Recover Keys

~ Swan has recently been accepted as a freelance writer with Associated Content: Her first article can be found here:
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Good morning software seekers!

Today’s software is designed to make the user’s computing life a little easier, by retrieving activation and registration keys from more than 140+ supported programs.

Along with these, the company tells us that that the registration information, includes usernames; the company that made the software; product ID and the authorization key.

If this software works as claimed, you can then export the data to HTML; TXT; or CSV (comma separated value,) formats, giving you a nice tidy list of all your software, when the time comes to reinstall everything again – as it inevitably does.

Publisher: Recover Keys

Supported Languages: English

System Requirements: Windows 2000/ME/NT/2003 Server/XP/Vista

Additional Requirements: None

Tested on: Windows XP Pro.

GUI (Graphical user interface:)

Notably, the company’s web site says nothing about itself, who they are; how long they’ve been in operation – not even any contact details are given (except for support,) nada. To me, this is a red flag and I had to wonder who these people are, who chose not to identify themselves.

Just in case, I ran the software inside my sandbox, (I use Sandboxie,) in case it was bundled with any virii or trojans.

Taking a second look at their overview, I noticed that the developer said,

” For this reason I have created this software.”

So even though there is no company involved, perhaps the developer is kosher after at all, but threw up a minimalistic web site and developers aren’t always the best web site designers.

Feeling a little more confident in the product, I launched the software outside of Sandboxie, to find that when the interface actually appeared, it had already listed some of the software I had installed. However, I wasn’t impressed at all (see main screen shot above,) as it only found:

• Windows XP;

• Microsoft Office Professional;
• Microsoft One Note;
• Microsoft Office Professional;

• Internet Exporer;

• My Sims games.

6 software titles! 6 out of – what was it – oh yes .. “over 140+ programs.” Well I guess I had a mind trip somewhere, because I know that I have well over 140 software titles on my machine.

The list of supported titles, includes the Adobe products. Really? Well I own Adobe Creative Suite 3, which includes quite a few of their software titles – yet it didn’t even detect one. Further to that, it didn’t even find its own key! This isn’t looking good – not good at all.

What I don’t understand, is that if the software manages to scan a user’s system and match any titles to what it supports, why can’t it simply scan your programs and report back the information? I’m no registry buff, but I’ve seen other programs manage this function quite easily.

Settings:

There are no settings – other than to decide which of the available columns you’d like to show. This function is located in the View menu, which is an odd place for it to be, considering that most of us would expect this function to appear under Settings/Options. But while we’re on the subject, let’s examine the latter further.

Choosing the columns that one wants to see, is a rather a neat function that supports drag`n`drop. A small pop-up box appears with column headers that the user can drag to the position chosen. Similarly, one can change the order of the columns by dragging their headers to where the user prefers to see it.

Printing:

The print preview function is very nice with a great display of your page. If there are multiple pages, thumbnails representing these are found in a column to the left of the screen. You can either click on the thumbnail to see the preview, or on a numbered tab at the bottom of the current page you’re viewing.

Interestingly, when your document prints, it has a notice at the bottom saying, “Please do not share this page with anyone, due to copyright infringement.” You can imagine that if you did share it with someone unscrupulous, they would be able to download software and using your information, register each title illegally.

A close button at the top right of the screen, returns you to the normal interface again.

Tech., Support:

The help file is non-existent. The only reference to any kind of help, was tech. support, and who wants to email tech. support every time you need to know something? However, contact was made with the developer about the lack of programs the software found and here is his response:

“Software titles is mostly added by request. Initially after release program had around 100 software titles and other was added by users requests.

Please send me your list of software which RK doesn’t support and you want to get act.keys from and I will add them.

Recover keys also comes with auto-updater, so you will not need to reinstall it …..

support@recover-keys.com
Thank you,
Ostap”

Well at least we have a name to go with their tech. support email address! So I will send the other 200+ titles (to Ostap,) that I currently have installed on my machine and run another test after he includes them. I must say, that if that test also runs fast, then we’re in business.

Features:

• Simplicity of use;

• Information is displayed well;
• Fast response from developer, if you have questions;

• Drag`n`drop is very nice and always helps to save time with an application;

• Very nice print preview presentation;
• Easy interface – a child could open the program and the software will have supposedly done its job.

Negatives:

• Web site doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the product;

• Doesn’t find all software titles on its supported list;
• I’m sure that the developer speaks English as a 2nd language – the grammar needs cleaning up.
• No help file.

Points:

• Originality:6/10
• Functionality: 6/10
• Intuitiveness: 8/10
• Features: 6/10

Price: USD$19.95

This is a ludicrous amount for today’s product: Recover Keys. At the moment it may be worth only $10 at best.

Summary:

While the software doesn’t require all that much, except a few bells and whistles, it does still need an internal help file that people can refer to. The help file should also include explanations of the information that it finds, for those that are not too sure with registry items.

This program does not do all that it claims to do; Recover Keys doesn’t find all the programs that it says it supports. As I said earlier, I have the entire Adobe Suite, but the software failed to report even one Adobe title.

Recommendation:

None at this point. This product is obviously still in its infancy and should not have been released as commercial software yet. It is a simple program that should include more features, to give the user better results. At the moment there are only a few supported programs and it can’t even find all of those.

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Enjoy the rest of your day!
~ Swan

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Ahhh Agloco!

“The day will come when machines and software will tell us whom to know; what to eat; what to wear; when to go to work and what profession to pursue; when to sleep; what entertainments to enjoy and with whom to have any kind of relationship. It can’t be avoided and you will succumb.”
~ Swan (2005)