How do you feel about Activation?

Activation in Stardock Products?

Published on May 31, 2005 By SuiteLife In WinCustomize Talk

Hi all,
I have been reading a "heated" discussion about activation system (mainly the one built into Konfabulator 2.0) and was curious what people hear thought about it. I personally dislike activation schemes for one reason only. I don't like the idea of paying my hard earned money for a product license, only to then have to "ask" permission to use it everytime I have to reinstall it or transfer it from one machine to another. This is one reason I have loved Stardock's policy on installers and keys. Since I never share my keys I don't have to worry about them leaking out and Stardock losing sales because of me. But I like the fact I have my installer and if I never want to "talk" to Stardock again, (like that is ever going to happen.

) I won't have to.

True piracy is a BIG problem and should not happen, but why should the legal users have to put up with something that others have caused? (I think I know what answer I will get from this statement.)

Comments (Page 1)

PurrBall

on Jun 01, 2005

the only problem ive had with activation is when my harddrive died.

its fine here.

Yarlen

on Jun 01, 2005

Just an FYI - GalCiv 2 and parts of ThinkDesk use product activation (or will). However, the various Object Desktop components (including DesktopX) do not. I think it'll also depend on if you purchase the products standalone or as part of a network subscription, etc., but don't quote me on that.

Jafo

on Jun 01, 2005

(I think I know what answer I will get from this statement.)

Yep....you have to blame the thieves, not the Program Co's .... for what you must endure....

unckle fester

on Jun 01, 2005

activation is a real pain when your useing a computer that is not connected to the internet, and don't plan on connecting it.

i have a friend who built a dedicated work station and had not gotten any kind of modem for the project. all went well for him untill windows XP locked him out because he never got it activated. i ended up buying my external HD because he had important business information he NEEDS to keep so he brought the tower to me to see if i could recover his info. He had built the copmuter because he wanted to keep it off line so he had a secure place to keep all his records. long story short, he was very upset because all the trouble microsoft had caused him after being a paid customer. i could have help before he had the problem if i had known but he never said anything untill...

lorax1284

on Jun 01, 2005

I'll admit it... I SOMETIMES install software for which I've purchased a single license on MORE THAN ONE COMPUTER!!! SHUDDER!!! (I can only use one computer at a time so, to save me the terrible inconvenience of uninstalling from one computer and reinstalling on another computer, I just install on both and live with my guilty concience).

The problem is for such tools, vendors rarely offer "one user, multiple computer" licensing options... as a shareware vendor... since they can't control or confirm such use, they build into their pricing and activation schemes "let's protect ourselves", rather than "let's make life better for our customers". I look at tools and the often arbitrarily high price for the software, and think "if I could go legit on all my PCs for an extra 5 bucks per seat, I would... but I"m not paying full price, like, $40, per seat for my three computers."

The right solution is... lower the price to a point where piracy just doesn't make sense! Yes! I said it! A lot of downloadable software is overpriced... some of it's only worth $4.95 per seat, and software vendors would do well to offer the software at much more reasonable prices, and consider the reality of multiple computers, one individual, and apply some creative pricing options... and a lot of pirates just pirate software for the sake of the challenge, the glory, the WHATEVER, but don't use the software for practical purposes... like, how many PhotoShop pirates are actually graphic designers that make their living using PhotoShop? a fraction of the pirated copies of PhotoShop are used in production (the legal ramifications are too high)... so did Adobe lose a sale to a legitimate user? If they could NOT pirate photoshop, would they go out and spend the $600? Of course not... they'd find a much less expensive alternative.

The cost of credit card processing is outrageous, which makes micropayments impractical, and that's what's keeping the software industry from getting to better license / revenue models, like a monthly subscription of $1 or something, with all updates included while you pay your monthly subscription... but at least Stardock Central / Object Desktop is a step in the right direction.

lorax1284

on Jun 01, 2005

> He had built the copmuter because he wanted to keep it off line so he had a secure place to keep all his records.

Um... it didn't occur to him to just stick a modem in for 20 minutes, connect to the 'net to activate, then remove the modem? Something sounds not-quite-right with that story... but that's activation for ya... terribly inconvenient if you don't have an internet connection.

eieio

on Jun 01, 2005

You can activate without internet access. A # is given to call and the process is fairly short, although I admit it is a bit of a pain if you have a computer that you are continually changing/upgrading and have to re-activate several times, such as the computer I use at work. I've never had to re-activate the computers I have at home.

PurrBall

on Jun 01, 2005

I had to do that after my hard drive died.

paxx

on Jun 01, 2005

I understand the problem, but I think the solution does nothing to solve it. People who get pirated copies will always have a way to crack the activation process. So the only people inconvenienced by it are the honest customers.

Tarkus

on Jun 01, 2005

Exactly. It's trivial find a copy of WXP that doesn't require activation. I almost went that route when I changed motherboards and couldn't find my original disc. Fortunately, I didn't have to, but the opportunity was there.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central

aufisch

on Jun 01, 2005

I whole-heartily agree with Paxx and Tarkus. You Google something innocent as "WindowsXP system files" and you will always get heaps of webpages with WinXP cracks and/or warez. The same goes for any of the Norton Apps and new programs that require activation like Adobe's Photoshop CS2 (just a search for "Photoshop Plugins" will come up with a couple of warez sites as well) are nowadays cracked only weeks after they were released.

It is a vicious cycle of pirating leading to more (not always better) safety measures, leading to them being hacked/cracked within no time, leading to even more safety measures....

The only looser in this game is the honest customer who then has to do a twirly-dance, a back-flip and a medium IT-degree in order to install and use the legally bought software.

Tarkus

on Jun 01, 2005

If there's one place activation works, it's on mom and pop who want to install something like Windows on two computers, probably not knowing that they're not supposed to, and not having a clue how to acquire a hacked copy (assuming they'd even want to).

Then again, mom and pop probably have daughter and son who can take care of it for them.

Grog

on Jun 01, 2005

Having to Activate my software doesn't bother me that much, especially 99% of the time my computers are connected to the Internet while they are turned on. It normally only takes a moment or two. On the other hand I will NEVER purchase any product from ScanSoft due to software activation. Not only did I have to activate it when I installed it, but it wants to periodically phone home to re-verify that it is still a legal copy. This became an issue when I was on the road sitting in my hotel room working and I went to PDF a document (the software was PDF Create 2)and it let me know that since it couldn't verify I was the legal user it would only work in demo mode and watermarked my document. Needless to say the timing couldn't have been worse. I finally got it working, but it has happened a couple of times since. E-Mails and Calls to Tech Support, yielded only direction to Customer Service who in turn directed me to Tech Support. Needless to say they lost a customer.

Tarkus

on Jun 01, 2005

That's the way Pegasys, Inc. software works. Didn't stop me from buying a couple of their packages, but it was irritating when I lost my internet connection for a time and wasn't able to use the software I had paid for.

Corky_O

on Jun 01, 2005

I bought two 80 GB hard drives (same brand), and have Norton Systemworks which includes Ghost.

I installed XP Pro, and all my software on one disc to create a "Master" disc, and activated all softwares requiring it - then made an image on the second disc.

I use the image on the computer, and keep the "Master" safely stored away for future re-creation of my system image.

Never have to activate again - unless "Master" gets damaged, but it is stored securely.

Downside is you need two drives, upside is 30 minutes of imaging and the system is restored.

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