Cook'N With Taste of Home Products and Promotions

2 stars

Reviewer:  Target Shopper  (Grand Rapids, MI)  See all my reviews

Great concept (thus 2 stars as opposed to 1), POOR execution (could be a 5 with lots of fixes/patches). Laden with bugs and incomplete features. Emailed/phoned company President Dan with the following items over 60 days ago and not a single new release or bug fix has been offered. Item #6 is the biggest drag...

1. Tech support do NOT know what their software can and cannot do. Incorrectly told me when I called that one could NOT manually add items like toothpaste to shopping list prior to printing w/o creating pseudo recipe with respective item in it and adding to menu. When I loaded the software, found you not only can but "toothpaste" is actually an example given.
2. No "Getting Started" manual in CD case as stated in video tips. In fact, CD case is entirely blank and generic.
3. Install Order - Must install different Cook'n cookbook offerings in certain, undefined order, to see all recipes purchased. Only way I could get it to work was through trial-and-error.
4. Program loads/runs/uninstalls as Cook'n xxx, where xxx is first name installed, instead of what you just purchased. Should abstract the install folder/title/executable since they have multiple cookbook offerings and one recipe organizer.
5. Internet Update stalls for a long time prior to the download connection actually downloading the entire file. Appears they do not have sufficient bandwidth on their end; verified NOT my own issue as 780K download bandwidth.
6. "Options/Email-Recipe" does not function but rather results in a "socket" error. Support site states change mail server name under Setup, but that is not even a field in the setup dialog.
7. Long import (~1k files like MealMaster) results in corrupted database and program exits and will not rerun. This is a real pain when coupled with item #3 above.
8. Backup function does NOT back up customer added recipe photos. User must go back and manuualy re-add every single photo.
9. Parent company DVO sends out constant emails trying to get you to buy various peripheral products (energy drinks, kitchen appliances, etc.), when they seemingly don't have time to fix what should be their core competence and product - COOK'N SOFTWARE.