Activation--The final frontier

Personally I think its more hassle than its worth. Just wondering what happens when you're running 2007 and 2010 is out. Does the activation still work once 2007 is retired? My guess is that once its registered to your PC, it never expires, however, if you get a new PC, you have to reactivate 2007.....wonder how that will go?

T> How do you all feel about the new activation policy for SW coming in an

The way it worked in beta was that you could transfer the license just like a network license, but the network is the internet. You transfer your license back to the SW mother ship server, install on your new computer and transfer the license to that.

I wonder what it will do to people who don't stay up on subscription, if they will be able to run 2007 after their subscription runs out.

It read like MSoft activation. So it is tied to CPU and hard drive codes. Change a motherboard or hard drive and you have to reactivate. I have had a lot of trouble with that when upgrading hardware. And then there is the Dell problem where activation is tied to the BIOS which means you can't upgrade at all.

I suppose that in part this is driven by the blatant piracy in Russia, India and China. I don't think this will slow that down in the least just like it hasn't slowed piracy of XP.

I really don't know many US manufacturers in my area that are actually ripping off SWX (any version). Most of them just have a seat or two, but it doesn't seem to be too expensive for even small shops. I see MUCH MUCH more Autodesk and PTC piracy, but often that is moreso employees taking their copies with them than employer supported practices.

I see a LOT of CAD students downloading copies, but honestly, in this industry it's about people making money off production work more than any first year undergraduate grabbing a cracked '05 off the net.

Coding to the hard-drive issue is our biggest concern. We 'ghost - copy' our C: drive in case a problem kills it (spyware, viruses, and of course hard drives just fail). In the middle of a workday, we can just swap out the drives (through a swappable bay) and restore (or use) the last hard-drive backup and we are back to work in tens of minutes, vs tens of hours with reinstalling everything. If SWx is tied to the hard-drive code, can we be back to work in a few minutes by swapping the failed drive for the backup -or will we be making sketches on knapkins?

-Ed

That undergrad isn't going to make any money with his copy of SW (which means that he wouldn't have bought SW if it were 100% piracy-proof). However, it is likely that someone playing with a 3D CAD package is the engineering type, in which case after a few years he may be employed in some company that is facing the question of which CAD system to acquire. And who knows, that pirated SW copy could miraculously generate a legal one.

SW is actively pushing this sort of proliferation of experience: Working at a University I'm using an educational license which is almost free. Of course the hope is that a few of our students will at some point end up in a situation where they have some say in the acquisition of CAD software.

Another example: Everybody and their dog has a pirated copy of Photoshop on their computer to play with the photos taken with the ubiquitous digital cameras. If PS were piracy-proof, all these people would use some cheaper or easier-to-pirate alternative but Adobe wouldn't be selling a single legal copy to hobbyist users. Instead, they would probably lose legitimate customers because the overall PS knowledge would be a lot less.

This argument can probably be made for any software that is primarily a tool to generate profit. Nobody in any kind of business can afford to depend on stolen equipment, be it a truck or some software.

Personally I'm not part of that dilemma. My Windows PC runs nothing but SolidWorks. Everything else I do on a Linux system.

--Daniel

Activation for broken software?

SW Corp just helped sell more seats of Alibre.

If SW uses MSoft technology and not their own then it will work something like this:

A number of hardware components will be identified, i.e., hard drive(s), cpu, NIC, partitions, graphics card, installed memory, etc.

A hash will be generated based on the internal IDs.

When a hardware change occurs a score will be generated based on the number of hardware components changed. If the score is too low re-activation will be required.

We run into trouble when we replace mother boards because that means 2 NICS, a CPU, memory and that is enough to lower the score, especially since NICS are rated higher than other items. In the case of DELL where they tie into the BIOS ID motherboards can't be updated at all which is one reason not to go that route if you want to stay cutting edge for low bucks.

There are utilities to make hard drives look alike to the system by changing volume ID. There are also ways to change MAC addresses. The CPU id can be turned off in BIOS.

We aren't on 2007 yet, but what we've been told by our VAR sounds like the new licensing system will be beneficial to us. I works similar to a typical network licensing system, but the server you get your license from is a Solidworks server via the internet. It renews your license periodically, and it expires after 28 days if you don't reconnect.

