Anonymous letter … download problems?!

Today I got a complaint email, so I thought no problem, answer it friendly and things will somehow be solved. The email contained the following text:

I was told to go to Source Forge to download the WinDirStat program. Fortunately I found this website by myself via Google because when I went to SourceForge.net I was never able to find the program even after I paid my son (who is 32 years old) to find it. After about 3 hours he gave up also. But he did find some interesting programs and games NONE OF WHICH we were able to download or purchase.
In conclusion, your source forge website is to darn difficult to find anything on. And when you go to download, he takes you to multiple screens — but none do the download. I wanted to emial you at Source Forge, but can’t complain there either. Does anything work at that website. You could not pay me to go back.

Sadly after spending 15 minutes to write a polite reply I sent it and it bounced immediately. So if that person ever visits our page again, here is my reply:

I was told to go to Source Forge to download the WinDirStat program. Fortunately I found this website by myself via Google because when I went to SourceForge.net I was never able to find the program even after I paid my son (who is 32 years old) to find it. After about 3 hours he gave up also.
I am sorry about any difficulties but we never had this problem before, or at least no feedback that users were not able to download the program successfully.

But he did find some interesting programs and games NONE OF WHICH we were able to download or purchase.
Sourceforge (SF) is primarily a platform for open source developers, so we are actually working for free for you to use our programs – nope we don’t get money, the only reward is gratitude or ingratitude.

Besides, you complain to the wrong person because SF is a community site driven by some company and I am a user of this site as are you … Most of the programs are free anyway, so you could only download them, not purchase …

What went wrong with the download? If you follow the link from our website http://windirstat.info/wds_current_setup.exe you will be led to a page that allows you to choose one of multiple mirror servers. Choose the one located closest to you, because it will yield highest download rates, and then the download will start automatically in most cases. The choice of the mirror server has to be done usually once only. Next time the site will use the information from a cookie stored on your system to choose the same mirror server which means that you don’t have to do it manually every time.

If that does not work for some strange reason, use the following direct download link for WinDirStat:

http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/windirstat/windirstat1_1_2_setup.exe
(make sure this link is on one long line!)

Best regards,

Oliver Schneider

PS: Rules on SF.net force us to link to the page with the mirror servers instead of pointing directly to the file on one of them.

Not only was I flabbergasted about the email being bounced, but also that a parent has to pay his/her son to get help … 🙁
But that’s not my business.

// Oliver

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