Akamai MSDN Download Manager sucks!

 Richard's Braindump: Problems with the new MSDN Download Manager

I agree with Richard, the new MSDN download manager is worse than horrid. I've ran into every one of the problems reported but these in particular really chap my ass:

• Close IE and the download manager closes. It asks you if you really want to close it, but it doesn't matter what you say... it will close anyway. When you re-open it, your download will be corrupt and you'll have to start over again from the beginning.
    
• It'll just randomly tell you it can't download because of persistent network problems... and you can't resume because your file is corrupt.
   
• If you have pop-up blocking on in IE 7 (which is the default) you might never get the download manager installed. It pops up a new browser window, which IE blocks, then the main page refreshes so fast you never see the notification that there was a blocked pop-up.

I have additional complaints too.

• Adding additional files to the download manager sometimes (and by "sometimes" I mean "nearly always") closes the download manager... which as we discussed already, corrupts any files it was already downloading.
   
• Manually pausing a download also usually corrupts it.
    
• When it asks if you want to start the download all over again, and you say yes, it usually can't... so you have to remove the file from the manager, go back to the MSDN page then re-click the link.... which will close your download manger and corrupt the rest of your files!

And even if they fix these major technical problems, there are other issues I have with it:

• Files are either downloading, or paused. There isn't a way to put them in any particular order in the queue and download them sequentially... so if you want to pull in 5 files, but you want 1 file immediately, then the rest to finish up whenever you have to pause all the downloads except the one, wait on it to finish, then manually resume the others.
   
• There doesn't appear to be any mechanisms in place to allow you to throttle how much bandwidth it uses.
   
• It allocates the disk space before the download starts. I HATE that. If you only have 1gig downloaded so far, it should not be taking up 4gig on my hard drive. When I'm low on disk space I can't start the download and have it coming down while I go and clean up some drive space. I have to clean up the space before I can start downloading. Minor issue, but still annoying.

Seriously, this thing is a total piece of shit... Why can't you just give me a damned link?

I have a download manager than works really good. I can control what files come down, in what order, how much bandwidth to use, and how many files to work on at a time (I use ReGet for those of you that may be curious).

Come on, just give me a regular old hyperlink or put it up on an FTP or something.

Considering that an MSDN Premium Team Suite subscription costs $10,000 up-front and around $3500/year for renewal fees,  it isn't too much to ask for is it?