Network Magic Pro

• Version: 5.5
• Downloads Count: 6,717
• License Type: 7 Day Trial
• Price: $50
• Date Added: Sep 9, 2009
• Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows 7
• Requirements: Pentium III or equivalent; 100MB of hard disk space; 256RAM for XP, 512MB RAM for Vista; wired (Ethernet) or wireless Internet with router or gateway
• File Size: 33.425 MB
• Author: Cisco Systems

Most recent User Reviews for Network Magic Pro

• Reviewed by: ribroast

  04-13-2011

  Duration of ownership: 2 Years

  Strengths: Makes setting up and maintaining my home network easy.

  Weaknesses: Not free.

  Overall Evaluation: Network Magic makes my life easy, it has saved me hours of headaches in setting up and maintaining my network. I can get to the router's setup screen by opening it up from the network map screen. This way you don't have to remember the IP address of your routers set up or even the user name and password. Same thing for other stuff (Pro version)like network drives, etc. It also maintains my shares, of which I have many, so they always work. I have 7 computers, 2 network drives, a wireless printer, and a wifi phone on my network, so this tool is invaluable to me. I have not experienced any of the problems that others here have complained about, but I don't doubt them. I use it on XP pro, Vista Home, and Win 7 Starter edition computers. There are also two Ubuntu computers on the network, but this software can't be installed on them. The Ubuntu computers show up on the network map and my windows shares work with them as well.

• Reviewed by: bishro

  06-12-2010

  Duration of ownership: 3 Years

  Strengths: Network map includes devices such as TVs, Digital Photo Frames, Blu-Ray Players -- not just PCs.

  Weaknesses: This software has been abandoned by Cisco. As a result, current Anti-Virus programs are not recognized. (System slow-downs mentioned in other reviews here were resolved by later updates to the software.)

  Overall Evaluation: I haven't found a better solution for producing the network map, but with no updates from Cisco, it's value in the network security area is greatly diminished.

• Reviewed by: bradf52

  11-17-2008

  Duration of ownership: 0 Weeks

  Strengths: Good Looks

  Weaknesses: TOO many to count Only tells you there's a problem. NOTHING MORE! you have to go figure that out yourself. Crashes constantly! Causes serious disconnects!!! To fix you have to uninstall Network Magic (what magic?)You get the same level of networking with windows!

  Overall Evaluation: If you want to blow 50 bucks for a pretty picture go ahead, if not look elsewhere!!!!!

• Reviewed by: HardwareGuy

  11-08-2008

  Duration of ownership: 3 Years

  Strengths: Wish I could say.

  Weaknesses: CPU utilization, uninstall problems, I'm sure there's more.

  Overall Evaluation: Got to agree with djlewis. I've used 4.1 for sometime and it was a bit kludgey but usually worked. I downloaded the 5.0 eval and my PC slowed to a crawl. The uninstall hung the PC halfway through and after I rebooted I noticed two empty protocol components in my network settings. Can't get rid of them. I tried a reinstall and a message window told me there was already NM install in progress and wouldn't go any farther. I went to a back up to restore the system partition. That eval was one major headache and waste of time.

• Reviewed by: djlewis

  08-11-2008

  Duration of ownership: 0 Months

  Strengths: Doesn't matter -- there is a huge weakness that makes it very unwise even to install this product for evaluation.

  Weaknesses: If you install Network Magic -- and even if you then uninstall it -- it will slow your Explorer browsing to a crawl. That's because it creates a registry key that causes Explorer to be constantly looking across your network for scheduled tasks. Uninstall Network Magic, and then go here to fix your registry... http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/tips_xp/index.html and see the article "Speed Up Windows 2000 and XP"

  Overall Evaluation: Do not install this -- even for evaluation. It will slow Explorer (and maybe internet browsing) to a crawl.