Customer Reviews

WinFax Pro 10.0

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(40)

 

 

We use this product in a small office environment. I decided to purchase it based on the fax sharing feature; the idea of having a fax server-like system at a relatively low cost was appealing. My assessment of the product is mixed. For the user it is simple to learn and use, anyone who has used Outlook Express should be able to pick up the basic features in a matter of minutes. And the ability to log and archive faxes instead of losing them in the paper shuffle has proved invaluable. For the administrator, however, expect to be challenged. Many of the more polished features don't work under Win 2000, and I've lost count of how many times I've come in to work in the morning to find the program crashed. To ease the transition for the office, I originally left our old fax machine on line as a backup. After 6 months of using this app, I still can't turn the old fax off. I would strongly suggest thinking carefully about your needs before purchasing this product.

I am not new to computers. I am used to fixing many kinds of software problems in Windows. This is not an easy product to install on a Windows XP system, especially after it has been upgraded to SP2. If you are expecting to simply install this product, reboot your computer, and start faxing, you will be sorely disappointed. Despite warnings in many other reviews, I purchased v10.03 for use on my Windows XP system with SP2. While I was able to eventually get it installed and running, it slowed my computer's reboot time to a crawl and trashed my scanner software. It took several hours to get most things working again.

First off, you should not try to install anything less than version 10.03 on an XP system. Symantec warns you about this on their web site. If you insist on purchasing WinFax Pro - which I do not recommend - make sure you buy version 10.03.

Secondly, WinFax Pro conflicts with the built-in Windows Fax program in Win XP. You will need to uninstall Windows Fax (which can be done through Control Panel's Add/Remove programs, but you need to look for it in the Add/Remove Windows Components section) to get WinFax Pro to function properly.

Third, after you install WinFax Pro your computer may take forever to reboot. It looks like it is hung up in this process, but if you go do something else for a while it will eventually reboot. I have not figured out why it does this, but it has definitely slowed my computer reboot time to a crawl.

Fourth, if you have a scanner, it may trash your scanner software (it certainly did mine - HP Scanjet 6300C). Symantec's web site has information about this in their knowledge base for WinFax Pro, so it must happen to many others, too. I did not use their fix, though, as I could not find updated twain.dll and twain_32.dll files that they recommend using to replace the ones they screwed up. Instead, I uninstalled and then reinstalled my scanner's installation software. I had to run Symantec's SystemWorks software to find/fix Windows problems and reinstall the scanner drivers a few times before it worked, but eventually I got the scanner working again. WinFax seems to have permanently disabled my scanner's buttons for doing quick operations, though. I have not found a way to restore button function. But I can scan with the Precision Pro software that is part of HP's available software downloads on their web site.

As far as I can tell, after fixing the above-mentioned problems, WinFax Pro 10.03 does seem to work okay. It does not appear to be any improvement over prior versions of WinFax, so unless you have upgraded to Windows XP you will not likely find it worthwhile to upgrade. As many others have stated before me, this is very buggy software that causes many problems with Windows XP and will be horribly frustrating for anyone trying to install and use this software on an XP system. BUYER BEWARE!

I can't remember ever feeling this frustrated, disappointed ...by a software purchase. Advertised as being greatly improved over previous versions, the only real difference between this version and previous versions is the font.Worse yet, the product is filled with bugs that should have been fixed in earlier versions; amongst other problems, it is rife with ".dll" conflicts, causing even that most ubiquitous application -- MS Word to crash. In addition, several advertised features are just plain lies, including: "more user friendly cover sheets," "easier application of signature stamps," "easy installs."

And for the final insult, the [money] rebate they advertise is actually an upgrade only rebate, which means if you threw out your receipt from the version you've been using for the past five years, you are out of luck, and [money].

Now let's see if Symantec will honor their 60-day guarantee.

UPDATE: Symantec did refund my purchase price (but not shipping of course). I sent a fairly detailed letter with my refund request and got no response other than the refund. In my business, customer service is EVERYTHING and I would never let a dissatisfied customer go away angry.

Billed as XP-compliant, I got WinFax 10.02 to work with Win XP Pro and Office XP last year, although it was such a headache to set it up it nearly drove me around the bend.

