Disk Write Copy Pro
Reviewed November 2007

What’s It Do?

Disk Write Copy Pro allows using a computer without limitations and launching any programs, even of unknown origin. At the next startup everything is restored, thus protecting from malware, spyware, viruses, etc., and allowing installation and testing of software and updates without fear of damage to date or operating system.


Does it do what it Promises?

Reviewer 1: Yes, once I got past a few hurdles of my own making, it worked as advertised.
This application creates a “Shadow” mode by using free space on one’s disk. I checked the volume data before and after initialization and there was no additional disk usage.

This “shadow mode” allows changes, installation of questionable programs, or visiting sites that may try to do a “drive-by” install of something such as Trojans or keyLoggers. The additional modes allow saving changes for any number of reboots. This is a failing in many others I’ve tried. A “one shot” solution is basically useless to me. The addition of “Incremental Backups” mode is a godsend. Now I can test to my hearts content and not lose ground when something goes wrong. I reboot and start right back where I was without losing the previous work.

Reviewer 2: Yes, to the extent that I was able to determine without benefit of support, documentation, help files, or readable screenshots. [See below].

Reviewer 3: The program does allow the user to place the computer into a "protected" mode. Once in this mode, software can be installed, programs can be run, and the Internet can be surfed. The "pre-protected" state has been stored on unused sectors of your hard-disk, which are not available to one’s computer while it is protected. On reboot, the computer is restored to its pre-protected state, and anything that one had been doing completely vanishes. However, I had a great deal of difficulty with the "incremental" mode, and was only able to have it function intermittently.


Was it easy to install?

Reviewer 1: Yes.

Reviewer 2: Yes. It is a relatively small 3.3MB download that installs easily and quickly using the familiar installation wizards. I had no installation difficulties.

Reviewer 3: Yes; it allowed me to place the program and its shortcuts where I wanted to. During the installation, one option was to have the program run at Windows startup. I appreciate being given the option to do so or not; many programs install themselves in the start-up procedure without the user's permission. I was given the option to enter the license key during installation, or start on the 15-day trial period. I would prefer to see the more standard 30-day trial, as I have found that 15 days is usually too short a time period to really try out a program. I would advise carefully introducing oneself to this program bit-by-bit. I simply accepted all the defaults during the installation and, as a result, I rather carelessly enabled full "protection" so that all changes I made were being lost between boot-up times. This would be fine if I had known I was doing it; it wasn't so fine when I found that I had to go back and redo things that I thought had been completed. The program will install a Windows service called "ccsbcore.exe". Win Patrol alerted me to this new startup feature, but I had no further information on it at that time.

Disk Write Copy responds: The next release of our software will have a 30-day trial period, and all modules will be signed by our digital certificate to avoid the alert from antivirus software.


Good Points.

Reviewer 1:  It turned out to be quite handy. I discovered that it works “both ways”. I uninstalled something I was using for test and forgot to reset Disk Write Copy Pro to dump it so it didn’t. On reboot, it came back just like I had not uninstalled it. This could be a real time saver, not having to reinstall again and set it all up again. I tested the “Normal Mode” first. I set the program to use Normal mode and rebooted to initialize it. This is an important step. Any changes in the mode used require a reboot to initialize the change before it works. The Incremental mode allows the user to decide when to dump any changes. The main screen or control panel is easy to use, very clear on which drive one is working in. Several drives can be selected at one time. The main window shows columns for “volume label”, “Current Mode”, “New Mode” (with a drop down to change it) “Free Space Minimum” (to set the size of free space used if there is little remaining, “Full Volume Size”, “File System” (on that drive letter) and a check box to set whether the status shows on the desktop, an important feature that avoids forgetting, rebooting, and losing one’s work. Email support was responsive, answering my support request within one day with even more rapid subsequent responses.

