Buying UPS - Beware of Belkin F6H650xxxUNV

For those contemplating of buying UPS for your desktop and is looking at a Belkin F6H650xxxUNV, read on.

xxx can be uk or aus and is a UPS of 650VA capacity.

The problem with this UPS is on its software support. It does not have an XP driver that integrates into the XP Power Management.

It comes with a Belkin Power Management Software (ver 3.22ea). Every time I see UPS supplying their own power management software I feel the chill down my spine.

I was in a rush and did not look at the box carefully. I casually asked the salesman (big mistake) if it had XP driver. I might as well asked a teetotaller is beer makes from grapes.

After everything was connected, I discovered Belkin UPS did not have XP driver. It used their own Power Management Software that had the following major flaws:
1) It worked in admin account for a little while.
2) When I run my normal account in LUA, it is a dead duck. It failed to connect to my UPS. Initially it failed to start the services.
3) When I uninstalled it to pack it up to return to the shop, I discovered it left all the rubbish around including the USBMate services.

This is a classic example of hardware manufacturers not investing to develop the proper driver to integrate into the OS. They do not make money on the software - they only get money from the hardware. But if you do not have a piece of software that works with the operating system, the UPS is of little use at all unless you hang around waiting for the power to go off.

This piece of software looks like stitched together with a bunch of free stuff of unknown quality.

It is so obvious that the developers of this heap of rubbish do not know what they are doing and do not know Windows Security Model. It writes evt and data log files into "\Program Files\Belkin\Belkin......" power management software installation direction in clear violation of Windows Security Model that was prescribed in Windows 2000. For God sake, please read some document before you let loose on the keyboard and write this kind of garbbage.

This kind of practice is not unusual for the bottom of the rank kind of UPS - UPS from Powerware, Liebert, etc.

So if you are buying UPS stay clear of Belkin. Even a Powerware one is better than this one.