What is the current version?

[stei]

I'm completely confused! I was using 6.0 for a long while on Win-XP. At that time, a free version was available, which did the job to me... It could have been snappier at times, but it did it's job!

Now I'm upgrading to Win-7 and thought that for a product which goes pretty deep into the system, it would be prudent to update. That will set me back $50, so I want to know what I get... Downloading the trial gives version 6.2.4, which is said to be the current version in the FAQ area as well and said to support Win-7.

But there is no forum for 6.2.4 - I see a closed forum for 6.5 and active ones for 6.6, 6.6.5 and Raptor.
Up to 6.6.5, Release Candidate, supported OS only seemed to have ben up to Vista. This makes me think that Win-7 support is just slapped on to 6.2.4 to create revenue.

6.6.5 seems be released (???) with improved Windows-7 support. But it appears that my $50 will either not entitle me to this improved support, or it doesn't exist other than in the promise, or there is another snag to it? Why else should the current release be 6.2.4?

This all makes me think whether X1 is a dead product for the general market and the company tries to get into legal markets with something called eDiscovery(???).

Can X1 explain what is going on here? Should I purchase 6.2.4? Will there be problems with Win-7? Should I continue using 6.0 and save my $50? Or what...???

Thanks for your help - Stefan

[tjh]

You're quite negative, aren't you!

If you purchase X1, you will get a license key. You will also get support for a year, this means that you'll be entitled to all/any upgrades available for that year. Past that year, X1 doesn't make any promises that you'll be allowed to upgrade to higher versions, but mostly in the past you have been able to.

So, you're getting a license key more than a specific product. You can install v6.2.4 if you so wish, or upgrade to the "latest and greatest" which is currently being tested, Raptor. You can downgrade again if you don't like it.

Either way, if you buy the product, you get proper, official support for a year. You can log in, log cases etc. You don't need to rely on the forums. They're there as an addition and a place to share knowledge with each other.

Hope this helps.

Tim

[Kenward]

Can X1 explain what is going on here? Should I purchase 6.2.4? Will there be problems with Win-7? Should I continue using 6.0 and save my $50? Or what...???

This is a "self support" forum where users, backed up by the X1 team, help each other to solve problems and to get the most out of the software. The forum is also somewhere for X1 to throw beta versions at maniacs who should know better than to play with cutting edge software.

The forum is not somewhere for X1 to spell out its business plans. For that information visit X1news.

As to which version you should use, if you login at customer support you will see which version your licence entitles you to use. You can also download from there.

Which version you should use is up to you. If you find that the one you have works just fine, and you don't feel the need for technical support beyond that which you can get here, then there is no need to upgrade.

Of course, X1 cannot write "forward compatible" software, so if you insist on installing a new operating system that cannot accept your version of X1, then you either have to find a workaround or get a newer version.

Given that many people describe Windows 7 as "Vista got right", you may find that anything that works in Vista will chug along just fine in Windows 7, which certainly did not create the same "driver hell" that Vista wreaked on the world.

By the way, newer versions set out to deal with your complaint that X1 could be "snappier at times".

[stei]

The forum is not somewhere for X1 to spell out its business plans. For that information visit X1news.

True... that's why I sent in parallel an eMail to Support with a link to this thread. So far no reply, but then this has been less than 24h ago. As I'm sure others must be confused too, it would make sense to have an official statement here...

if you login at customer support you will see which version your licence entitles you to use. You can also download from there.

This is exactly what I don't want to do: pay $50 to get a login to figure out what I actually bought. Hence this thread.

You're quite negative, aren't you!

Well, everybody is responsible for his own marketing... If on the board, they all but release a version 6.6.5 (no mentioning of the word 'beta' other than in the red text) and at the same time lure the general public into believing the current release is 6.2.4, then don't be surprised that this gets interpreted in a variety of ways...

• Is it safe to use 6.6.5?
• Is it good use of my time trying it out? I don't want to become a beta tester, but I love to have the best available product at time of purchase.
• does it time out - as betas seem to do?
• is there a revision history someplace, which takes me from 6.0 all the way to Raptor

By the way, newer versions set out to deal with your complaint that X1 could be "snappier at times".

Well, I just clicked on a search result which found a 23MByte .pdf file: The previewer all but hangs in 6.2.4. Adobe has no problem other than for each slide (total:98 slides) the background redraw seems to take a few seconds.

Thanks for your help - and I hope that X1 makes also an official statement here!

Stefan

[Kenward]

[*]does it time out - as betas seem to do?