THEN I got a new computer, upgraded to Office 2003, and entered a whole new world of pain. Not only does WinFax 10.02 crash multiple times when installing and registering, it also crashes anytime I attempt to send a fax, crashing Opera, Outlook, and any other Office application I might have up. It is the first program I have ever encountered that even manages to crash the Task Manager, which I thought was impossible. Every re-boot is a new experience in which program or piece of hardware won't work.

That was before trying to re-establish network faxing from computers that, until now, had done it fine with WinFax 10.02. Now - somehow - it has screwed up my own computer so much that it crashes other computers on the network whenever they try to send something through the new (host) computer.

Frustrated beyond belief, I tried to uninstall it, but apparently when it crashed during installation, it didn't create an uninstall file and has no "uninstall" function on the CD-ROM. The only way to get this monstrosity off of my computer was to do a system restore for a couple of days ago. That worked, but now I have to reinstall all of the software I have spent the last two days installing and configuring.

Don't waste your time, money, or sanity on this misleading product.

Check anywhere for reviews and they are almost always terrible! You are pushed into this expensive upgrade to run XP, but eventually find out that it doesn't work with your programs anyway, such as trying to mailmerge with Act! or Outlook! It is full of bugs if you succeed in installing it! Technical service says they've never heard of these problems that have been posted on their boards forever. Act! (Interstate Commerce) recommends other software that DOES work like FaxNow and OneManBand. Be very careful, as there are a lot of people out of the faxing business because of this program!

I bought this...thing.... loaded it up. tried to fax a Word document. There is no easy attachment icon, such as in Bitware.
Then, when I tried to open a letter using Explorer, it wouldn't open my program! It read error in VBE6.dll, whatever the hell that means.
So I went thru the maze of the Symantec support department...they wanted [$$] per instance for tech support.
There are so many warnings and problems with this program, I deleted the damn thing. You are better off buying a fax machine. If you can return this piece of dreck, do it. If you can't, return their "favor" by writing a review.
I am so angry!!!!!!

WinFax PRO has been discontinued by Symantec. Do not purchase this software unless you are willing to use a discontinued software package.

This program was very difficult to setup for faxing with Act 2000. I live in an area that has two area codes for local dialing. This program along with Act 2000 which claims to do an area code overlay doesn't work and the instructions (which are not clearly written)will confuse you even more. Forget, customer support each company blames the next. Act blames WinFax Pro, WinFax Pro blames Windows and so on and so on and so on. After six months of trial and error, I still have mostly errors. Area code rules, overlay's etc. don't work.

I spoke with Symantec tech support today about resolving the problem with Winfax and Outlook 2003. Basically what was happening was everytime I closed Outlook 2003, I would get an error message that Outlook needed to shut down. When I clicked on "Send this error report to Microsoft" it sent a message back to me identifying Winfax as the culprit. It had a link to Symantec's website with an article on the issue with Outlook 2003. I then contacted tech support and after several days and repeated phone calls (I kept getting transfered and promised to be called back), I spoke to someone who told me how to fix the problem. Go to Start then Control Panel. Then click on the link the Mail icon. Then delete the Winfax Logs listed in the menu. The tech rep told me that Outlook was searching for non-existent winfax logs and that's what was causing the error message. After I did this the problem was fixed and Winfax is working fine with my Windows XP sp2 and Outlook 2003. This solution may save you time and $ because they wanted to charge me $10 but after politely pleading my case, they waived the charge. I suggested they put this solution on their website but I think they really want you to call them and pay for help. Other than the above issue, I have used Winfax for years and found the software to be of great use to my home-based business. It does exactly as it was described to do.

I bought WinFax 10.0 and installed it on my pc only to have it CRASH my microsoft word program. I had to re-load my "word" software ( luckily I still had the c/d ) afterwords the WinFax program worked ok and was fairly easy to figure out but my friend wanted to get WinFax for his pc ..... but I told him to buy a new c/d instead of borrowing mine because I figured my c/d must have just had some type of error on it to crash my "word" program. My friend went ahead and bought new WinFax software, installed it on his pc and the WinFax software CRASHED HIS ENTIRE SYSTEM, corrupting his hard drive with a message on the screen reading:" 7220 imminent corruption on hard drive FAILER".
we tried to remove the WinFax from his pc....but we had no luck, anytime we would try to open up any program or any files, even internet explorer the pc would just freeze, even typing " ctrl/alt/delete" wouldn't help. The phone support #'s for Winfax are busy all the time and the secondary #'s just ring off the hook. ....