I have just released version 11.2.8.0 of the DriversCloud application
Changelog
*switching the project to Visual Studio 2022 for the application and integration on Azure Devops
*Passage of the whole application to multithreaded COM+
*In some cases the restore points were not created during the automatic installation or by the shortcut on MyPilots to launch a restore point.
*Added to this problem since Windows 8, Microsoft limits the restore points on a 24 hours range by default. This behavior is changeable by a registry key. DriversCloud now changes this system setting. The problem is now solved.
NB: I am preparing a file which will explain how to recover drivers saved by DriversCloud offline from a USB key.
I also wanted to use this news to make a personal point. I found a full time job as a DotNet developer since about a month. It's no secret that the driver market is at half-mast and will soon be doomed in the short or medium term. I couldn't live anymore on this site that offered me a job for more than 20 years. I didn't want to extort money from my users either.
I have been working like a slave on this site for more than three years without sufficient financial return. The fact that I have found a job takes a big thorn out of my side because I won't have to close it down anymore. It's kind of my baby and it would affect me greatly to have to go to that extreme.
When I started the development of the new version of DriversCloud I knew that it would not be enough but it was necessary for the future. The drivers market is complex and depends on external factors that I can't control. I'll come back to this in more detail in a later issue.
The other big problem is the business model of DriversCloud based only around advertising. It is still necessary to pay the servers. However, as the advertising market has collapsed in the last few years, many sites have already closed down because of this.
I was also saddened by some remarks about the new design of DriversCloud. The site is free and as I said I worked for weeks and months on it. Some people took the liberty to insult me by mail or twitter while they don't pay anything to access this service and they probably block the ads. To afford a professional design you need to put 4000 euros minimum and I clearly didn't have this money. Moreover the site has been rewritten cleanly from scratch. Everything has changed technically. The performances have nothing to do with the old site and have been greatly improved. Many bugs have been fixed due to the rewrite. And above all the site is now usable on mobile. I do not count the new features around the driver backup. I can imagine that the design is not to everyone's liking but it does the job well. Above all, the new site guides the user much more and provides more information. With the old site, people came from Google and didn't necessarily see the purpose of the site.
That said, traffic is up again with the redesign of the new site. I will be able to continue what I wanted to do. I would like to diversify DriversCloud on new services. To continue to rely on drivers would be a big mistake. I have two big services currently in development that will eventually be released soon.
Despite this bad news, there is still hope, and I wanted to thank my loyal community, some of whom have been here since almost the beginning :)
