I'm sometimes asked what motivates me to continue working on WinPatrol. It's great when I get mentioned in magazines like PC World and even local news like the Cape Code Times but it’s especially nice to receive feedback from average WinPatrol user.
Most of the support Email I get comes from folks who forget their code but occasionally I get an Email like the following. I thought I’d share what I hope is a typical experience.
I never knew about WinPatrol until several years ago when it became a comment in an editorial from one of the on-line computer magazines. It simply mentioned the barking dog as if everyone knew what he was talking about. I did some searching and found Scotty. I installed the free version. It installed like it knew what it was doing and didn't pester me with questions. A scotty dog appeared in my task bar, and that was all there was to it.
Almost a week later a barking dog half-scared me out of my wits and a dialogue box appeared telling me some program I didn't know I even had was trying to install itself in the registry. I said no. The WinPatrol dialogue box disappeared and nothing happened.
A few days later I installed a program. Scotty barked and told me a new program was trying to install itself in the registry. This time I said yes. The dialogue box closed and nothing else happened.
I soon began to trust Scotty to keep me warned about things. He always did. After a year of having the dog on my task bar and no newsletters, no requests to update, no problems, especially no problems, I decided it was only fair to actually buy WinPatrol Plus. I still wouldn't know it was on my computer if the damn thing didn't bark to make me jump in my chair whenever some sneaky program I didn't invite decided to put itself on the start-up menu.
I've updated the versions from time to time. They download, hopefully, for I wouldn't know about it, nothing seems to happen very much. I mean there are no banners, no persistent questioning, no pain-in-the-ass procedures I have to follow. I don't find that my registration is no longer valid and that I have to go and find where I have put it so I can re-enter it on the updated program. Nothing, the little dog just sits there on the task-bar minding its own business and, apparently, looking after mine. The program has never become corrupt despite being transferred to newer machines and, somehow, it always manages to find its own registration validation. That part is just bloody marvellous.
I have some software that helps keep my machine clean. It has undergone several updates to the point where it controls my machine, not me. I can no longer tell it what to do, especially as regards cookies cleansing. I don't bother anymore. I just open WinPatrol and clean the cookies from there.
The only complaint I have ever had is that the icon was changed to favour Vista. It appeared as a blue circle with something in the middle. I missed the little dog. Today I happened to open the options window to check for a latest version of WinPatrol. And there was the check box saying 'use the old icon'.
I am now 100% per cent happy. Of course, I should have expected that my most favourite program would have thought of that. Silly me.
Thanks people. WinPatrol is all that a good program should be.
David Edwards
So with motivation like this I’ll be spending my weekend working on WinPatrol 2008.
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