Hard Disk Monitoring

If I have my firewall blocking Hard Disk Sentinel, clicking the Configuration | Update | Check for new version now results in a message saying that my current version is up-to-date (which it isn't). Disabling the firewall block results in HDS telling me there is a new version and then immediately start to download (and I assume eventually install) the latest version. Neither of these behaviors is ideal. Here's what I think should happen instead:

1) If HDS is prevented from checking for updates, there should be an appropriate error message saying so. Otherwise users may wrongly think that they're running the latest version of HDS simply because the program is somehow blocked from going online.

2) If checking is allowed by the user, then once an update is detected, it would be more logical (to me at least) to

• A) Ask the user if they want to update at that time.
  
  or (at minimum)...
  
  B) Change the wording on the button to something like "Check for new version now (and update if one is available)"

Though I'd prefer option A - I may want to quickly see if there's a new version, but not want to update until later (maybe I want to backup my current version before updating).

What do you think?

Thanks for your message and the thoughts.

This seems interesting. Somehow then the software may receive different result from the OS when the connection blocked as (in theory) yes, it should display connection error when the firewall blocked.

Can you pleas write me the OS version you use (or even better, as usual, use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option)? Then I can check and reproduce to verify.

Thanks for the tip, yes, I agree that it may be helpful to ask for confirmation when the update is available, so it may be added in a future version.

OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit (w/SP1)
HDS: v5.01 Pro (non-portable version)

NOTE: I tried blocking the HDS update check with both software and hardware firewall (independently) - both methods resulted with HDS incorrectly telling me that my version 5.01 PRO was up-to-date.

Hey Muad'Dib.

I agree that Hard Disk Sentinel should say that there is a new version but wait until user decides, to download and install it.

However, I have to say, that the auto-update works very well, I have never had any issues with it. It even saves the old version inside the HDS folder (renames to *.old) so presumably you can go back to previous version if needed. It is unusual to not have an option of asking before updating, but it might be tricky to add, since you can run HDS as a service, and services are not allowed to interact with the desktop.

Best Regards,

Yes, when service mode used, then there will be surely no confirmation / dialog displayed, exactly as you wrote.

Such confirmation can (and will) be displayed only when the software runs in application mode, likely when the update checked manually (as I suspect when the automatic update option enabled, the user wants to have updates automatically downloaded and installed).