{rw_text}Giveaway of the day for May 18 2009 is:

AllMedia Grabber 4.0

Version reviewed:

v4.0 Standard Version

Software description as per GOTD:

Extract Thousands Pictures, Videos, Music, Sounds hidden inside programs / files on your computer with AllMedia Grabber. AllMedia Grabber searches in files (executables, libraries, custom controls, data files e.t.c.) and extracts multimedia files.

Features:

• Extract files stored in EXECUTABLES, LIBRARIES, CUSTOM CONTROLS, MICROSOFT OFFICE FILES, DATABASES, RAW or BINARY FILES (like exe, dll, ocx, doc, ppt, xls, pdf, mdb, raw, bin, hex…)
• Select File(s), Folders, Drives to scan.
• Integration into Windows shell (Quick extraction from CONTEXT MENU).
• Can convert all graphics formats to BMP, ICO.
• Browse all extracted graphic files in thumbnail mode.
• View graphic files with program viewer.
• Delete, rename, delete all extracted files, copy to clipboard, set as wallpaper.
• Language support (currently AllMedia Grabber has been translated to: English, Deutsch, French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Portugues Br, Greek).

Ashraf’s note:

The giveaway for November 4, 2009 is AllMedia Grabber v4.2 not v4.0. I accidentally linked to this review instead of the review on v4.2 from GOTD. You can read the review on v4.2 at http://dottech.org/gotdreviews/11666. Sorry for any inconvenience.

————————-{/rw_text} –>

{rw_good}

• Integrates with Windows right click context menu.
• Can search files and folders
• Works well finding images in documents (i.e. .PPT, .PDF, .DOC, etc.).
• Built in image viewer.

{/rw_good} –>

{rw_bad}

• Does not work very well with everything else.
• Ugly interface.
• Windows right-click context menu entry is for every file.
• Takes a second or two to load.
• By default when opened the program is at my D:/ drive instead of my Windows partition.
• You need to turn off “check for updates automatically” or you may go insane.
• It made my computer crash (blue screen) and killed my internet.
• The same file may be saved more than once.

{/rw_bad} –>

{rw_score}
{for=”Features as Described” value=”10″}All features are there.
{/for}
{for=”Ease of Use” value=”7″}Ugly interface and a little bit confusing on how to use.
{/for}
{for=”Performance” value=”5″}Works with some files but not others.
{/for}
{for=”Usefulness” value=”4″}Useful for those people who use the types of files this works with.
{/for}
{for=”Arbitrary Equalizer” value=”5″}This category reflects an arbitrary number that does not specifically stand for anything. Rather this number is used to reflect my overall rating/verdict of the program in which I considered all the features and free alternatives.
{/for}
{/rw_score} –>

{rw_verdict}[tdown]
{/rw_verdict} –>

Registration and installation went fine. You have to manually enter the registration information. After installation you will be prompted to upgrade to v4.1. Don’t do it – your GOTD key will not be accepted. Also, after installation Vista users should right click on AllMedia Grabber, go to “Properties” -> “Compatibility” and check “Run this program as Administrator”. Also after installation, run AllMedia Grabber and go to “Options” -> “Settings” -> “General” and uncheck “Automatically check for updates”.

AllMedia Grabber is a program that allows you to find and extract

From “EXECUTABLES, LIBRARIES, CUSTOM CONTROLS, MICROSOFT OFFICE FILES, DATABASES, RAW or BINARY FILES (like exe, dll, ocx, doc, ppt, xls, pdf, mdb, raw, bin, hex…)”. Of course the developer cleverly did not specify all the files AllMedia Grabber can extract from but in my testing it seems like AllMedia Grabber can “scan” just about any type of file: if you right click on any file, a context menu entry will say “AllMedia Grabber (extract)”. Select that and AllMedia Grabber will scan the file and see what it can find. This happens for files where you would not expect images, icons, video or music files to be in like .TXT and .HTML files. However it is worth noting on the “filter”, AllMedia Grabber only shows .EXE, .DLL, .OCX, .DOC/.DOCX, .PPT/.PPTX, .XLS/XLSX, and .MDB/.MDBX:

This what AllMedia Grabber looks like:

Note how ugly the interface is. Also note that it loaded a folder in my D:/ partition. For some reason that is the default location that is opened whenever I run AllMedia Grabber – it is very annoying.

Via the window shown to you above, you can browse your computer and scan folders/files. AllMedia grabber is supposed to find all the image/video/music files present in those folders/files. When you hit “Scan Folder” or “Search File” the window changes to the “scanner” window:

If you right click on a file and select “AllMedia Grabber (extract)” the same thing happens. After a scan is finished, your files are saved – you can view them:

With all saved files you can:

• View;
• Copy to folder;
• Move to folder;
• Delete;
• Delete all;
• Delete all saved files;
• Copy image to clipboard;
• Set as wallpaper;
• Convert to BMP;
• Convert to ICO.

One thing to note is that if you scan the same file mutilple times, the images/movies/sound found in that file will be saved by AllMedia Grabber multiple times. In other words you may have multiple copies of the same file.

That is basically all that AllMedia Grabber does. However I would like to comment on the performance of this program. AllMedia Grabber works well when scanning a document (.PPT, .PDF, .DOC, etc.) for images – most/all of the images are found and saved. AllMedia Grabber also does well in finding .ICO files from folders/files. However for everything else AllMedia Grabber sucks. Scanning files such as .EXE or .ZIP does not work properly. For .EXE AllMedia usually finds the .ICO but not the rest of the images. For the .ZIPs I tested it on it found the .PNGs but not the .JPGs. In folder scanning: some folders are scanned just fine and image files are found while others are not. Videos are not found properly from any type of file/folder.

Overall I give AllMediaGrabber a thumbs down. It is too ugly, too buggy, and too annoying to keep.

This review was conducted on a laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit. The specs of the laptop are as follows: 3GB of RAM, a Radeon HD 2600 512MB graphics card, and an Intel T8300 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor.

{rw_verdict2}AllMedia Grabber gets a thumbs down. The only thing it works good in is finding image files in documents; for everything else it does not work very well at. Considering all the annoyances of this program, I recommened skipping out on this one and looking for alternative programs to serve your needs.
{/rw_verdict2} –>