It's that no one ever, *ever* does this. They took my thirty bucks, sent me a Dropbox link to the Encyclopaedia of Chess Endings II Rooks I (after literally half a day) and it doesn't install, and they *know* it doesn't install. But they keep selling it.
I seriously worshipped the ground that Chess Informant walked on. To be perfectly honest, I still do. Their work is unparalleled. But who does this?
Yes, of course. But the downloadable version has extras, such as that same PDF as a PGN. I don't actually know everything that comes with it, but when I got the Small ECO a few months ago, that particular download came with a ton of extras, such as the Paramount Database sans annotations.
My only recourse is to report them to some kind of authority. But who? Chess Informant is in Belgrade, Serbia, and I'm here in the States. They literally sold me software that won't work, *told me it doesn't work*, then *told me they won't replace it*. And then went silent. That's fraud. Chess Informant literally stole thirty dollars from me. All I have to show for it is the PGN. Which, I know I'm wasting everyone's time with my salty behavior. I skipped dinner last night to buy this.
My only recourse is to report them to some kind of authority. But who? Chess Informant is in Belgrade, Serbia, and I'm here in the States. They literally sold me software that won't work, *told me it doesn't work*, then *told me they won't replace it*. And then went silent. That's fraud. Chess Informant literally stole thirty dollars from me. All I have to show for it is the PGN. Which, I know I'm wasting everyone's time with my salty behavior. I skipped dinner last night to buy this.
I'm assuming you tried to install the software several times like they suggested?
If they won't give you a refund, probably your only recourse is to be the squeaky wheel. You could make a post in the "Chess Books and Equipment" forum. (Threads in the General forum get lost really quickly.) Just state the facts, and be objective. Spreading the word to others about how they shafted you will give you some comfort.
P.S. - Maybe you could try creating a Windows 7 virtual machine in Windows 10? It might install in Win 7.
It’s not clear where you bought this. Where you buying it from Chess Informant?
you can also report it to your credit card company.
are you suggesting he warez the software and violate copyrights?
Yes, I got this directly from the Chess Informant site, not from a 3rd party vendor. Their system is such that the download is not automatic, as it is with ChessBase. You have to wait for someone to put it up on Dropbox and then manually send you the link. They did this with the Small ECO when I bought it from them earlier this year. So it's very much above-board.
The problem seems to be that they can't figure out how to make their install program work with Windows 10 or 11, and instead of finding a way to fix it, they're offloading the problem on to the end user -- even though that amounts to taking something without giving anything in return.
The worst part is that the install file will just put a folder somewhere. There's no actual software to install. The only software *is* the install file. If they just sent me the stupid folder, I could put it in the Documents folder manually, for goodness' sake.
What they're selling is a ChessBase database of sorts. The Small ECO is the same way. You install it and then use it with ChessBase. The only usable part of the SECO on Scid or Arena would be the PGN itself. Keep in mind that that's a screenshot of ChessBase with the PGN open. A more useful screenshot would be one where it shows you the various actual extras, such as this one of a portion of the main menu for the SECO:
To each their own, I suppose. But I was willing to get the digital version. Thankfully, squeaky wheels do sometimes get oiled. They sent me a new copy of the file with a new serial, and this one worked. Here's a screenshot of one of the extras, to carry on with the theme:
The whole classification is in there, which is pretty neat. I'm not sure it's in the books themselves. Just the classification that covers that volume.
In the end they stuck with the idea that sometimes it just doesn't work on Win 10/11. And I have a page I probably should take down. Even worse, I will have need of their stuff one day, won't have the courage to risk the money, and of course they probably would just reject the purchase anyway.
The main thing I will never grok is this: they make a custom link for one person that they already know has made the purchase. After the install is finished, the entire folder should be something you could just copy and share, although I've never tried. So why not just give a download to the folder?
What is the link for the product from the vendor and what does it say the system requirements are?
This is the product page:
https://sahovski.com/Encyclopedia-of-Chess-Endings-II-Rook-Endings-1-***DOWNLOAD-VERSION***-p106520406
The software works. They finally got in touch with me again and sent me a new copy with a new serial, and it went through first try. In other words, sometimes the serial number works and sometimes it doesn't, and they're likely to tell you to just keep trying. My guess is that they were accommodating to me about this because I was being such a noisy jerk, and if I hadn't been, I'd have just had to chalk it up to a loss. To their credit they stayed professional the whole time. But you do *not* put the onus on the user to get a temperamental install program to work. Going through that process was so infuriating and awful that it would be my own fault if I put myself in that position again. But I probably will have to. It's Chess Informant. They sneeze and I want a copy.
I purchased several chess informants from them, but I was successful in installing them on Windows 10 after several attempts.
by the way, is there a software that you use to open those digital versions that is reasonable, and not too expensive?
I don't know why you would need Chess Infomant when you have chessgames.com, the week in chess site, and chess-results. This doesn't even include chess.com, chessbase, chess24, Youtube/Twitch/X, which have posts of current games. And to top it off, people can comment at all these places and have discussion. Once you download Chess Informant, what can you do?
Chess Informant literally stole thirty dollars from me....I skipped dinner last night to buy this.
$30 could get you ~6 dinners if you plan it out right.
No company should be selling software that they know doesn't install. I'm sorry. This is what they just said to me: "The license key is operational. However, if you’re using Win10 OS it may take a few attempts for installation to finalize. Just repeat the process."