Reviewer 2: Disk Write Copy Pro is rather like Windows System Restore on steroids. It essentially creates a shadow copy of the original disc image in which any current work session in one’s computer will be stored until reboot (unless one chooses to store it permanently) at which time the shadow copy is deleted and the computer is returned to its original configuration without changes. There are several options referred to as Normal Volume Protection Mode, Normal-FAST Volume Protection Mode, Incremental Volume Protection Mode, and Incremental-FAST-Volume Protection Mode. These seem to have to do with how the shadow copy is stored; but the few translated screen shots, while showing different graphics for each of the above options, offer the same small orange rectangular description boxes. So, between that and the lack of support or help files, I am unable to elaborate on these. I was able to create “shadow copy” sessions in which nothing was stored on my computer and everything done on my computer during that time deleted on reboot and was able to create “shadow copy” sessions in which I could save the work done during those sessions on my computer. There were no conflicts with other software, the program seemed to integrate seamlessly with Windows, the GUI (Graphic User Interface was relatively intuitive, and it was low on resource usage and left a reasonably small footprint. This might well be a valuable program for those with children or others who use the computer and are less than careful about what they download or where they surf. Theoretically, it will protect one’s computer from any permanent damages or changes by being able to restore it to its previous state.

Reviewer 3: The program offers "Tips at Startup." I would recommend that the new user goes through these,, as they give a good idea of what the program does, and how it can be set up for each individual’s needs. One tip advises controlling the program from the icon in the Systems Tray. Depending on the number of drives that you have connected to one’s computer (including floppy drives, CD/DVD drives, USB drives, as well as the "regular" hard drives), there can be a confusing variety of options. I found the Control panel to be very helpful. All drives are listed and their current "protected" or non-protected" status is shown in a table. Scrolling through the list, the properties of each drive (type of drive, free and used space, etc.) shows up in a combined table and graph in the lower half of the screen. If this is too much information, it can be turned off. One of the main uses of a program such as Disk Write Copy Pro is to be able to safely test new software programs. In Protected Mode these can be tried without fear that they will damage the current setup. Upon rebooting, the installation and any other changes that the program may have made will have vanished. The same applies to browsing the Web. If heading into suspected dangerous territory, it would be wise to start up Disk Write Copy. The program will save the current session as it is to disk, then continue to function. The "pre-protected" status has been tucked away and will not be touched by anything encountered during the Web session. Rebooting the computer will reactive the "pre-protected" state and all done while browsing will disappear.

There are some very interesting corners in Disk Write Copy which show some original thinking in the design of the program. For example, the About menu item gives much more information than will usually be seen in other programs. As well as the usual product information, and the less-frequently reported registration information, there is a window showing the "Loaded Modules." This lists all the different files (mostly .dll files) that are being used by Disk Write Copy, with considerable detail about each one. Access to Technical Support uses one of the best methods I have seen to date. First, it is one of the main items in the right-click menu from the System Tray, which is only one way to get to full program support. It is also available via the Help button anywhere in the program. Some programs that I have used in the past collect the kind of system information that the support staff will need in order to help you in one or several log files that are needed with the support request. Here, all system information has already been read from one’s computer. When the problem has been described, the user is taken directly to the Support Request section of their Web site. A response is promised within 24 hours. I did find the response times to be a bit uneven. Sometimes I received a response within a few hours; on other cases I did not get an answer until several days later. However, in all cases the responses were courteous and did deal with the issues raised satisfactorily. Access to the Help is excellent, and has a few nice features that could be profitably incorporated into other programs' Help systems. I like the always-available links to the Community Forum, email support, and the Disk Write Copy web-site. And the presentation of the information that is provided is really excellent.


Weak Points.

Reviewer 1: When opened, the control panel has the typical “tip of the Day” screen. This tip shows every time, whether the check box to disable it is checked or not. The program’s icon does not always display in the system tray when the program is running.

Disk Write Copy responds: Yes, this release has these bugs. Thanks to your report, all of this will be fixed in the next release.

Reviewer 2: Had I been able to test this program more thoroughly, my findings may have been more complete. Unfortunately, there is virtually no support and no way to reasonably understand the full workings of this program. There is an FAQ which consists of three questions all regarding a product other than this one, notwithstanding that users are encouraged to go to the FAQ before contacting support because answers to most common problems will be answered there. There is a community forum which has one unanswered posting by a single member who, I believe, happened to be a member of the NNT review panel. There are screen shots, but many have not been translated into English from Russian. The downloadable help files provide a help file box and an index, but nothing but blank pages. Emailed requests for help through the technical support function went unanswered. Based on the above as well as what I could determine that the program did do, $89.95 is a lot of money to pay for a program to essentially replace Windows System Restore-, especially when for less money one could simply use a full disc imaging program with all of the added benefits, safety, and features inherent is such imaging software. Or just use Windows System Restore for free if a removable storage backup application is not needed.