Every new beta release comes with an announcement of when it dies. X1 also now allows you to check for the arrival of new a versions, including beta versions. But that is not likely to interest you, as you say you don't want to be a beta tester.

The forum also has release notes for everything that has been slapped up here.

I agree that the folks at X1 have made life very confusing with the latest round of beta versions. I get the impression that they had a change of tactics somewhere along the line. This may have something to do with the corporate market that is at the heart of X1's business. The people who turn up here are not typical, I suspect, of X1's core user community.

On rendering of PDF files, I am not surprised that a 23MByte pdf file takes time. That's a big file. It was almost certainly created by someone who didn't think to put it through Acrobat's "Reduce file size" routine.

For some reason, I find that people who turn PowerPoint presentations into PDF files often produce one of these bloated offerings.

X1 uses the same technology to render files as many other software houses. It comes from Oracle, which bought out Stellent. The viewers are never as quick as Acrobat itself. But big files make it work harder.

I use X1 to find big PDF files. I even have a "saved search" for large PDF files. I can then export this to help me to track them down so that I can throw the files at Acrobat. (This is not, I should add, the same thing as Reader, which some people still insist on calling Acrobat: Reader cannot shrink files.)

I invariably find that big PDF files will shrink, sometimes dramatically. I just slimmed one 44MB PDF file down to 1MB.

This doesn't work if you have a PDF file that is a scanned image with a text overlay. The image file is just too big.

[stei]

This may have something to do with the corporate market that is at the heart of X1's business. The people who turn up here are not typical, I suspect, of X1's core user community.

I have the same impression . And as I'm not in the four digit hourly rate business called 'legal', I raised the suspicion above that the general product may be all but dead - which would be a real shame!

On rendering of PDF files, I am not surprised that a 23MByte pdf file takes time. That's a big file. It was almost certainly created by someone who didn't think to put it through Acrobat's "Reduce file size" routine.

Probably you are right... but X1 didn't come back for approx. 10min, before I killed it. Would be nice to be able to remain reactive at least, so that I can open the file in Acrobat... (... probably, this should now go into a separate thread)

Stefan

[Kenward]

Probably you are right... but X1 didn't come back for approx. 10min, before I killed it. Would be nice to be able to remain reactive at least, so that I can open the file in Acrobat... (... probably, this should now go into a separate thread)

I do not see this behaviour, perhaps because I have a more recent version of X1.

If X1 finds a file that is too big to render, then I can just open it in Acrobat from X1.

As to X1 being a dead product, what do you think they sell to the corporate market? Sausages?

X1, the thing you use, is also the front end for the lawyers you seem to despise. And the people who play around here are more likely to do things that test X1 to its limits than someone who lives by exploiting the difference between a tort and a tart.

[Tod]

This will all become much clearer in the New Year. I can assure you that X1 is not a dead product, nor are we forsaking our non-legal base of customers. I would advise you to use 6.6.5, which is a released product, just one that is not the default download from the website (yet). If you are not afraid of beta products, I would advise you to use the Raptor product. Frankly, it is now Release Candidate quality, so it is just down to a couple minor polishes before release.

The 6.6.X line is the version to use for Windows 7 support. We only recently announced support for Windows 7 because Microsoft themselves only recently announced it's release. We have been working on support for well over a year, but were hesitant to slap any labels on until Microsoft stabilized their code.

PDF rendering can be tricky. Before you quickly throw out a "well Adobe can render it", please understand that our preview technology is separate from Adobe and also the rendering module is a much smaller footprint than Adobe. Sometimes that means that we have a challenge with rendering larger files. We are constantly working to improve this and there is a very promising technique that we hope to release in 2010 sometime after we release Raptor.

[stei]

Tod,

thanks a lot for the clarification. I'm currently trying 6.6.5 and generally quite happy. Expect my purchase order shortly.
(As I complain about confusion: The Web sais trials work for 14 days, the install routine says 30 days )

I understand that rendering is difficult - on the mentioned file, another tool gives up too; Ghostview gets through but with a very ugly looking result. I still have 232/130'158 files where the text extractor dies. Includes the mentioned .pdf, but also office docs and even four .txt files (6.6.5). Some get indexed when moving to another place, others throw the same error... The biggest disturbance is still that the previewer doesn't return at times, creating the need to kill X1.

Stefan

[Tod]

"14-day" is the correct value. We missed fixing the "30-day" annotation that you mentioned, but caught it just recently in time for our next upcoming release.

We, of course, hate anytime that a user has to kill X1. We are working on a much better fix for the exact problem you describe, but it won't be ready in time for the next release.