Talk:Winpooch
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[edit] User documentation lacking
The current user documentation (April 6, 2007) is sorely lacking. On the download page, http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=122629 the introduction cuts off abruptly, in mid-word, in the second sentence:
"About Winpooch Watchdog
Winpooch is a watchdog for Windows (2000, XP, 2003, but only 32-bits). It detects modifications in your system, so as to detect a trojan or a spyware installation. It also includes a real-time anti-virus. Set your own security level for anti-spyware, ant"
The page then advises the user
"Before downloading, you may want to read Release Notes. The current release for each package is shown."
However, a casual search on that page reveals no "Release Notes" on that page, nor anything that looks remotely likely to be "Release Notes", nor any link to "Release Notes."
The documentation page provides no end user documentation, nothing so much as install or uninstall instructions.
If the development team would trust and unleash its users by simply providing a wiki (perhaps using the well-known free MediaWiki software used in WikiPedia) the users might provide documentation. Bringing up a wiki is not so terribly difficult these days. Instead of a wiki, all that is provided is a little tiny window in which users are supposed to paste new documentation for submission.
The site seems devoted to giving away WinPooch, then selling the the minimal basic support services that users rightfully expect to be supplied by an adequate online manual.
The lack of useful concise well-organized user documentation may explain in part why so few downloads seem to have occurred. Users may wisely decide that it is risky to download software without the information necessary to evaluate or use it.
As there are fewer users, there is less buzz, fewer users giving feedback, fewer users interested in helping with development or documentation, a smaller user group to appeal to professional developers, etc. The lack of adequate user documentation may explain in large part why users have not been attracted, explaining in turn why WinPooch has failed to take off.
[edit] XP SP3 and Vista
Those versions block kernel-mode API hooking, will cause Winpooch to not work. See this for a discussion on this. --Voidvector (talk) 09:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
