflicts. Frustrated calls to tech support might have been an incentive for software companies to develop drivers that worked with others, so that their software was not blamed for conflicts. Almost all burning software would have trouble if AIN (auto insert notification) was turned on. This would cause buffer underruns when the TOC was read and AIN interrupted the burn. AIN is a useful feature, especially in packet writing, and Adaptec specified that AIN should be turned on. Adaptec's solution to the potential buffer underrun problem was to install a driver that disabled AIN when Easy CD Creator was burning, but left it active at other times. DirectCD wouldn't work properly with AIN turned off. No other burning software had this feature. This seemed like another compatibility issue unless AIN was manually toggled off when another program was used, and turned on again for DirectCD.
Then there is the story of Adaptec leaving hundreds of registry entries and files behind after an uninstall, causing incompatibility problems and hours of labor. In fact, to do a complete uninstall of Adaptec/Roxio, in addition to Add/Remove Programs, there are four files to rename and two registry keys to delete.
Starting at least about two years ago, all major burning software had developed drivers to allow AIN to be enabled, but turned off while burning. This removed one potential incompatibility. In the meantime the drivers had been refined so that they rarely caused problems with other programs.
I had heard all of the incompatibility stories while helping people with burning problems. My experience had been that many of these internet stories can take on a life of their own without any substance. I decided to try it for myself. My motivation, other than testing the story, was that I would be able to help people with any other programs that could be loaded. At the time I was running an Intel CPU. I started adding programs. First Nero, no problems. With EZCD 4 (which came with Direct CD 3) if the tray icon for DirectCD was disabled at startup, this seemed to eliminate any conflicts with Nero. Then WinOnCD, no problems, etc.. When I had loaded about 14 programs I stopped. I was certain that something was going to cause a crash, but it didn't.
At present, DirectCD 5 causes no conflicts with any programs and can be used normally. I have about 20 burning programs simultaneously loaded (not counting utilities) and all coexist with no problems. I am running Win98SE on an AMD platform that is very stable. When VOB is loaded, it warns about a potential driver conflict and asks if you wish to automatically remove it (Nerocd95.vxd). If you choose yes and it's renamed, then Nero has an error message when loaded because this is the driver that disables AIN. I just ignore the VOB message. There are a few other drivers from various sources (i.e., SCSI1hlp.vxd) that can sometimes cause problems. If this happens, these are easy to identify and rename. On my system I haven't had to rename anything.
My conclusion to the conflicts/problems story was that it had no recent substance. Lots of people have problems and may not have the skills to sort them out. Creating stories and blaming software without any real understanding of the issues is an easy way to rationalize a problem.
Of course this is the opinion of Inertia. You can read the rest of this thread and discuss this subject with other Freaks here.
Source: Forum Thread
