Woofer tester 2 web site shut down? Looking to buy one for use?

Hello everyone. ( Sorry not trying to start a bad topic ) but I was wondering if it's my internet or if the website is down? I Am looking to buy one and start from ground zero and work my way up. I had one before but sold to someone who needed more then me at the time. Now I need one duh. Also they have always answered my calls ( no matter how many times I have called) and I want to support the original woofer tester makers. ( No DATS here). I am going to use it to measure a few drivers for a friend and some for me. I hope everything is Okay? Jeff
 
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Smith and Larson are having major problems caused by Microsoft security policy. Ever since Windows 7, Microsoft has been making it increasingly difficult to load and run unsigned drivers. There were increasingly difficult work-arounds in 7 and 8. In Windows 10, there is no viable work-around. There is a kluge that involves diddling with the registry that will allow a one time use, but as soon as you do a restart, W10 deletes any and all unsigned drivers.

This unsigned driver issue is advertised as a security issue. Accepting this at face value, it makes your computer safer, but it means that small software designers who use drivers to diddle in the kernel must buy a current valid signature. The price of a new signed driver is beyond the means of the little guys. Whether this is a valid price for the product of bald-faced rent seeking, I don't know. But it puts S&L between a rock and a hard place. The last I heard, S&L doesn't have an answer (~ a month ago).

Woofer Tester 2 does not require a driver, so it will run just fine in Windows 10. Speaker Tester and Woofer Tester Pro will not run in Windows 10. Since I don't have access to a computer running Windows 8 or older, my WTPro is a $1000 paper weight. Also, I don't have access to the hundreds of data files I created with WTPro.

I don't have a quick answer, and I am hoping that S&L will come up with a solution.

Bob
 
Smith and Larson are having major problems caused by Microsoft security policy. Ever since Windows 7, Microsoft has been making it increasingly difficult to load and run unsigned drivers. There were increasingly difficult work-arounds in 7 and 8. In Windows 10, there is no viable work-around. There is a kluge that involves diddling with the registry that will allow a one time use, but as soon as you do a restart, W10 deletes any and all unsigned drivers.

This unsigned driver issue is advertised as a security issue. Accepting this at face value, it makes your computer safer, but it means that small software designers who use drivers to diddle in the kernel must buy a current valid signature. The price of a new signed driver is beyond the means of the little guys. Whether this is a valid price for the product of bald-faced rent seeking, I don't know. But it puts S&L between a rock and a hard place. The last I heard, S&L doesn't have an answer (~ a month ago).

Woofer Tester 2 does not require a driver, so it will run just fine in Windows 10. Speaker Tester and Woofer Tester Pro will not run in Windows 10. Since I don't have access to a computer running Windows 8 or older, my WTPro is a $1000 paper weight. Also, I don't have access to the hundreds of data files I created with WTPro.

I don't have a quick answer, and I am hoping that S&L will come up with a solution.

Bob

Thanks Bob. Thats all makes sense to me. Thank you for taking the time to post the information needed. My windows xp is about done. Then I have to up grade to windows 7 because windows 10 is a mess on my new computer. ( Already a year pass buying it and had to take it in for a cleaning and upgrades ugh). I hope they fix the problem soon for you. Thanks Bob. Jeff
 
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With web hosting being so cheap these days, I wonder why people choose to deal with all that stuff on a local server, instead of one in the cloud.

Those mostly run on Linux so no MS problem.

Bob, you could use your WTPro in emulation. I'm sure it would work fine.

And btw, I had Win10 for less than 2 weeks here, and I wiped it away. MS is taking way too many liberties, interfering with so much and telling us what we can and can't do with our computers. Plus, every time I would boot down, it would tell me it's updating something and I couldn't turn it off right away.... Plus the fact it never ask d me if I wanted to install updates, which could possibly render a computer as dead as a brick. Considering the abysmal track record MS has ... I wiped W10 and never been happier.
 
With web hosting being so cheap these days, I wonder why people choose to deal with all that stuff on a local server, instead of one in the cloud.

Those mostly run on Linux so no MS problem.

Excuse me, but that does this have to to with devise drivers?


Bob, you could use your WTPro in emulation. I'm sure it would work fine.

Maybe, but I would have to buy a copy of XP or W7 off of Ebay to load into the emulator. I want to load a (probably) bootlegged copy of XP on any machine I care about?


And btw, I had Win10 for less than 2 weeks here, and I wiped it away. MS is taking way too many liberties, interfering with so much and telling us what we can and can't do with our computers. Plus, every time I would boot down, it would tell me it's updating something and I couldn't turn it off right away.... Plus the fact it never ask d me if I wanted to install updates, which could possibly render a computer as dead as a brick. Considering the abysmal track record MS has ... I wiped W10 and never been happier.

Yes, I know that thin introduction of W10 wasn't Microsoft's finest hour, and yes you need to turn off a lot of privacy stuff, but they are no worse than Google or Facebook, or.... The fact is that you cannot use the internet without leaving a footprint, and someone will sell it.

Updates: A small percentage of users got bricked by one update that got retracted. I didn't. But anyone that is stupid enough to run ANY operating system without all applicable updates deserves the results they will get. I personally am not going to spend the time to investigate each and every update and try to decide if I should install it or not.

Sure, you will never run Windows again. Fine. I like it -- they fixed most of the user complaints in W8. Runs fine, and is particularly slick on my touch screen laptop. Runs like a standard keyboard computer and as a touch screen tablet.

Bob
 
Bob, the first part, it was a mention to the WooferTester website being down. I got the impression you said they were running their own server, and I was just said that online web hosting is so easy and bug free these days.

Regarding emulation, Wine is open source and doesn't need to load any Windows OS.

If Wine doesn't work for you, check out Oracle's VirtualBox, also open source, which lets you emulate different OSes and different versions of them (Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris, etc) without loading a copy of the actual OS.

So for both options, there's no need to get a copy of the OS to get going.

You just might revive your software.
 
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Another route is just to buy a cheap W7 machine. I got a new HP ProDesk 600 G1 Small Form Factor with a valid W7 Pro license for $150. Just an i3-4130/8GB, but plenty to run S&L Speaker Tester on (I hope, I haven't actually loaded it on there yet). It's small, only uses onboard graphics, but had a nice keyboard/mouse. I did clone the HDD to a SDD and stashed the HDD away, but it's an inexpensive option to have a W7 machine around.
 
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Woofer Tester Pro

Not sure if this is "new" News but you can run Woofer Tester Pro in Windows 10.


You have "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement"



You restart the computer with the above in force, load the drivers (via Device Manager).
The next time you close Windows and start again the Driver Signature will be enabled again BUT you already have them installed so no worries with running Woofer Tester Pro.


How to disable the Driver Signature Enforcement temporarily. see here How to disable driver signature enforcement on Windows 10
 
Here's a update. I just went on their website..On the bottom it has not been updated senc. 2011. I hope they are doing okay? No update for Windows 10 yet? I hope they update soon? So I know someone who is looking to buy a product from them. Should I say go for it or no? I just don't want to be the blame for little product support? Cheers Jeff