Last year, Cydrix decided it was no longer in a position to support and upgrade RoboForm Companion. They removed their annual subscription fee and made the program free to anyone who wished to use it.

Yesterday, their website went offline and the software suffered a fatal error. Today, “watchman” posted the following on Cool Canucks as one solution to the problem:

For those of us that use this program to automate our entries, we have known for some time that the company has stopped supporting the software and is not creating any new versions.

Today you will notice that when it starts the Cydrix.com web site is gone and has been replaced with a generic splash screen that indicates to me that the URL ownership has lapsed.

If you depend on this software to enter your hundreds if not thousands of contests, you should start to get nervous until a suitable replacement is found.

I had a problem with the software yesterday and have just finished spending considerable time rebuilding my system (uninstalling and re-installing software and OS). I am happy to say that it is now working thank goodness.

But the experience has taught me some valuable lessons that I feel that I need to share. So this is for all users of RoboForm Companion.

1. Quickly go to Download.com and download and save a copy of the RoboForm Companion Setup.exe and save it or burn it to somewhere safe. Since the Cydrix.com site is gone, you can’t get it there anymore. You will need this should you ever have to re-install the software as I have.

2. Turn off automatic updates in Windows Update. Yes I know that this will also prevent security updates, but hear me out. You want to be in a position to know that you are going to install an update and take a snapshot of your system prior to doing so. This way if the update causes Companion to fail, you at least have a fighting chance of restoring your system to the prior version and hopefully Companion will work again. You may have to re-install it from your download from part 1.

Ask yourself how important is contesting to you and what is the value of prizes that you have won and potentially will win. Is RoboForm and RoboForm Companion a big part of that equation? If you answered yes, then the following is for you.

I strongly recommend that if you have a current system that is running your software well; lock it down and back it up. Do not use the system for anything else and do not let anyone else use it. Make it your contesting system and don’t upgrade or install anything else on it.

With the prices of computer systems or laptops today, get yourself another system for everything else other than contesting. Think of it as an investment in future contesting wins.

This episode scared me when it appeared that I might not ever be able to use RoboForm Companion again. Just imagine that you no longer could automatically enter all the contests that you have in there, what would you do?

Good luck and let’s hope for a RoboForm Companion replacement soon.

His advice is a good short term solution as there are currently no other auto-entry software on the market.

I have been working with programmers on a longer term solution. I hope to launch a new, supported, auto-entry software package on the market in the next few weeks. I will keep you posted on our progress.

In the meantime, you can enter manually using RoboForm to speed up the process.

GOOD LUCK & HAVE FUN!