Some reasons why you may not want to go down this route (I am not suggesting you shouldn't by the way):
- The software can be difficult to get running, even for individuals with good IT literacy, INPA is generally designed to run in a windows XP. To get around this most derivations being sold on ebay install a virtual XP machine on your win 7,8,10 machine in which INPA runs
- The installation instructions are usually at best poor and the process/screens you encounter do not match the instructions and screens in the instructions
- Some of these softwares are hacked including one seller who has got INPA running in 64bit machines without installing virtual win XP machine. The same seller however has also created his own software registration system which means you have to email him to get a machine specific unlock code before using it. If the software can be hacked to this extent, there has to be at least the potential that it could be hacked to be malicious (and I am not talking about infecting your PC)
- The software is not easy to use, it was originally created for BMW product development engineers and as such is intended to be used by individuals with a great deal of knowledge of BMW electrical architectures/and error messages. Those who would use it at BMW would get training on how to do so
- They are usually old copies of software (ignore the version numbers declared, this can be hacked) and may not have latest diagnostics and/or recognise all your modules
- The user interface is not intuative
- Many of the faults are described in German and google translate is unlikely to help greatly with technical translations
- As someone else has pointed out, in knowledgeable hands, damage can be done to your car
Personally I have been down this route, trying this software from various sellers. I have always had difficulty getting INPA to work well (and I am not stupid at IT i used to be a charted IT professional albiet it was acheived for my database design skills).
In the end I opted for ISTA-D which has an easier to use interface than INPA. My first copy I bought from an ebay seller from the eastern block with 100% feedback. Whilst it installed, it would never connect to the car. Despite several weeks of to and fro emails with the seller, I could not get it working. I finally decided to spend a little more money and by the latest copy from Rheingold USA who are supposedly the suppliers (though impossible to validate). This installed , connected and ran first time.
One bit of advice I would give you if you go down any of these routes. Buy yourself some ghosting software and ghost your machine before you start. That way if the installation fails you can wind back very easily.
shame it was easy to use software.
