Indifferent support from X-Ways

It's a very capable tool and I think it is fair to say they've got a their way or the highway approach (I think Jens pretty much states as much during the training :p). To be fair their way is generally with good reason I think most people just accept this because the software is good (and often realise why they're right).

I've reported bugs in the past and they've fixed them pretty quickly. However more recently the last bug I reported (twice) didn't get a reply either time. I wouldn't take it to heart.

I think it's been oversight by all the competing forensics/e-discovery companies who don't put enough resources into the identification and parsing of file-systems (whether not parsing them at all or just nowhere near as reliably). As well as fast/efficient/detailed searching/bookmarking/reporting.

EnCase tried to copy AccessData and generated an abomination of an interface and indexing system and have been trying to catch up ever since. AccessData was left behind when e-discovery ramped up and their big advantage over EnCase (email presentation) was caught up (and surpassed imo) by the likes of NUIX. IEF turned into Axiom and has been the biggest improver in terms of scope and usefulness but still lags in terms of file-system support (whether that be ones they just don't support or ones X-Ways does more reliably/better) and ease of manual review / detailed searching.

It's still far too common to find something mis-identified, not parsed, not supported, or shown in a less detailed form, in all of the other forensics tools. Therefore X-Ways is still a necessity in my book and as such recommend it. Also still very reasonably priced compared to the ever increasing prices of competitors. But yeah - the support could be a bit better 😉

I'm not going to renew my expired license. Just don't feed the troll.

Also:

SandMan initially started as an open-source project, but in 2008 a German company called X-Ways stole[2][3][4] my open source code without giving any proper due credits. As a results, I stopped open sourcing my projects.

Posted by: @jimc

Hi,

 

I have been a big fan of X-Ways Forensics (XWF) for a long time and have enjoyed attending all of the product training courses they offer. It is an extremely capable product and I have always been happy to recommend it.

However, over time I have also formed the view that the X-Ways business can be quite arrogant and sometimes difficult to deal with. The public face they present is very much one of "take it on our terms" or "leave it". I've tolerated this because of their excellent technical product but after several incidents of reporting quite easily reproducible bugs and being knocked back like a complete idiot (I'm not) I'm starting to wonder if my faith has been misplaced.

I wonder, has anyone else had similar experiences of their acerbic customer support or do I just have a inferiority complex?

 

Jim

www.binarymarkup.com

I had the same experience so i decided not to use their products! I was referred to the manual and treated as an idiot. 

I don't think any forensics software vendor should treat its customers poorly regardless of how good their products are.

"I have a reproducible bug; but since you didn't care to fix the previous one, I can't be bothered to share it. I do however know the workaround".

That should tick 'em right off 🙂

Posted by: @pbobby

"I have a reproducible bug; but since you didn't care to fix the previous one, I can't be bothered to share it. I do however know the workaround".

That should tick 'em right off 🙂

Why are you quoting something that nobody said, either exactly or in inference?

Posted by: @rich2005

Posted by: @pbobby

"I have a reproducible bug; but since you didn't care to fix the previous one, I can't be bothered to share it. I do however know the workaround".

That should tick 'em right off 🙂

Why are you quoting something that nobody said, either exactly or in inference?

I believe it was quoted as an example of a possible approach.

For the record, I tried this exact same approach (after having found and reported more than one bug, and quite serious/severe at that, that were corrected timely because they implied a failure in the produced output in some "common enough" cases ) with yet another bug to a software house for a (completely unrelated to forensics) software and I was more or less plainly told that since they have more than 2,000 (two thousands) installs (and I believe it is a d@mn lie as their update downloads count is around the 250-300 mark) and noone else ever happened to report it, they may be putting it in a list, as a low priority one, with no expected deadline.

Mind you, it was not something I fancied, it was a plain, evident error in their program logic (a value in a database field that was auto-filled from another one, while in some cases it was not directly connected), triggered only in some "edge" (but all in all not-so-edge) cases, the workaround was to simply correct a value in an output .xml, but now they will have to pay me to know the specific case when it happens, or let's wait until more people experience and report it.

Of course the next day I started looking for a replacement program/software, but the lesson is there, the attitude is not customer oriented, but rather "pareto principle" oriented, let's do some 20% work that fits 80% of customers, and who cares about the others and their needs.

jaclaz

However, over time I have also formed the view that the X-Ways business can be quite arrogant and sometimes difficult to deal with.

The problem with unpleasant behaviour of X-Ways - in my case - came from the owner: Stefan Fleischmann.

I am not sure if there are other so rude employees at X-Ways, but the owner is not customer friendly and maybe that is the reason of so strange customers' relations at X-Ways.

Posted by: @kamis

 

I am not sure if there are other so rude employees at X-Ways

There are more than only one. What makes them arrogant is the monopol they have. There is no other software in the forensics market that is similar powerful, advanced and fast.