FAQ: Help Using Our Software - DonationCoder.com

FAQ Sections:

Become a Supporting Member

There are many benefits to becoming a donating member, including a permanent non-expiring license key for all of our programs, early access to beta releases and new reviews, discounts on popular shareware, and much more.

Still Have Questions?

You know the drill -- the first order of business is to search our site or forum for answers to your questions.

But don't hesitate to contact us directly with questions. We don't have secretaries - you'll get a reply right away from the same people who designed the website and coded the software here. Or post your questions on our public forum for a community response.

Live Chat

If you prefer, you can join our text chat channel on irc and speak to other DC members and administrators 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Quickly create canned responses with The Form Letter Machine
DonationCoder's Form Letter Machine is a handy application for anyone who needs to mail out canned responses frequently. Setting up a response is simple, just create a heading and add radio fields and checkboxes. Subgroups can also be created which allows for very complex combinations.

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FAQ - Help Using Our Software

This page contains some common questions and answers about specific programs on our website.

Are all of the programs on DonationCoder.com free?

All of the software hosted on our website can be used freely for personal use without restriction to time or functionality.

In order to encourage donations we do require that non-donators sign up at our forum and download License Keys that are used to extend the use of the program, but you will never have to pay for the use of our software (for personal use).

We think the best term for our software is Donationware: Software that is free but for which you are strongly encouraged to donate. Because all of our software is free you will sometimes hear it described as freeware as well. Occasionally you may hear it referred to as "Registerware" since registration on our forum is typically required.

The term shareware is almost always used to refer to try-before-you-by fixed price software, and so is not applicable to our programs. We want you to pay exactly what you think the programs are worth to you, and not a penny more.

Please understand that we aren't trying to make your life miserable by requiring you to download a License Key for our software. We are committed to the concept of Donationware and free software, we are just trying to find a way to minimally support our work so that we may continue to devote the time to developing, maintaining, and supporting it that we think our users deserve.

Our experience has been that far too many freeware and open source projects become abandoned because the authors cannot afford to spend the time maintaining them or answering support questions. One of the founding principles of DonationCoder.com is that we are going to ask you to contribute financially to us, and in return we pledge to you that we will be here for you when you need support, and that we will continue to maintain our software so that you never have to worry about it being abandoned.

How do I get a license key? Where do I put my License Key?

Error when running installer: 'Not a Valid Win32 Application' - What does it mean?

This confusing error message is sometimes seen when you try to run a setup program downloaded from our website.

It happens only when the setup program is downloaded with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, when the internet browser has not fully downloaded the Setup program. Trying to run the partially downloaded file results in that error.

Solution:

Try to redownload the file again.

If that still fails, it means your Internet Explorer "cache" is confused and keeps giving you the old partially downloaded file.

The second best solution is to try another internet browser such as Chrome, FireFox or Opera.

For more discussion and help see this forum topic.

What if my antivirus reports malware in one of your programs?

Don't panic!

These false alarms from antivirus programs can be very scary for users, and frustrating for us. I assure you, there are no viruses in donationcoder.com software, and we take this issue very seriously.

The false positive virus alerts are usually traced to certain antivirus programs that are super paranoid about "autohotkey", the language that these programs are written in (probably because when autohotkey creates an exe it looks to an antivirus program like two programs packaged in one).

It's incredibly frustrating when the antivirus tells people it has found viruses. If you search the internet for the alarm it gives you and "autohotkey" you will probably find a bunch of people cursing out the antivirus and having the same problem.

Our advice:

Always treat a warning from an antivirus program with seriousness, and never ignore it. If you are not convinced it's a false alarm, feel free to post your observance on our forum or another, and search the web for others getting the same warning, to see what the experts say.

You might want to find option in your antivirus to not do "heuristic" or other "guessing" which might be causing it to false alarm a lot.

We apologize for any scare you might have -- try to see how painful this is from our perspective when a virus scanning program goes around telling people it has found viruses in our software.

These kinds of false alarms do happen though, to even the most reputable companies. You should always use an antivirus program and always pay attention when it says it finds something -- but never assume that just because it says it found something that it really did. Always take it with a grain of salt and investigate the issue yourself.

When in doubt:

When in doubt -- ask the experts. Visit our forum and see if others have already reported the same problem you are experiencing or if they have any advice. We take such antivirus reports very seriously and you are likely to get a response and further testing by other users almost immediately.

What do I do if I find a bug in one of your programs?

A bug in one of our programs? Impossible!

Oh, all right.. I suppose it is possible.. If you insist..

One of the reasons we feel so strongly about asking for donations is so that we can afford to spend the time supporting the continued development and maintenance of our programs. If you find a bug, we want to know about it, and we want to fix it.

To report a bug:

Click this link to submit a bug report online; tell us the program of ours that you are using, along with a description of the bug.

OR, visit our forum and find the section associated with the program you are using and post your bug report there.

Don't be shy about reporting bugs or feature requests, we actually love getting such reports - it helps us improve our software!

Is there a complete list of all DonationCoder.com software? Is there a support forum?

Sort of.

Because of the way DonationCoder works, it's somewhat difficult to list every singe piece of software in one place.

A good place to start is our main software hub page, which has links to all of the different software areas on our site (as well as our official software): Our Software.

We also have one of the most active software discussion forums on the internet, where discussions cover both our own software and also a wide-ranging discussion of the best freeware, shareware, and commercial software on the internet. If you're looking for something and you can't find it, post a question on our forum and you're sure to get a helpful and prompt reply.