Dowloading Nero Updates Reliably and Quickly

[Tinle]

My recent experiences doing Nero Updates (including Nero606.exe today) has been that my downoads from the US FTP site are both extremely slow (9 - 20 Kb/sec) and worse -unreliable. I have repeatedly received only partial files(as in 10.7 Mb out of 28.9 Mb on Nero606.exe & 8 min 32 seconds to do it). I use ADSL from a well regarded ISP and Windows XP.

At the Nero website, the German FTP site (62.93.193.125) provided 28.9Mb in 6 min 0 sec, averaging 82.2 Kb/sec for Nero606.exe.

Question 1: Is there any difference between the files provided from the German site versus the US server, if the file name is identical? Any other reason for a US based user to choose one or the other?

Question 2: I can live with "slow" if I have to, but incomplete files maybe a potential problem waiting to happen if they were inadvertantly used to update a system. I'm not so concerned about failing to notice where there is 18.2 Mb missing, but what if it were a few Kbs.

Is there someway to automate the download progress to clearly flag incomplete transfers - so that I'll know that the "Download Complete" really means "Failed - Start Over - Try Still One More time"?

I would appreciate any suggestions towards reliable, fast downloads of the Nero files.

[Boba_Fett]

The US FTP might be getting completely saturated with requests, which could explain your slow (relatively, I'm still on dial-up and that sounds mighty fine to me) download speeds and dropped packets/corruption. You could try using a download accelerator, as they handle downloads infinetly better than IE...

[hoxlund]

yeah i use LeechGet for my downloading of big files

best of all it doesn't have spyware and shit like download accelerator

[CCampbell]

To check if the download is 100%, we do provide a 'Checksum' on our website below the downlod information for each package, so that you can use to compare the download with using MDF Checksum tool.

This way you can be sure of a good download.

Regards,

Craig

[Tinle]

Craig, Congratulations on your 500th post.


"To check if the download is 100%, we do provide a 'Checksum' on our website below the downlod information for each package, so that you can use to compare the download with using MDF Checksum tool."

I am not familiar with that tool and using the Nero website search tool yields nothing. Do you have a recommend link to that tool?

Is there any difference in the US and German site offerings, when the filename is identical?

[CCampbell]

Hi Tinle,

500 already? Does that mean I can retire?

Sorry, that was a Typo. Its the MD5 Checksum tool, and this is provided by Microsoft so you will not find the tool on our Nero website. But you can do a search on Google for it, or go to Microsofts website.

And no, there is no difference in what is offered on the German website for downloads versus the US website. (Unless you are looking for NeroMix for downloading as part of the package)

Regards,

Craig

[dodecahedron]

Sorry, that was a Typo. Its the MD5 Checksum tool, and this is provided by Microsoft so you will not find the tool on our Nero website. But you can do a search on Google for it, or go to Microsofts website.

?????
first of all, it's called Nero MD5 Verifier

check out this topic:
http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18482

the MD5 Verifier can be found here:
ftp://ftp6.nero.com/NeroMD5Verifier.zip
i don't know why there isn't a direct download link from Nero's website, or if there is why it's not located clearly in plain site.
Craig, i think that a link for the MD5 Verifier should be placed on every download page on Nero's website!

as for it being provided by M$...???
here's a quote from the About box of the MD5 Verifier:

The MD5 algorithm used in this software is derived from
RSA Data Security, Inc., MD5 message-digest algorithm

Copyright (C) 1991-2, RSA Data Security, Inc. Created 1991. All
rights reserved.

License to copy and use this software is granted provided that it
is identified as the "RSA Data Security, Inc. MD5 Message-Digest
Algorithm" in all material mentioning or referencing this software
or this function.

The graphical user interface ("GUI") of this software is developed by
Ahead Software AG. Copyright (C) 1995-2004, Ahead Software AG.
All rights reserved.

BTW congrats on 500 posts

[CCampbell]

Even I learned something new.

I've always gone to the below link to download a MD5 Checksum tool.
http://www.shen.myby.co.uk/threel/tech/tools/md5.htm

I did not know we had one posted on our FTP site either, but of course I did not look for it as I've used these in the past and already had a source to go too.

And I agree, it should be made easily accesable. I'll request our Web master to provide a link along with each download package.

Now that I think about it, I did send the utility out to a few of our OEMs already, it just slipped my mind.

See, I am old already and do need to retire.

Regards,

Craig

[dodecahedron]

See, I am old already and do need to retire.

no, not quite yet please!

[CCampbell]

And I'm going blind.

Its time to take me out to the pasture and shoot me.

If you go to the download page of our Nero website, under each download we provide the Checksum, and then in the right-hand colum of the page we have in a gray box the MD5 Check Sum tool information, and a link to download the Nero MD5 Verifier.

So our Web master had this there already. I of course was looking for a link below the Checksum we provide, and I'm sure others were as well.

Regards,

Craig

[dodecahedron]

And I'm going blind.

Its time to take me out to the pasture and shoot me.

