• Just Another Blue Screen Monday Morning (9/13/2010): A report of my initial encounter with Soluto, where my Monday started off with a blue screen, and I quickly ran into other problems on other machines as well.
• More on Soluto Windows Boot Optimizer (9/16/2010): A more thorough report that includes results from 7 machines, of which three succeed and four failed.

Now that two weeks have elapsed since my initial encounter with Soluto, I really have to take my hat off to these guys (and thereby expose my gleaming “chrome dome”). If you look at the 9/16 blog above you’ll in the Table therein that my production machine, my wife’s PC, my new HP notebook, and my primary test machine all failed to get Soluto to install or run correctly. Today, I’m both stunned and pleased to report that the software is now working on all seven of the PCs I included in the 9/16 blog. Here’s an updated version of the table that appeared in that blog (linked in the preceding paragraph, if you want to see the original):

Not all of the PCs in my equipment pool benefited hugely from the Soluto software, but I’m hopeful that as the company gets further along with its application database (known as the “PC Genome”) recommendations on as-yet-undocumented items will help me understand better what might also be delayed (until boot-up completes) or paused (not run at all) to shave boot times even further.

But that’s not why I’m blown away by the improvements in Soluto’s behavior on my various PCs. I received four personal emails from various Soluto staff members informing me as each of the bug/problem reports I had filed with them were addressed, and in each case when they said “the software should be working now for machine X” in fact it was working for machine X the next time I tried it. They even offered to do a remote control session on my BSOD machines to help me address any issues that might have popped up. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to take up those offers, but I’m totally jazzed that they jumped on the problems I reported and have apparently fixed all of them. You don’t see customer service like this very often these days, and as a beta user I’m not sure I’m a “real customer” anyway.

I think it’s OK to start checking out Soluto in your test labs, and I withdraw most of the caveats I’ve stated about the software in earlier blog posts. I must still add this admonition because it’s completely common-sensical: “Remember, this is beta software. Use it at your own risk, and only on non-production/test PCs” (if, like me, you do use it on a production machine, be sure to make an image back-up prior to its installation, and to make regular backups daily thereafter, so you can restore your machine to an operational, pre-Soluto state, with all post-Soluto data files at your disposal).

Great job, Soluto!