7 replies to this topic

[Oppie1]

Let me give you some background first:

I work for the NYS Unified Court System and we recently rolled out about 1400+/- laptops to our Town and Village Judge's to do audio recordings with. The program they use to record on the laptops stores the audio in a file on the hard drive and then also mirrors a copy of that file to a DVD-R.

Some smart person (being sarcastic) decided that we would use Roxio DLA to format the DVD and make the mirroring part happen. Long story short, DLA became incompatible when they changed the DVD hardware in our laptops (about two months into our roll-out) and we had to "upgrade to Roxio DE, which uses Drag-to-Disc.

On a side note: DLA is randomly failing on the laptops that it was installed on and we upgrade them to DE as a fix as the service calls come in.
So our problem is that Drag-to-Disc is now disabling itself randomly preventing the mirroring function to happen from the recording software. We have the user go to the Drag-to-Disc tray icon and click "enable drag-to-disc" and the process continues working again until it disables itself. We probably get a handful of these calls a month. Most of the laptops, that we are aware of, haven’t had this happen yet.

I can't seem to figure out the process that makes Drag-to-Disc disabled itself. If I knew, I could write up a quick document to the courts explaining why this would happen. Also, these laptops are on private networks, or are stand-alone devices, and they all experience this problem. They have all the same image on them and are all Latitude D630’s with DVD burners.

I know packet writing software is very “flakey” (I know from experience) and shouldn’t be relied on to do what we are making it do, but I need proof to backup my claim. Eventually, we will have servers that these files will mirror too, but that’s a long-term goal.

If anyone has any suggestions, that would be awesome!

Thanks in advance!

[ogdens]

You have Dell OEM versions of Roxio and all support for oem comes from the supplier (in your caseDell).

You have already found out the pitfalls of Packet  Writing so I would be contacting Dell ASAP especially since you have such a large amount of them.

I would think Dell would have a Volume Licensing Program (roxio does) to meet the needs of business, government organizations, educational and charitable organizations; that would offer the cost effective way to purchase and standardize on their software products with convenient and legal installation on multiple computers.

Edited by ogdens, 05 December 2008 - 01:14 PM.

[Oppie1]

You have Dell OEM versions of Roxio and all support for oem comes from the supplier (in your caseDell).

You have already found out the pitfalls of Packet  Writing so I would be contacting Dell ASAP especially since you have such a large amount of them.

I would think Dell would have a Volume Licensing Program (roxio does) to meet the needs of business, government organizations, educational and charitable organizations; that would offer the cost effective way to purchase and standardize on their software products with convenient and legal installation on multiple computers.

Thanks for the info. Our problem doesn't lie with DLA, since we are upgrading that on the laptops, but Sonic Solutions/Roxio DE's Drag-to_Disc. Just wondering why this might be disabling itself every so often (what conditions might make this happen) so I can get write up something to prevent it, or explain why it happens.

Thanks again,
Ryan

[gi7omy]

Part of the problem is that OEM software gets modified and none of us here see the OEM versions (unless we actually buy a machine that comes with it) and Dell ain't very high up on my spec list (in fact I wouldn't even consider Dell)

Dell are the only ones who would be able to tell you (that is if their help desk will even admit there is a problem)

That's part of the problem with putting stuff out for tender - you get whoever quotes lowest and, for them to make money, they do tend to skimp a bit on quality

[lynn98109]

You are already aware of the reliability problem of Packet-Writing.

Another entire area is the compatibility problem - different Packet-Writing programs (DLA, Drag2Disc, Nero's InCD, etc) are not compatible with one another, and sometimes they are not compatibile with different Versions fo the same program.

I think that is the limit you seem to be running into

Lynn

[Brendon]

Let me give you some background first:

I work for the NYS Unified Court System and we recently rolled out about 1400+/- laptops to our Town and Village Judge's to do audio recordings with. The program they use to record on the laptops stores the audio in a file on the hard drive and then also mirrors a copy of that file to a DVD-R.

Take the advice of the two Gurus who have already posted here.  Go straight to the vendor, Dell. They won't be able to answer your question, but they will know who and where at Sonic to apply the pressure. With 1400+/- installations involved plus the public importance of the project, those in power in your organization are well placed to call for answers and assistance from the vendor, who is best placed to twist Sonic's ear and get a solution.

If you hold sufficient power in your organization, take it up immediately with Dell. The matter is urgent and affects the administration of Justice in your State.
If you don't have the authority, you can't be saddled with the responsibility, so make a report asking that they take it up with Dell. Do it urgently.

Regards,
Brendon

[Oppie1]

Take the advice of the two Gurus who have already posted here.  Go straight to the vendor, Dell. They won't be able to answer your question, but they will know who and where at Sonic to apply the pressure. With 1400+/- installations involved plus the public importance of the project, those in power in your organization are well placed to call for answers and assistance from the vendor, who is best placed to twist Sonic's ear and get a solution.

If you hold sufficient power in your organization, take it up immediately with Dell. The matter is urgent and affects the administration of Justice in your State.
If you don't have the authority, you can't be saddled with the responsibility, so make a report asking that they take it up with Dell. Do it urgently.

Regards,
Brendon

Thanks everyone for the info. I'm going to go to the "higher ups" and see if they can put some pressure on Dell to see what can be done about this. I'm also going to post on Dell's forum to see where that gets me.
I did mention this to them awhile ago and they are now asking me to revisit this issue.
I'll post back and let everyone know how I made out.

Thanks,
Ryan

[Big_Dave]

Are you by chance creating a common desktop image and then cloning all the same desktop with this same image?  I know a lot of organizations do clone desktops but software licensing and controls may be a part of your problem.

Edited by Big_Dave, 07 December 2008 - 04:41 PM.