Zaidy036 said:
Free on Wednesday
Giveaway of the Day - Paragon Migrate OS to SSD 2.0 Special Edition
http://www. giveawayoftheday. com/
To see Paragon's news release and product description pages, go to:
http://www.paragon-software.com/news.htm?id=0132&year=2010
http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-OS-to-SSD/index.html
For the GOTD download, and since it is a type 1 wrapper (with just their
setup.exe wrapper around the product's real installer along with a
readme.txt file), you can follow the instructions below on getting the
product's real installer:
Although it has you use SysInternals' Process Explorer to see the name
of the product's real installer, just clean out your %temp% folder
beforehand, run GOTD's wrapper (which will fail if you have no Internet
connection for it to phone home and MUST be ran on its giveaway day),
and then copy the .tmp file that shows up there to somewhere else, like
C:\HOLD\ParagonMigrateOStoSSD_2.0SpecialEdition_setup.exe. Exit GOTD's
wrapper (and be sure to DESELECT it modifying your web browser's
bookmarks or favorites), and instead run the product's real installer.
Thereafter you are no longer stuck with just a one-day (today) GOTD
installer but can install Paragon's product sometime later when you
decide you have the time to trial it or when you may need to reinstall
it later, like after having to replace or upsize a hard disk.
When you run the real installer, well, it's not the actual installer.
It extracts all of its files into your %temp% folder and then runs
explauncher.exe from there. Then you click on its "Paragon Migrate OS
to SSD" link on the left-side list (which isn't obvious that is the
install action) and then click on the right-side link that starts the
actual installer via msiexec.exe (Microsoft's Installer). Considering
it is likely that you do this only once for a host (even if you have
multiple hosts to migrate to SSD), too bad it doesn't come as a portable
version. You'll end up installing this product, use it, and then it
sits there useless so you might as well as uninstall it.
When you finally get the product's actual installer, you have to
register to make it functional. Although free (for today), you still
have to register to get a product key to unlock the program.
Registering means giving them a valid e-mail address to which they will
send the product key. I suggest using either a disposable e-mail
account or a temporary e-mail alias. You'll have to pend your current
installation waiting for their registration e-mail to show up.
In my trial install, so far the product is adware but only to the extent
that its pseudo or front-end installer has an "Upgrade" button to lure
you to their Disk Copy payware product. Since this was trialed inside a
virtual machine that only has a single HDD, the product aborts with a
prompt telling me that I need another hard disk or SSD to continue, so I
cannot tell if the product has more ads, like presenting more lure
content in a subsequent dialog window.
Note the phrase "Special Edition" in the name of this product. This is
a limited version of their Drive Copy 11 Professional product ($40).
They offer this (at a discounted $20 or free via GOTD) due to its
limited feature set as a lure to their Disk Copy product. That's okay
as long as the only disk copy/clone operation you want to perform is
moving from a HDD to an SSD (although the abort prompt I saw indicates
you might also be able to use this to migrate to another HDD).