If you go to the download page of our Nero website, under each download we provide the Checksum, and then in the right-hand colum of the page we have in a gray box the MD5 Check Sum tool information, and a link to download the Nero MD5 Verifier.

now it's me who's going blind.
i don't see what you say.
2 download pages from your site:
http://www.nero.com/en/nero-prog.php
http://www.nero.com/en/nero-up.php
i don't see a link to the MD5 Verifier anywhere...?

what would be really cool is, if every line that says "MD5 checksum: c2bf6064994ffdddd3bc95ca3786f60f" the words "MD5 checksum" were a link to the utility.

[cfitz]

It is in the page source:

Code: Select all

<div class="include-right"><h3> </h3>
<h3> MD5 Check sum</h3>
<p> With the fingerprints<br />
  generated by MD5<br />
  programs (md5sum)<br />
  you can easily control<br />
  if the downloaded files<br />
  are  complete.</p>
<p> Download and info for<br />
  the <a class="inline" href="../en/Nero_MD5_Verifier.html" target="_self"  ><strong>Nero MD5 Verifier</strong></a>.</p>
<p> </p></div>

But neither IE nor Firefox render it. What browser are you using, Craig? Perhaps it is a cookies/privacy setting thing?? I'm not up on HTML.

cfitz

[cfitz]

Nevermind. IE and Firefox will render it. But they will only render it if you make the browser window wide enough. If the browser window is too narrow the right-hand gray bar with the MD5 Verifier link disappears.

How wide is wide enough to see the link? It seems to be about 1000 pixels - wide enough that most visitors to the website will probably never see the link. Sigh... not very good website design.





cfitz

[dodecahedron]

duh!

nice work, Sherlock!

[MediumRare]

Nevermind. IE and Firefox will render it.

Opera 7.54 won't. It's a rendering thing because the "identify as ..." setting has no influence.

Thanks for the insight, cfitz. I'm going to give Firefox a try this weekend.

G

[cfitz]

duh!

"Doh!" indeed. The only reason I figured it out is because I tried it on the third and final browser I have installed on my machine, Mozilla. I didn't expect to see anything different with Mozilla since Firefox is a follow-on to Mozilla, but for the sake of completeness decided to check every browser available to me. Luckily for me, my Mozilla window just happened to be set wide enough to show the MD5 Verifier link, and I was then able to deduce what was going on.

Thanks for the insight, cfitz. I'm going to give Firefox a try this weekend.

You're welcome. As for Firefox, it has its good points and bad points. On the plus side (for me) are the searching enhancements, both within a page and across the Internet. On the minus side are nits like the order-of-initial-entry sorting behavior in the URL address bar and the opening of new windows (via ctrl-N) on the home page rather than the currently viewed page. And there are still some IE-specific sites that Firefox doesn't quite render properly.

But for the most part I am happy with Firefox. And I feel safer using it than the security-breach ridden IE.

cfitz

[CCampbell]

I like the below suggestion by Dodecahedron. I will put in a request for this modification to our website.

"what would be really cool is, if every line that says "MD5 checksum: c2bf6064994ffdddd3bc95ca3786f60f" the words "MD5 checksum" were a link to the utility."


Regards

Craig

[dodecahedron]

You're welcome. As for Firefox, it has its good points and bad points. On the plus side (for me) are the searching enhancements, both within a page and across the Internet. On the minus side are nits like the order-of-initial-entry sorting behavior in the URL address bar and the opening of new windows (via ctrl-N) on the home page rather than the currently viewed page. And there are still some IE-specific sites that Firefox doesn't quite render properly.

But for the most part I am happy with Firefox. And I feel safer using it than the security-breach ridden IE.

same here.
i've a few things i don't like in FireFox too, it's handling of the phpbb posting page for instance
but as for the opening of a new window on the home page rather than the currently viewed page, there's a fix for that: an extention called OpenNewWindowFromHere 0.1, by Davide Ficano. it adds 2 new options to the context menu and the File menu: Open New Window From Here (Ctrl-Shift-N) and Open New Tab From Here (Ctrl-Shift-T). the Open New Window From Here does the same as Ctrl-N in IE.

Extension page

[cfitz]

as for the opening of a new window on the home page rather than the currently viewed page, there's a fix for that: an extention called OpenNewWindowFromHere 0.1, by Davide Ficano. it adds 2 new options to the context menu and the File menu: Open New Window From Here (Ctrl-Shift-N) and Open New Tab From Here (Ctrl-Shift-T).

Interesting. That extension was apparently posted after the last time I checked for extensions. It doesn't scroll down to the same position on the window, and it requires one extra finger, but it otherwise does the trick close enough. Thanks dodecahedron.

cfitz

[Tinle]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread so far. Good work has been done, things are getting better.

The Nero Website appears to have implemented the suggestions contributed in this thread, BUT: The link to the MD5 verifier seems to be broken! (I have not been able to download it).

Does it work for anyone else?


I would suggest that Nero also have links to all comparable secondary downloadable files available by going to the "Downloads" section of the website. At minimum, a note in the Downloads section that a large number of other downloads are located in the support section.

[cfitz]

The link worked the other day when I tried it, so it is probably just a case of the Nero ftp server (ftp6, in this case) being temporarily overloaded again. How ironic, given that the point of making the MD5 Verifier tool available was to allow customers to check for problems caused by Nero's overloaded ftp servers. Try the link again later.

cfitz

[cfitz]

I just downloaded it successfully. Keep trying.

cfitz