Biblesoft review: biblesoft and windows 10 7

I too have been a customer/user of Biblesoft PC Study Bible since v2 in the 1990's. I am currently still running v5 on a Windows 7 PC.

Being an IT person, I independently discovered the method (that John Norene mentions above) several years ago via "hunches" and trial and error. I managed to get version 5f with all my libraries and reference works intact, running on Windows 7. I have been running it this way since at least 2013.

When run this way, the PC Study Bible application is slow to load and does have occasional crash/hang issues. Sometimes after the program is closed, the screen is not refreshed so it looks as if the program is still open when it is not (right clicking the desktop and choosing refresh usually fixes that issue).

I was thinking of upgrading to the One Touch version and installing it onto one of my Windows 10 computers. But now, after reading this forum thread and perusing the Biblesoft website, I am not so sure if I will do that at all.

They have a "free" version called One Touch Light you can download. It doesn't include and isn't compatible with any previous libraries and references you've purchased. I didn't really care about that. I just wanted to test drive the One touch product on Windows 10 before investing in the full version (which includes libraries, reference works, etc). So I downloaded it and installed it on a Windows 10 PC.

After installing, a dialog pops up and you have to check the box that says "I agree to the terms and conditions" and then enter an email and click register. Clicking "cancel will just close the program. After clicking register, another dialog window pops up that says "An email with a registration code has been sent to you. When you receive the email, enter the code from that email in the box below and press the Register button." The "Register" button is greyed out until you enter a code. Clicking cancel will exit the program and you will have to go through the process again.

So the free "Light" version forces you to register it before you can use it. If you don't register, the program just closes. So I put in a valid email and clicked "register". It said I would be receiving a registration code via email. I waited and waited and waited, checked my junk folder, waited some more... nothing. So I can't even test drive the Light version of the product.

I emailed support (today is Sunday so I don't expect an immediate reply, business hours are M-F 8:00a-4:30p). We will see what happens. If it is that difficult to simply register the free version, I will just use biblehub and biblegateway which are free sites online. It's unfortunate, because PC Study Bible has been a great feature rich product.

At the time of this writing, 3/13/2022, the cheapest full version package of One Touch is the "Discovery" package which is around $112 USD according to the Biblesoft site. $112 doesn't seem unreasonable to me. However, I guess one could go nuts with extra reference works and library add-ons and that price could quickly skyrocket. It's too bad because back in their heyday, they offered full site licenses and updates for churches, etc. Even as a home user, I was able to purchase a full site license back in the day, to cover all my family member's computers.

One other concern I have, I always run as a Standard/Limited User for added security against malware, etc. It is a best practice, especially on Windows. It limits the damage/system changes that can be done. It's a bad idea to use an Administrator account as your main or daily account. It's also a bad idea from a security standpoint, to always run programs as an Administrator.

I don't like the idea of having to run this software as an administrator. I have systems where I don't want the kids making changes. They could bypass any Standard User restrictions I have set up by clicking "Save as" in the Biblesoft program which would be running as an administrator. The file dialog (basically Windows File Explorer) would open with administrator rights. They could then navigate to any program they want such as a web browser, command prompt, etc, and run it as an administrator by right-clicking on the exe for the program and choosing run. They wouldn't need to "Run as administrator" because the Biblesoft program is already running with administrator rights (this goes for ANY program that is running as an administrator and is not just Biblesoft, this is how Windows permissions/User Rights levels work. It would work similarly on Apple or Linux where they call the top level account "root". A process launched by an Administrator or root can always launch another process as Administrator or root).

Most modern, well written, software applications (with the exceptions of system utilities and things that absolutely *need* to make changes to the system or wouldn't work otherwise) can be initially installed as an administrator and then run as a Standard User without any problems.

This is not the Windows 95/98/XP days. Due to all the malware and virus issues with Windows XP, Microsoft finally recommended password protecting your administrator account and creating a Standard User account to run as your main account (it used to be called a "Limited User" in Windows XP) for daily tasks. Enterprise users can be locked down by IT using Group Policies. Home users should just use a Standard User account and use the Administrator account sparingly (like to make changes to the system, install software, perform maintenance and backups, etc).

I could be wrong, and forgive me if I am... but looking at some of the files in the installation directories, my hunch is that Biblesoft has just carried forward with a series of patchwork over the years. Only doing the minimum work necessary to make their software run on newer versions of Windows and never fully taking the time to overhaul the whole product to fully modernize it and make it work in a more modern, secure way. While the content is excellent, it kinda feels like the underlying architecture is antiquated technology. It's hard to know if their dev team is just one guy who wrote it all and the code got passed down to a small team of others who just maintain it (in which case I can't really blame them, lots of niche small independent software developers/publishers operate this way, and development and support is very time consuming). On the other hand, they could have 50 developers (I doubt it though), in which case, they could and should overhaul the whole thing from scratch, which would be better in the long run for both them AND their customers. I have a feeling though that it's just one person or few people doing the development.

In fact, you'd be surprised to find out that in the industry, that when small software companies get bought up by bigger companies, more often than not they just extend and build upon the antiquated code and keep playing patchwork so they can move it along and still sell it. Sometimes, they just wanted the customer base, so they kill the product or merge it with their product and rebrand it versus completely overhauling the whole thing. It is very common in the medical industry or any industry where the specialized software has some proprietary database component to it.

This is true for almost all software. Think Microsoft Office. Every new version that came out was around $400 for the full Pro version. The upgrade version was still a few hundred bucks. Adobe's Creative Suite product line was similar if not more expensive in it's pricing. Then vendors came out with their SaaS (software as a service) model (Office 365, Adobe online, etc.). As long as you want to use it, you basically have to rent it forever, whether by the month or the year. They are constantly updating it on the back end.

Well thought out, well written, stand alone software can last a long time. But technology changes rapidly and thus, something that works today cannot be guaranteed to work or be supported indefinitely, or even 5, 10, 15 yrs from now. Often, Microsoft makes a change or update to Windows which is forced upon the world. That often "breaks" some of the 3rd party software applications running on it. That causes the software vendor to have to change or update their software to make it accommodate the change that broke their software.

Biblesoft is no different. I have a hunch that their development and support teams are very small. They are not a huge Goliath software company like MS, Google, Apple, Adobe, etc. Should they work for free for several years while making a new low cost version?

Yes, a reputable company would provide updates/upgrades at a reasonable price. It comes down to their operating costs/expenses vs their sales volume. Being such a niche software, I highly doubt Biblesoft has anywhere near the customer base that Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, Google, etc has. Software development is complicated, not easy, and very time consuming. And then theirs all the cost of addressing all the support tickets raised by customers. The business wants to keep it's doors open, and the developers and support teams need to eat!

When companies like Microsoft, Google, etc offer things for free, the reason is that YOU are the product. They use you to collect data about your usage of the product so they can sell advertising to other companies that target you based on your usage habits. They track a lot of what you do (if you haven't taken the time consuming measures to disable all the tracking that can be disabled). If you use Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc you have given up many privacy rights.

Other free software is often based on donations or a pay for support model. I don't know if you've ever tried your hand at programming. I have dabbled in it. It is very time consuming. You'd want to be paid for the work that you do, wouldn't you? Even pastors get paid a salary out of donations, collections, tithes to their church. They need to eat and support their families too!

I understand your complaint. Software in general is a weird animal. Often times it's the OS platform that causes software vendors to have to put more work into their product for compatibility. I don't think software companies should price gouge their customers. But I don't think they should be expected to work for free forever either.