I took v.3 for a 'test-drive' as suggested in the Mac Update E-mail I received today. A $6 upgrade seemed like a good deal. After a trial period, I decided v.2 sounded just as good, and decided that I wish to retain the ability to save custom presets (a discontinued feature in v.3).

So I uninstalled v.3, deleted the .plist and application support folder from my User Library, rebooted, emptied the trash, then tried to reinstall v.2. It doesn't work. I receive a message that says I can't install v.2 because I already have a more recent version installed. I should also note that I couldn't delete the v.3 hidden files automatically (using Hazel, as I do with all apps I uninstall). I had to seek them out and authenticate to delete, even though I'm admin. I checked the permissions of these SRS files and discovered they were set to root. Huh?

I then head to the SRS iWow FAQ page seeking a solution to reinstall v.2. The last FAQ on the list applies: "I installed iWOW Premium on my computer, but would like to revert back to the iWOW 1 or iWOW 2 version, how do I revert back to my original software?"

I click on this and discover it's not linked (anchored) to the answer at the bottom of the page. Ok, no big deal. So I manually scroll to the bottom of the page to see the answer. It reads: "To revert back to your original version of iWOW 2 for the Mac, please click here. Your original custom presents will be reinstalled for your convenience." However, the 'click here' part is not linked to anything! Dead end.

I then read through the comments in this forum to find that others are having the same problem. Terrible.

But what really bothers me (aside from the fact that the app installed with root permissions) is that this has the appearance of a a bait-and-switch. I can well imagine that some people might go ahead and upgrade for the discount price of $6 because it's the easiest path to get the plug-in working again. And I assume that v.1/2 owners who try out v.3 direct from SRS face the same issue and may decide to go ahead and upgrade for $10. That's unacceptable. Comments here and on other sites also point to a very spotty record of customer service with this company.

I'm wondering what's going on here. All things considered, I don't even think I want v.2 back on my system now. Seems like SRS has some bugs to work out of their software and business practices.