What to Do With Old Software?

Office 97, Photoshop Elements 1.0, and Maniac Mansion Day of the Tentacle (it’s selling on EBay for $225)-what are you doing with that software now? The old software CD’s, manuals, and boxes are now clutter stored in the basement, closet, garage or the attic. Each year, millions of PCs reach the end of their useful lives and are retired or removed from service. Not only does this present a challenge to dispose of the hardware in an environmentally safe manner, but it also brings up issues regarding the software residing on those PCs. Unlike hardware, software is not wholly-owned by the user. When purchased, a product's software license only gives the user the right to use the software, but it does not transfer ownership rights to the user. Thus, the rules of use are mandated by the vendor. That End User License Agreement (EULA) you scroll past during installation told you that, remember?

Sell it?

The Garage Sales and EBay are great sources for old software products. Resell for re-use here is common. Old software runs well on old PCs, so there is a ready market of buyers to help bring some of the cash you spent on these products back to you. But be careful because anything that you bought as an upgrade license usually requires you to give up your previous product license to use the upgrade product, and may require you to destroy the product as a condition of its use. For that reason, some upgrade products require you to send the User Manual cover page as a condition for the upgrade rebate. Doing anything else with that product after the upgrade could get you in trouble.

Donation?

The World Computer Exchange supports delivering IT to under-developed countries and is authorized by the IRS to give you a tax deduction for the donation if the software is “educational, non-violent, and appropriate”. Plus you help save the Planet. Pretty Cool!

Reuse?

At work, we recently had a give-away that consisted of few boxes of commercial software-and some nice software products got reused. The reuse of work-related software at home may get you in trouble, so make sure that use is approved before accepting it. For your personal software, you may have friends and relatives that could benefit from your software games and applications.

Disposal?

When disposing of old or unused versions of commercial software, it is essential to adhere to the policies outlined in the EULA. Failure to comply and reusing the software illegally can result in a best-case scenario of getting a "slap on the wrist" and a worst-case scenario of being fined and facing criminal prosecution. If you are a commercial enterprise, a Gartner Report published in 2003 provides guidance that Integrity Software, an Austin, TX company, has used to provide software tracking software called SofTrack to manage this problem. The Gartner Report recommendation of what to do is stated below:

For old software that is no longer used or licensed, follow these guidelines to dispose of unused commercial software:

• Destroy the information on the original disks or CDs. This can be done by physically destroying the media or by bulk formatting/erasing and then recycling the media. This process is necessary to avoid having the old software removed from the garbage and used by an unlicensed party, thereby exposing the enterprise to copyright infringement.
• Destroy the manuals.
• Keep an inventory of serial numbers, dates of purchase, dates of destruction, and means of destruction. This will provide a complete audit trail in the event of a software audit.

Recommendations

When reusing, donating, selling, or destroying software licenses, enterprises need to:

• Recognize that all software vendors and licenses are different and have different requirements regarding the transfer of software and usage rights. Have these rights reviewed by legal counsel and develop a process to track compliance.
• Develop license contracts that use easily understood language and examples that will assist in articulating the intent of both parties.
• Document all transactions for software dispositions per the licensing requirements to protect the enterprise in the event of a software license audit.

Advice

Regardless of its origin, when reusing, donating, or disposing of old or unused software, review the EULA for any reuse limitations or potential liability.

Back-up that Computer, now!

You've heard this before. But you never have time. Or do you? I was recently visiting with a friend of mine that was in need of some technical assistance with her computer. We had some discussions about how to back-up computers that are hassle-free. This one thing may be the most overlooked item on anyone's list of PC maintenance chores.

Why Back up?
The Second Law of Thermodynamics implies that everything will eventually end in chaos. It's just a matter of time. I recently purchased an Anti-spyware program that resulted in not one, but two of my home computers being wrecked on the same day. I'll save the details that caused the problem for some future blog on software engineering practices, but for now I'll discuss the cure.

So what? You still have the original disks. How much time would it take you to reinstall all the programs, configure them for your system's hardware, and create all the files you had on the drive? Those digital photos of the cousin's new baby, a precious e-mail from a late relative, or scores of digital music files may be permanently lost!

The problem is we have gigabyte-sized hard drives in our computers that need frequent back-up, but any strategy to back them up on the local host PC drives is like betting you know the next thing that will go wrong - and it will be something other than that hardware link that joins them. You can never be sure enough to bet on that. I'll talk about remote back-up storage options.

Back-up Media and Equipment
PC Magazine has some very good advice here. In stability of media, a DVD R or DVD RW disc is the winner since you know it's not likely to malfunction. Burning them is fast and easy with a good drive, and recovery is just as easy since most software comes with some disaster recovery option that runs from the disk. Cost versus size is always the other option discussion. But hands down-from a dollar per gigabyte storage cost-it's hard to beat an external drive with a hi-speed USB or fire wire connection that uses a reliable software back-up program. Most can be either purchased as a package or easily assembled using a spare hard drive (recommeded at least 100 Gigabytes) and an external enclosure with back-up software purchased or downloaded as freeware/shareware. You can setup to run the backup on a schedule and unattended-meaning it's hassle free.

But the "air-gap" between your back-up media and the host PC should be intentionally maintained-otherwise the problem on you host PC could migrate to your back-up device/media undetected. The backup system would then be unavailable at the moment you need to recover. Back it up and after you do it, keep it up to date (recommend running a scheduled back-up at least every three months). You should always back-up before a system upgrade, and at some interval afterward you'll need to exercise that back-up again so the upgrade will be included in the back up set.

Types of Back-ups.
There are full system back-ups for catastrophic failure recovery. These hard drive images are great when restored-but it takes you back to the moment when you made the back-up. These may be copied to a hard-drive or even better to a DVD RW disc-since it's not altered very often, and very important to keep intact. Those System Restore Disks that you may had packaged with a new PC are full back-ups.

There are incremental back-ups for catch up of a full-back up to date. They copy files changed since your last backup-so the backup software needs to monitor your files-usually by looking for the absence in marking of the file's attribute as archived. Great because they reduce the back-up time and space you need to restore the files. External drive or a network option may be best here.

There are differential back-ups that are options for some advanced back-up software that get you caught up without having to go through a series of full and incremental back-ups. Like a one-step program with your full back up to get you running and up to date. Size would dictate whether it goes to a DVD RW or an external/network drive. It is very important to keep intact.

Lastly, the situational back-up is if you create a file that's important enough to save to a second location, you should have a secure place to put it. Flash USB drives and external network locations are excellent choices since they are always at hand. Also the Norton GoBack software works well to recover files that "just disappear" or reverse system changes that would otherwise be difficult to diagnose or repair. These options do not offer whole system recovery as a reliable option. For those who think I may have omitted it, I have yet to see the Windows XP System Restore recover my system.

My experience with software images made with Norton Ghost or Simple Backup have been successful in recovery of my crashed PCs in the past. I used the Dantz Retrospect Express software recently and it was quick and reliable. Also an excellent option is the Backup My PC software bundled with the Easy Media Creator that I just got for a gift-I'll let you know how it goes after my systems are recovered and their next back-up is completed.

You're only as safe as your last back-up. Don't put it off.