Thursday 17 September 2020

Glacial Software downloads - Cyberlink

 In these days of fast internet connections and cloud based network and servers, you'd think that no manufacturer of commercial and retail software would have a poor download speed for upgrades and new purchases. We have a 120 mbps link to our business and around 20 ms latency. It is used daily for video conference, VOIP phones and other online applications. All of our servers are "in the cloud". We know that we have good connectivity.

We've noticed that one application does not seem to make use of our fast internet link. That product is the Cyberlink Application Manager. The software is used by Cyberlink to keep our versions of Cyberlink Director video editing software up to date. Downloading the latest version takes well in excess of one hour. When you start the application to update software, you think it is hanging or locked up. We've worked out it is actually working, but very slowly.  The program files are not massive, about 1 gigabyte, but we've learned to start the application and to leave it running.

It is almost as if Cyberlink has a software distribution server designed by an accountant. Perhaps an old IBM PC-XT on as 5 mbps data link to service all of its customers. As long as you are very patient, the process works.

This is not a one off problem. We've noticed it for the past few months.