Installing the Bomb Factory Essential Noise Meter isn't hard at all as it installs when you install Pro Tools so you really don't have to do anything.  Since it is designed by Digidesign and comes with Pro Tools I can't imagine anyone having any sort of compatibility problems as I don't think that you can even use this without Pro Tools.  The configuration of the plug-in is just about as basic as it gets as it has minimal features.  It simply has a VU meter and three buttons to choose the type of metering as well as a switch to choose between RMS and peak.  No one should have any problems using this plug-in no matter what type of experience you have.  I've never seen the manual for the Bomb Factory Essential Noise Meter so I can't say if it would be helpful or not, but this is definitely easy enough on its own that you probably don't need one.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

I've never had any problems at all running the Bomb Factory Essential Noise Meter, although I've never run more than one at once.  I am currently running the plug-in on a Mac Book Pro that has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM.  I run the plug-in in Pro Tools LE 7.4 that runs with a Digi 002R audio interface and the plug runs pretty flawlessly within this set up.  Even if you don't have a great configuration, this plug-in will take up minimal processing power and I can't imagine that anyone would have any problems running it.


OVERALL OPINION

I've had the Bomb Factory Essential Noise Meter since I started using Pro Tools a few years ago and while I don't use it very often, it is always nice to have a noise metering plug-in in my set up, especially one that is free.  Since this is a free piece of software I can't complain at all about it too much as it does its job well.  If you have Pro Tools, you have this plug-in and even if you don't use it too much, I would bet that you would agree that it is always nice to have another plug-in.