During the last week of July 2010 I purchased via telephone the VideoStudio Pro X3 video editing software from Corel. Shortly after I received it, I installed it. The first part of August I contacted their customer service telephone number as I was getting a popup message every time I tried to open the program stating "Abnormal Program Termination" (See attached screenshot). The customer rep said I needed to pay for help. I couldn't understand why. I had never contacted their help line before and I was having problems with their software that was not addessed on their FAQ/Q&A webpage. The rep agreed not to charge me the fee since it was my first call. He sent me by email a link that I needed to go to to download their uninstall program. Evidently the one that comes with the program doesn't do the job right or something. He informed me that this download when ran would completly remove all traces of the program from my computer including the registry. I followed his instructions step by step. Went to the link, downloaded the uninstall file, uninstalled completely the program, rebooted, reinstalled the program from disk, then went to another link he sent me to install all the patches, fixes, updates, etc. This fixed the problem... well so I thought. About 3 days later I got the same popup message when I went to run the software. Well by this time I knew what I did the time before so without customer care's assistance, I did the very same thing. This process in all takes 30-45 minutes. Again it worked just fine for a few days then low and behold, I got the same message. In September, I called customer support again. Once again I explained the issue, told them what I did to resolve the issue but then told them the same issue kept returning. I also once again was able to talk them out of the fee that they were going to charge me to help. I had sent in a ticket prior to this call. I was told in the online incident report as well as the on the phone the second time what to do to correct the problem which is exactly what they told me to do the first time. I explained this had been done numerous times. The rep was going to hang up if I didn't want to follow the instructions he was giving me over the phone. So, I did what he told me and once again unistalled, rebooted, and reinstalled the program from disk and then went to their website again and downloaded and reinstalled the patches, fixes, and updates again.
This same thing has been going on since. In January of this year I started a new incident report online telling them that not only was this problem still happening but, when I did get the software to work, it kept asking me for a number (which came with the product and they said on the phone was the right number). When I was putting it in, the software kept asking me to create a new account online and was not letting me in under the original registration number, email, and password. (Yes, I was using the correct one!) They told me in the incident report not to worry about their database that everything was fine on their end regarding my registration but didn't answer my question regarding my original complaint. I have been going back and forth with them now since on two different incident reports since January with the same problem since last August.
They keep asking me for the screenshot which I can see is still attached to the incident report? Do they not read the report before responding? I would guess not. About once a week since January, I keep getting emails from them stating "we haven't heard from you. If we don't hear from you within 120 hours (or whatever the number was), we will assume the problem is resolved and will close the incident report."
Each time I update the report stating that NO the issue is still not resolved, what are you going to do about it and when are you going to stop wasting my time with emails and actually answer the question."
About three weeks ago I received an email from their advertising department. ( I LOVE THIS...)
"It's our great pleasure to announce that an exciting new version of VideoStudio Pro is now available and, as someone who purchased VideoStudio Pro within the past 30 days, you're eligible to upgrade to the all-new VideoStudio Pro X4 at the special low price of only $49.99. You save $30 off the regular upgrade price of $79.99!*"
Well, that's nice! But there is TWO things wrong with that: 1. I did NOT just purchase the VideoStudio Pro within the last 30 days and 2. Why would I want to PAY for the upgrade when this version won't work?
I have asked them to GIVE me the new version for my time and trouble but I can't get them to respond to my other incident reports only to tell me they haven't heard from me which again they have.
The one online report on file that I have access to via their online incident reports is January 21. All previous reports were deleted by them but never answered to my satisfaction.
I have tried installing to my laptop as well as my desktop. The desktop runs Vista 32 bit and the laptop runs Win7 32-bit.
I finally told them I would be contacting their corporate headquarters. We'll see how that turns out... I will also be contacting the Better Business Bureau. This has gone on long enough and I have been MORE than patient with them.