The benefits are:- a) You are allowed 2 concurrent activations per license - one for home use and one for office use. Apparently you specify this at the time of installation. b) No more bloody dongles and editing the registry to use a different dongle.

The potential risks I see are if Solidworks went bust, or if their server(s) had a lengthy outage or were subjected to a DOS attack. I believe (and certainly presume!) that you can activate a valid license forever, regardless of whether you maintain subscription.

John H

Oh oh, here we go again.

Concord tried this pre 2000 and the outcry was so loud that they abandoned it with the issuance of the first service pack. I don't remember specifically which version it was.

I love the mentality though. Treat ALL your paying customers as pirates because you are having problems controlling your distribution in 3rd world countries. H'mmm, that is forward thinking now isn't it?

Activation is and always will be a pain in the backside. And yes, I have to wonder when the companies decide to stop activating old products. I firmly believe that MS will stop activating XP sometime after Vista hit's the shelves. I can't imagine that Concord would act any differently.

The kicker is that the activation systems are easily hacked and thus again, the only people that are penalized are the law abiding paying customers.

Just say no to activation! =========================================================================== Chris

Is Vista another flavor of Linux?

Funny,.. 8^)

SolidWorks is just another tool. Unfortunately, it is a mission critical tool.

I, too, run only SolidWorks & MSOffice on my PC. Of course now comes virtualization...

If SolidWorks starts doing this uber-secure, check everything & report everything to the Internet all-the-time Microsoft type of system (WGA type), then they may literally force me to stay with 2006 on Win XP Pro for years and years.

Why? Because I am never going to let my mission critical SolidWorks/PC on the Internet.

They will lose me if they do this. Goodbye to $2k/yr maintenance fees.

Bo

Haude Daniel wrote:

For all my trust in electronic work and digital files, I would rate them at a 99.99% trust level.

For anything that involves continuous Internet intervention on a critical system to keep it running, I have VERY SEVERE doubts that I would accept the idea.

That assumes that you can always an Internet connection, and that you trust your laptop to get on it there, wherever that is, and that the Internet is up and running. The Internet in some places is downright unavailable or unreliable, and myself personally, I simply do not want my PC with SolidWorks on the Internet anyway.

My VAR could not be bothered to call me back for 5-6 days when I called about buying Mold Flow Mold Advisor (3x the price of SolidWorks). What is he going to do if I call because I can't get the licensing to "work", if he answers the call, that is. I think voice mail should be BANNED @ Swks VARs.

Someone @ Swks VARs ought to be paid to physically answer all calls and email the person if not available or yell at someone to pick the phone up. Leaving a voice message that just sits and sits, is stupid customer relations.

Bo

Chris Dubea wrote:

I've used the activation, both at home, and here at work. Each took less than 30 seconds, no issues. IMO it beats the hell out of getting and maintaining a registration code, and was quicker. I absolutely don't feel "penalized" for activation.

As far as hardware changes, or complete computer changes, all you have to do is release your license prior to changing, and reacquire one after. No big deal.

My license says nothing about expiring after 28 days. After initial installation there is a timer prior to mandatory activation, but my licenses have an expiration date of "never" once they were activated. My home computer has not been connected for 6 weeks or so, I've gotten no notifications of any sort, and SW funtions just fine (still have final pre-release installed though).

I have no issues with a company taking measures to ensure that they are not being stolen from. Its really no different than a mag strip on a CD wrapper, or an alarm tag placed on a $100 pair of slacks. The only issue that I could have would be if the measures taken affected the funtionality of the product, and those that SW has taken don't appear to have done so.

In the past, I've maintained an installation of SW at home, and in the office. Although it would occasionally have been nice to install it on a laptop, I did not do so, because the agreement did not allow for it. Now, the option is present. Deactivate the license at home, then activate it on the laptop and good-to-go. Easy enough to switch it back. I like the fact that all software on all my computers is ligitimate. SW has given me options that I didn't have before in that regard.

You can activate over the phone.

Or using a floppy via another machine with net access

Your laptop (or even desktop) has a floppy drive?

N> T>> You can activate over the phone.