A few weeks ago, Future Shop set me an email praising the virtues of Adaptec Easy CD Creator 5.0; it could do basically every thing you could imagine. I have been using Hot Burn version 2.x the past while and I thought it was time to upgrade to “professional” CD software, so I said “What the heck” and headed off to the Future Shop and check it out. The email did not do the product justice, CD Creator 5.0, platinum edition, did even more!!!!! Some of the features include:

• Direct CD -- This application allows you to treat CD-R’s like CD-RW. You format a CD-R and you can drag and drop files in explorer right on to the CD icon, basically, what ever you can do with a CD-RW, including deletes and multi-sessions, you can now do with your CD-R, but at a fraction of the price of buying CD-RW media, plus it allows for CD-R Compression to give you even more space per disk. The only drawback is, unless you fully close the CD, meaning you can no longer write to the disk, the disk can not be read by a standard CD ROM, unless you add an extra reading file to the CD, it requires 33 megs for the first session and 13 megs for each additional session.
• Sound Stream – Consider this a fully functional music studio in your home; it enhances the sound quality of MP3 files, allows you to remove scratches and “Pops” from vinyl records or analog cassettes. Adjustable silence detection and track splitting for recording entire albums
• Take Two – This application will allow you to fully back up your hard drive onto CD’s. I thought this might be handy, especially if I use CD-RW media on a 4 week, rotating schedule.
• Video Impression – This is a basic video editing application that will allow you to edit videos, from your hard drive, or acquire them from your digital video camera, add text or sound and allow you to save the result as MPEG 1 format on a CD, this CD can then be read in a DVD machine.
• CD label Creator – This application will allow you to make jewel case covers and CD labels.

Wow, I thought to my self, this is one heck of a package, so I scooped up the box, made a bee line to the cash register and I could not wait to get home; that is when the real fun began.

I installed the software as per the instructions; this was fairly easy and straight forward. The setup file uses the nifty new Windows installer as the engine. If you have windows 9x or NT 4, and have not as yet installed Office 2000, the installer package will probably have to update your system a bit first, this may also require you to reboot the system. After Easy CD Creator finished with the installation, it asked me to reboot, fair enough. I reboot, it gets to the Windows 2000 load screen and stays there, I wait….and wait…..and wait, DOH!!! The system has hung, I did a warm boot, so I try a cold boot, I wait….and wait…..and wait, DOH!!! No problem, I will just do a “Safe Mode” boot and see what is wrong, I wait….and wait…..and wait, DOH!!! OK, panic has now set in; I can not reboot my system!!!!!! My last recourse, boot with “Last Known Good Configuration”, OK, the system boots fine. I open Easy CD, the application crashes, I open Direct CD, it too crashes, hmmmmmmmm, OK, I go to the Roxio web site. It states that there is a known bug in the system when installed on to Windows 2000 systems. If you have chosen to install Take Two, it seems they have a problem with removable disk drives, I have a zip drive and a smart card reader, both are considered removable drives. I down load the patch. The patch tells me I have to remove the prior installation, reinstall it, then when the setup application asks me to reboot, say no, install the patch, then reboot. Reboot completed, I open Easy CD, the application crashes, I open Direct CD, it too crashes, hmmmmmmmm…back to the Roxio web site. I search the knowledgebase, it seems this is a known problem and that it many instances, the setup application does not install everything correctly, this can happen on all operating Systems, not just Windows 2000. The knowledgebase has very detail instructions on how to correct the problem. You must uninstall the software, do a search for certain files and rename them, search for certain directories and delete them. Open the registry and remove keys, reboot and reinstall. Although I will do all of this, I have serious reservations on how Roxio is handling this. I thought uninstall means uninstall, especially with the new windows installer engine; it should remove all files, directories and especially registry entries. I am a computer professional and have reservations about editing the registry, the average user could seriously damage there system by removing the wrong entry. Anyway, I followed the instructions to the letter, I still could not get any of the applications besides the CD labeler to work, I even followed the instructions again, just incase I may have missed something the first time, still to no avail. Plain and simple, I can not use the software.

In conclusion, I would like to state, I realize I can not give the software package a fair review, besides the CD labeler, none of the other applications will install properly. I have read other reviews here on epinions regarding this software, most do seem to like it. On the other hand, most of the problems I had are known issues, not special cases, one of them is a carry forward bug from version 4.x, this leads me to believe that Marketing and scheduling took precedence over Q&A, leading me to be very skeptical about the rest of the applications.

Just remember, if you are going to buy this software, it really is a gamble. If you can get it to work, other reviewer’s report it works well, if you can not get it to work, you are in for a rough ride, probably giving up in the process. Check your retailers return policy on opened software, can you exchange it for another manufacturer, or are you stuck with it??? Find this out first, before you make the leap.


Recommended: No