Terrible software.

An associate of mine installed this on his 3 months-old iMac at home. Immediately the iMac started running terribly slow. As in pathetically slow.

He called me over to take a look. Firing up Activity Monitor I saw several instances of "wine" running. I knew right then and there this app had to go.

So I deleted this junk software & rebooted, and fortunately the iMac came back to life.

Furthermore, the sleazy clamxav.org domain thing is an unforgivable act. I wouldn't ever again trust a company that did such a thing.

Who knows how much phoning home the software had been doing, I didn't bother to check.

Hope my associate can get his money back! I will post again on how that works out.

Stay away from this junk!

I'm a long time and continual user of SilverFast starting back in the OS 9 days, or even before. I don't really remember this detail accurately so let's just call it a real long time. Scanner brands I've used with SilverFast that come to mind are Linotype, Nikon, Canon, Epson and Leaf.

This is a powerful app with a fairly deep learning curve. Over the years I've instructed several users on the operation of SilverFast so I do have a strong sense of this.

However, I have to grade their tech support as simply awful. Once in the past I had to resolve an installation problem that was caused by the mis-manufacturing of the installer disk. The copyright system was improperly implemented. Correcting this problem entailed a long and tedious task of convincing tech support there wasn't anything wrong with my system and that the problem did indeed rest on them. Finally they acknowledged the problem and a fix was deployed by them.

Now I'm experiencing a problem with SilverFast working with an Epson V750 on *Snow Leopard*. Here I am, once again, confronted with the long and arduous task of convincing them they have a problem with their software. They have the attitude that the product is infallible and that the cause of a problem no matter what is the creation of the end user.

On this 2008 Mac Pro system I had been, and continue to, happily use SilverFast on Leopard 10.5.8 with both a Nikon LS-8000 and the Epson V750.

I have several Macintosh computers and among them many more operating system installs. I have tried SilverFast with the Epson V750 via FireWire on about 6 different configurations of Mac & Snow Leopard and it simply does not work.

On my scanning station Mac, when I upgraded to Snow Leopard, I did so by installing it on a new hard drive. Not once have I been able to get SilverFast to work with this Snow Leopard install and the Epson V750 via FireWire, although it does continue to work with the Nikon LS-8000.

When booted into Snow Leopard Epson's scanner software and Image Capture will operate with the scanner without any problems. But SilverFast will not see the V750 via FireWire.

I have installed yet another new hard drive and installed a new Snow Leopard, and installed only Silverfast. Nothing else. It did not work. So I wiped the drive and installed Silverfast, but this time after installing the Epson drivers. No joy. Silverfast will not see the Epson V750 scanner via FireWire. If I install the Nikon plug-in for Silverfast it will operate normally.

I submitted via their web site support forums a detailed accounting of the nature of the problem and troubleshooting steps I have tried. Only to discover that their support forums are moderated to the point that any topic that will reveal to the public any problem or bug with the software will not be posted. Yes. You are reading this correctly. Only posts that do not reveal to the public problems and bugs with the software are posted. They will not permit a post that may in any way cast a poor light on the product.

I received the following e-mail response to my attempt at my posting on their support forums:

"Dear customer

thank you for your interest in LaserSoft Imaging's SilverFast software solutions.

Our forum is not intended for individual tech support, this would make the forum hard to read for users searching for certain information.
Also personal/restricted information like your serial-number may be necessary which should not be posted in a open forum.
Therefor a ticket has been opened to answer your support request most swiftly."

What a complete joke.

This is an obvious lie. It is so bad of a lie that the truth is exactly the opposite. You see, every single day I search one forum or another for solutions to technical problems. Every single one of them does allow a post like the one I attempted to post with Silverfast. Those posts being present on user forums are a gold mine. A complete wealth of information awaiting a keyword search by anyone seeking a solution to a technical problem with a product.

Let's just say for the sake of argument that LaserSoft isn't concealing information on their user forums that don't cast the product in a bad light. Then this simply means that LaserSoft has such low regard for their customers that they believe we are too inept to do a keyword search of the forums.

Frankly, it could be both. They don't want information that may cast a bad light on the product to be made public, and they have low regard for the competence of their customers.

If everyone were to prohibit posts such as this, any efficiency for customers in finding solutions to technical problems would simply cease to exist!

I had not kept a copy of my detailed accounting because I had submitted it via the web form. So now that is lost. Yippee.

I did recreate a shorter accounting of the problem and sent it off, referencing the newly created support ticket. Yet the language in this reply was obviously a canned response that has likely been sent to thousands of other customers. And it was obvious that the person I had been working with had not read either of my accountings of the problem.

So SilverFast the product is a rather decent and powerful product, so long as a customer does not discover a bug within it. When such a bug discovery happens, get ready to run up against a wall of denial, arrogance and disdain by LaserSoft.

They disgust me to no end.

I've been using NUDC for about 12 years. After the long wait for NowX, I must say that my disappointment is extreme.

As others have said - too little, too late.

I would have stayed with NUDC, but they abandoned syncing with Address Book in Leopard.

I can't wait to get rid of this and move on to something else. Possibly SOHO 8.

The hard part is going to be fixing the catastrophe NowX has made out of my calendar.