Guard ID SYSTEMS ID Vault ID Vault - Bonus Pack ( GID0002 )

List Price: $79.99 Discount Price: $14.99

Features:

• ID Vault is incredibly easy to use. ID Vault plugs into any PC USB port. A single PIN controls access to the sign-in credentials safely stored in ID Vault’s secure smart card chip – no need to remember all those usernames and passwords!.
• ID Vault is the only security product available directly to consumers that uses smart card technology. Federal banking regulators recommend smart card technology for two-factor security tokens.

Accessories:

3-Year Extended Service Plan - Covers Electronic Items $0-$200 - Repair

Customer Reviews:

Want to waste money and time? This is the product for you! [Posted on 2006-10-14]
I purchased this on a whim at CompUSA which was going out of business so the price was much less than full retail listed elsewhere, which is good because that meant I wasted much less money.
As I do extensive online banking and other financial transactions the idea seemed like a good one. I also liked the idea of being able to take it with me on vacation, plug into say a relative's pc and perform transactions without having to worry about all the ids (prior I used a password manager and thus was limited to home pc).

Anyhow I just gave up after working on this for 2 days (I am a systems programmer by occupation and no newbie to computers / software).

PROS: It does protect access to your websites.

CONS: You cannot even get into yours.

Works as advertised...great little security device. [Posted on 2007-05-03]
I love this ID Vault. I do everything online...bank, shop, email, etc. and I'm always afrais someone will steal my passwords with those spy programs. And then I always forget my passwords for sites I don't go to that often. ID Vault solves all this for me. It logs me in securely, and I don't type my passwords so no one can steal them. And since my passwords are stored in the ID Vault thingy, I don't have to write them down on little scraps of paper then forget them. I really think this product is a great idea.

I read the review from the guy who is a programmer and couldn't get it to work. maybe that's the problem. I'm a landscaper, and I had no trouble figuring it out. It seems the product is for normal people, not programmers! ;-)

It won't work for me either! [Posted on 2007-12-27]
I can't get it to work either. I spent several days working with tech support but it just won't let me sign in to any site.

Software Nightmare [Posted on 2008-01-07]
I am a computer professional. I thought I'd put that out there in case there is any doubt of my ability to follow instructions and install software and drivers for a USB device. It's really quite simple. 1. Install the ID Vault software (from the CD-ROM), 2. Check for updates, and 3. Insert the ID Vault.

The trouble is that on 4 out of 5 machines (2 of my own, 1 work laptop and 2 other computers I have access to at my job), what happens after insertion is that you get the 'Found New Hardware Wizard'. I assume this isn't supposed to happen (considering their use of the phrase "may appear") but is covered in the ID Vault FAQ. It simply states:

1. In the next window, choose "Install the software automatically [Recommended]" and click on "Next."
2. When the Wizard has finished installing the software, you will see the "Completing the Found New Hardware Wizard" screen. Click on "Finish" to complete the process. You can now continue activating your ID Vault by following the ID Vault Activation Wizard.


Well, the Wizard *never* "finishes installing the software". It tells me just what I expect it to: "the wizard cannot find the necessary software". There are no drivers in 'Windows\System', 'Windows\System32', 'Program Files\GuardID Systems' or on the CD-ROM to point the Wizard to. I even went so far as to extract the driver files manually via command line using 'IDVaultDriverInstall.EXE /C /T:C:\temp', so that I could run the embedded 'DPInst.exe' driver installer directly. No joy.

No problem, right? Sometimes strange devices kick off the 'Found New Hardware Wizard' wizard and we just need to hold our noses and ignore it letting the software do its thing in its own quirky way once the Wizard is satisfied.

I mentioned that the Wizard ran on "4 out of 5 machines". Actually, I think it was 5 out of 5. Since ID Vault worked correctly on the 1st machine I tried it on, I am not entirely sure, but I'm 90% sure the Wizard ran there too; it just happened to work afterwards.

But on the other 4 PCs, no such luck. After multiple reboots, software updates, uninstall/reinstalls, uninstallation/reinstallation of '.NET Framework 3.0', installation of '.NET Framework 3.5', installation/reinstallation of same using both the ID Vault install disc and the 'dotnetfxsetup.exe' separately, trying both the downloaded ID Vault software and the original disc, etc. etc., nothing could get ID Vault to recognize the presence of the device. To make sure the device itself wasn't defective, I would repeatedly plug it into the original PC to see if it worked. Each time, it worked just fine.

Of course, the whole point of ID Vault is to give one peace of mind when conducting sensitive financial transaction on "other" computers. If you cannot get it to work on these other computers, the whole point of a Smart Card becomes moot. My experiences suggest that, even if you found a computer in the outside world that would grant you the necessary privileges to install software at all, and even if you are audacious enough to install buggy software on a friend's or family member's machine, your odds are pretty lousy that it will even work.

As for the bugs, I could have lived with them. The worst of these bugs involved Firefox (... so far; there's more to this which I will get to). On the one computer that could "see" ID Vault, I noticed that most of my Firefox bookmarks had disappeared. Thinking this was a fluke, I took advantage of Firefox's regular automatic bookmark backups and reinstated a previous one. This has happened 4 or 5 times since then.

Other bugs included, site errors that could be cured by combinations of a restart of the browser, loading the same site into IE, then switching to Firefox, removing and recreating site entries, etc. One particular site worked fine until I tried to change the password (which you must do manually via the website as ID Vault cannot actually change passwords for you). After that, I would get "there was a problem with your sign-on credentials" even though I had changed the password in ID Vault to match the password I'd just changed at the site. You could even see in the "preview" (where ID Vault does a "test login" in a small window) that the new password was working; just that ID Vault didn't know it. Of course, ID Vault will not allow you to finish creating the entry if it doesn't think it's working.

An appeal to support regarding this got a generic and unhelpful response (check the site, username, password, latest version, step by step instructions, etc.) several days later. When I replied and explained (again) that there was nothing wrong with my login credentials, I received no further response. In frustration, I submitted another problem report explaining that I was trying to change passwords on all my accounts to prep the device for return, and had been prompted to submit a report. I received another generic response and it was clear that my descriptions were not even being read through completely.

This all occurred before I realized that the software wasn't going to run on very many XP machines (all running SP2 with the latest patches). The worst of my nightmare occurred on the Monday (today) I returned to work to use the laptop I'd tried to install it on the week before. The ID Vault had been returned to the store over the weekend, so I naturally would like to remove the software from my laptop.

Attempts to remove the software (via 'Add/Remove Programs') result in "ID Vault has encountered a problem and needs to close". Any attempts to run the application result in same. I tried to 'repair' the application and to reinstall the application but I can neither run it, repair it, nor remove it.

Well, guess what? Firefox "has encountered a problem and needs to close". Similarly, repairs, running in 'safe-mode', reinstalling and removing have not fixed Firefox. Now I'm really upset.

My nightmare wasn't over. Save yourself the trouble and the yearly subscription costs (which, BTW, is difficult to ascertain from the box and documentation).

UPDATE: For the sake of fairness and disclosure, I *was* finally able to clean up my system and restore Firefox to functionality but I'd, nevertheless, just as soon have that hour or more of my life back as well as the hours upon hours and days I have wasted on this product.

ONLY FOR WINDOWS XP [Posted on 2008-07-21]
If you have Vista you need the newer version of this product available at the official site or in stores that is VISTA compatible. I need to return mine to Amazon untried.

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