Nero 9

Pros: None, none at all!

Cons: Nightmare to install. IF and that's a big if, you succeed with the installation, you will find out that your operating system is corrupted, file associations are destroyed, and the kicker? Can't do clean uninstall..

Summary: I feel like an idiot. I have been using Nero and InCD since the early 90's. It used to be a superior product and so with every new version I bought it without any apprehension or second thoughts. Then I got Nero 8 last year. Nothing but problems. After being asked if I installed on multiple machines (which I did not) and twice actually having to e-mail Nero to ask to reactivate my license I just un-installed 8 and went back to 7. So when 9 was coming out so soon (only about one year apart) I foolishly thought that Nero realized the problems they were having and were releasing reworked and fixed product.

Oh what a fool I was. I should have heeded my sixth sense that was telling me to run away. Especially when I saw that they removed Media Home and Back It Up and were now charging for it separately. But noooo, I stupidly thought that they removed those components to got rid of the bloat and streamline each app. Naive me.

Well after I paid close to $100 two days ago and after foolishly nuking and reinstalling Vista twice believing that the OS may be the problem, I am now seriously thinking that I will start raising some hell. I will of course gladly advertise on any and all forums I am registered at the fact that my quad core CPU is running at close to 50% utilization while only using Show Time, which BTW is skipping like crazy. I will tell that Media Home crashed on me 4 times so far with the need to reinstall after each crash, and that the browsing on extenders and hooked up machines over gigabit ethernet is so slow that it would drive saint to murder. That's not even mentioning the frequent "app stopped working" pop-ups. I will also see to it that there will be scathing review from me on major retailers websites. No I am not a vindictive person and usually don't bother to go to extraordinary lengths to recover 40 - 50 bucks, but I've had enough. Last two years Nero got about $150 from me, and it looks like I will be using Nero 7 in the end.

Well, my theory now after this fiasco is that Nero got too big and greedy for their own good while losing perception of what successful business must do to be successful. They figured that releasing a "product" every year and charging high price would make them rich. At the same time they made their support so tedious and non-responsive that majority of people probably just give up after second or third attempt getting canned replies with no solutions for their problems. Good business must release great product and have good customer support. Nero is now failing at both. I hope that some enterprising company is listening and will step in and put out great product while at the same drive Nero out of business. I am done.

My self assembled machine:
Intel Q6600 processor
EVGA 680i board
EVGA 9800GTX+ video card
8GB Corsair 1066 DDR2 memory
RocketRAID 3520 card
3x150GB Raptors unning in RAID-0
4TB RAID-5
Auzentech X-Plosion Sound Card
running Vista Ultimate x64