Disk Write Copy responds: Our software is not a simple Windows system restore. You could check it if you have a problem with the system Registry: Many viruses corrupt the system Registry and you’ll have a problem restoring your OS. Windows system restore in this case will be useless. About the screenshots, you’re right, and our Webmaster will correct it and your other remarks will be corrected. About cost, you pay only once, and license will be valid for further revisions of our software without any additional payments.

Reviewer 3: I was rather concerned to have the Windows check-disk function suddenly appear during the boot-up procedure, after I had used Disk Write Copy for a few sessions. Under older versions of Windows, this used to be a fairly common occurrence, but is not something I have seen for a long time. At first, I thought that it was related to a different program, but I very recently restored an image of my hard drive which goes back several months, to a very "clean" state. So those particular suspects, along with several other possibly suspicious characters, have all been completely removed from my system. Since Disk Write Copy is the only "new" addition since that reimaging, it means that Disk Write Copy is the most likely culprit. I have not yet heard back from Support about this. The online Help needs some important additional information. There is some essential content that I could not find. For example, there are two basic Protected modes: Normal protection mode and Incremental volume (disk) protection mode. Additionally there are two subsets of these modes referred to as "Normal-FAST" and Incremental-FAST" modes. There are quite elaborate drawings of` of these four different states in the help file, to show what each function does, and how each one is different from the others. What I could not find though, is any instructions on exactly how to activate these different modes. So I had to try to figure it out by trial end error: change one item, and reboot, and see what would happen. Move a file from My Documents to the Desktop, and reboot. Is it still there (which means that Protection was off) or was it back in My Documents? Try something else and reboot, And so on. In order to use this program well, I needed some step-by-step instructions, as to how I could access each of these modes, and what the effect would be in activating one or another of them. Perhaps a flash presentation on the Web site, with links to it from the help file, would be a possible method of accomplishing this. In the Help file, besides the Contents Tab, there is the Index Tab and the Search Tab. Neither of these worked at all. I went onto the site, and downloaded the help file itself. However, it was the same as the version that was installed with the program. Also, the PDF version that is referenced in the help file and on the Web site does not yet seem to be available.

Disk Write Copy responds: We are now rebuilding our held files and building PDF files, and they will be available soon.


Comments.

Reviewer 1: Overall, the program worked fine. I have been looking for something like this that actually did what it said it would do.

Reviewer 2: This is a very new program just out of beta. In fact, it is on its first version with only what appears to be four “bug” fixes since its release in February 2007. It appears that it was not yet ready for general release and is now in dire need of some major revisions. I simply can not understand why companies wanting to market their programs internationally cannot find a single person to effectively translate their programs and Web sites to the appropriate language. CCS Company, the developers of Disk Write Copy, is located in Moscow. Having visited Moscow on several occasions, I know that there are many, many Muscovites who speak and read and write perfect English. Finally, I am really not at all comfortable with agreeing to a EULA (End User License Agreement) which states that my private data collected by the company will not be shared with third parties without my consent unless it is required by the laws of the Russian Federation. That assurance is not very comforting.

Disk Write Copy responds: We do spell checking and proofreading of our English texts now. About unless it is required by the laws of the Russian Federation this is our mistake, sorry, and it is now corrected to International and US laws, of course.

Reviewer 3: In general, I like the structure and layout of the program and a number of the actual features. However, I have the impression that this program is still a work-in-progress, with some bugs to work out and some important revisions to be made. The Community forum is very small and not too active as yet. I do applaud the developers for setting up the forum, which I expect will become a valuable tool in the future. Briefly, I like Disk Write Copy but I am not yet ready to use this program in place of the imaging backup and restore program that I currently use to get me out of problems that I make for myself.

Disk Write Copy responds: We think the next release of our software will amaze you by its extended functionality.


Will you continue to use it?

Reviewer 1: Yes, very handy and possibly a system saver.

Reviewer 2: No.

Reviewer 3: Yes, but only on my “test” computer.

OPERATING SYSTEMS USED IN THIS REVIEW
Windows XP Pro, XP Home

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