DriverMax, A new program review

User: inactive Posts:

Almost daily someone wants to know how to reinstall windows on their PC and preserve all their hardware drivers. DriverMax is the answer.

I just downloaded it:

http://www.innovative-sol.com/drivermax/

And installed and ran it. It installed quickly and ran smoothly and backed up all my drivers except the internal modem and one Epson Printer.
(I of course have the installation CD's for those)
Here's the explanation of the program from the above web site.

Note: DriverMax only works on Windows Vista and Windows XP (all service packs).

DriverMax is a new program which allows you to easily reinstall all your Windows drivers. No more searching for rare drivers on discs or on the web or inserting one installation CD after the other. Simply export all your current drivers (or just the ones that work ok) to a folder or a compressed file. After reinstalling Windows you will have everything in one place!

Most of the situations when Windows is running slower are caused by faulty driver installations. Windows stores all versions of older drivers just in case you want to go back; sometimes it messes up older versions with more recent ones. The Export Wizard will only export the drivers you select by copying the needed files to a folder or a compressed ZIP file.

After reinstalling Windows all drivers will be back in place in less than 5 minutes - sparing you of searching, inserting disc after disk and losing precious time. The Import Drivers wizard allows you to install all the drivers that you exported earlier. The entire operation might take up to 5-10 minutes.

Just one single computer restart will be required after all drivers are reinstalled!

DriverMax is able to display a complete report of all drivers (versions, release dates) installed on your system. This feature can also be very useful when you want to analyze the differences between the drivers installed on different machines.

silmaril8n · Joined: Jan 29, 2004 Posts: 1743 Location: Phoenix, AZ

Great find Shadow! This looks like an extremely handy tool to have around.

seaeagle

Thanks for the info Shadow. I just emailed the details to my dad who reinstalled XP only a couple of days ago for the 2nd time within a few weeks. I'm sure this will make things easier if he has to again.

Cheers Very Happy

User: inactive Posts:

I had to register Driver max and give an email address.

I gave an address that I hardly ever use, except for just one newsletter. Since then I'm getting a new spam letter every day from different names, all addressed to that same email box, and Showing the address in OE of "Subscriber".

I don't know for sure that its coming from DriverMax, but the timing is sure suspect. I'd like to know if anyone else is having the same problem.
Maybe they sold my email addy. Confused

Cheers!
Shadow Cool

redfox · Joined: Mar 08, 2007 Posts: 12

Spam, that is the reason I got rid of it a few months ago.

User: inactive Posts:

It? What is the IT that you got rid of. DriverMax?

redfox · Joined: Mar 08, 2007 Posts: 12

Yes, who needs the spam.

User: inactive Posts:

NO One needs spam, but how do you know?
Any place that you go on the internet, where you need to give an eMail addy, can sell that addy to the spammers.

It's really hard to know who's legit and who's not.

EVEN AOL had some employees that were selling addresses to the spammers.

Who can you trust, these days?

Cool

silmaril8n · Joined: Jan 29, 2004 Posts: 1743 Location: Phoenix, AZ

So, how exactly does getting rid of the program stop spam again?

User: inactive Posts:

That's pretty much the crux of it.....ain't it?

You (any you) got the program and they got your email address.
Once you've blocked the spam, you might as well keep the program, if it's useful to you.

If the program is installed on your PC, use it, then uninstall it and keep the download file on a CD for future reference. No biggie.

Life will go on.

Chado'

goretsky

Hello,

If you use a differnet email address each time you for a service (through a unique username, plus-addressing and so forth) you can usually determine the source of email address harvesting fairly quickly.

For example, let's say I own the domain goretsky.tld. I might give out a unique username each time I need to give out an email address, such as msft_vista_activation@goretsky.tld, mcdonalds_coupon@goretsky.tld, seagate_reimbursement@goretsky.tld and so forth. That, of course, implies I can create unique email addresses on my mail server, or have any unrecognized email addresses routed to a single address.

Most people do not run their own mail servers, though, so they cannot easily do this. Some email providers support plus-addressing, where you can send email to the same username but with "+message" appended before the hostname. For example, if my email address is aryeh@goretsky.tld, I might use aryeh+microsoft@goretsky.tld, aryeh+mcdonalds_coupon@goretsky.tld, aryeh+seagate@goretsky.tld and so forth. Check with your mail provider to see if this is something they support. It is part of a standard, but not all standards are implemented universally.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

express_pc · Joined: Nov 24, 2005 Posts: 37 Location: Texas

Hello,

As Aryeh has stated you can use Googles G-Mail to do the same, see here:
http://21st.blogspot.com/2006/09/use-gmail-generate-unlimited-e-mail.html

Don

seaeagle

Thanks for the very useful information Don & Aryeh.

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2422

Don't you think that spammers have figured out that
my_real_email_address+some_fake_addon@gmail.com can be shortened to
my_real_email_address.RemoveThis@gmail.com ? Then your real email address get tons of spam.

I prefer a throwaway email address, like spamgourmet offers. I can set up an email address without going to the spam gourmet site and designate exactly how many emails I will accept under this address. The default is 3 but you can designate anything from 1 to 20. Once the number is reached, you won't receive any more emails at that address.

Another method I use is a re-direct through sneakemail. I go to the sneakemail site and generate an email address. I can write notes as to which sites I use this. All email is sent to my normal email address which the site does not know. If I start to receive too much spam from the site(s) using the sneakemail address, I close that sneakemail address and it receives no more emails. I have about 10 different email addresses set up in sneakemail and have used it for quite a few years.

goretsky

Hello,

There is little incentive for a spammer to change user+string@hostname.tld to user@hostname.tld since mail will be delivered regardless of which address is used. The only situation I can think of where a spammer might want to strip the +string portion of an address was if they had obtained the address from a compromised database and wanted to mask the fact they had done so. Like any other "business," spammers want to keep costs down, so I cannot see one going through the effort to filter or process email addresses. They really do not care if the address they send to is valid or not: They just want to get paid for sending the spam.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

redfox · Joined: Mar 08, 2007 Posts: 12

I know it is a little late to be replying to this, and I debated whether I should or not as I do not want to upset anyone. I decided it needed to have my response.

The Shadow wrote:

User: inactive Posts:

I noted and reported that the program IS definitely usefull, then since I didn't really need it, I deleted it.

Then after blocking the spam for several days, and sending them the UnSubscribe notices, I'm finally spam free again.

Spam comes in waves, usually attributable to some new thing I've either purchased or subscribed to.

It's never been detrimental, just annoying as heck!

Cheers Mates!
Shadow Cool