Activation--The final frontier

Thanks for the encouraging note, Matt.

Just so long as a viable method exists that doesn't "dump" SolidWorks when essentially using it in the middle of nowhere, so to speak.

I expect to always run registered legal software, but I have sure had my headaches with registrations over time. Registered floppy disks were the worst. I have one niggling piece of software that has decided I did not do the registration right, and I still have yet to get it to run.

Bo

matt wrote:

Chris,

Your right on,, this won't affect pirated copies in Russia and the far east at all. In fact, they've probably already cracked it.

All it does is make more administrative problems for the legal users. PC hardware (even the best) is far from perfect, stuff breaks all the time. This will affect our ability to recover from hardware failures quickly. Which ultimately means even a higher cost of ownership. I can remember when SW was very economical to administrate and use. Not true anymore.

Mark

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Are you kidding? There were cracks for Solidworks 2007 posted on Usenet before it was officially released. It'd be interesting to find out how the crackers are getting their hands on the software before the VARs do.

I think everyone should read the FAQ. I don't like it. But it isn't totally evil either. It just doesn't benefit the customer but rather puts them in a box. We have been asking for the ability to save in older versions for years and this is pretty much the answer. Using technology to defeat a belief system almost never works. That is what SW is up against. China is communist. What's yours is mine and I'm going to take it. And so it goes. Oops, am I being politcally incorrect?

Good to know. We'll have to attempt a dry run - equipment always seems to fail when you most need it and we need to KNOW that we can get back up to speed as fast as we used to

That was my biggest concern. Stuff fails, and when it fails it always seems to know to die when it can do the most harm (Murphy's law). I would hate to have an intermittent loss of internet right when my license was set to expire, but, if it is as you say (that it won't matter - I can continue to work) that's great. If I'm swapping out hardware and have to terminate then reinitiate to the new hardware, I just better have that procedure documented so no mistakes are made (talk about a potentially critical 'oops' in the heat of the moment) Another problem I had with the 28 days thing was we have laptops that sit inactive for at least that long, and we only boot them up when we are on our way to a client or other situation for a presentation (often with files on a thimb-key so there is never an internet hand-shake). Imagine the embarassment (and cost) of making a trip only to have your SWx not work. I hope this is correct, that our legitimate licenses won't always be dying every 28 days, because in the heat of business...

Total agreement. I just hope that they have worked this out so it won't present difficulties for honest users, because the bad guys probably WILL find a way to tweak the system.

Thanks for sharing your experiences - I will have to give it a test drive while 2007 is still irrelevent to out business. Ed

Hang on a sec....if you can activate using a floppy, what stops you from activating multiple machines with the same floppy? ......unless it's like the "token" process that Siemens uses for some of its PLC programming software, that moves a file off the floppy onto the pc, and only puts it back there when you "release" the token.

John H

And so it goes. Oops, am I being politcally incorrect?

Lets start saying "politically non-comformant". How's that sound? Maybe "politically double un-good"?

I'm a personal one seat owner. I don't always keep my subscription up to date. What happens in say 2009, if I have to reactivate my seat of

2007? Will I be guaranteed the ability to activate? Somehow I doubt it.

This is just another development of the fact that you "lease" and not own the software. At any point if Concord decides that they don't want you to use it anymore, then you are out of luck.

I guess I'm just a conspiracy theorist. =========================================================================== Chris

The sad thing is that, at some point, it becomes easier to find a cracked version then it is to jump through all the hoops to own legal software. Then the pirates win and SW (and it's honest users) lose.

Muggs

Quite honestly, you guys are making far too much out of this. Activation right now is only being used with 2 vars customers, one in eastern Canada, and the other on the US west coast, if I remember right. Also some non-north america places too.

I used it during beta and was very skeptical at first, but it worked perfectly for me on both my work box and my home license box. There is a

30 day grace period, and I don't have to remember where I wrote the registration code.

Transferring licenses was easy and effective.

Working detached from the network didn't cause a problem.

I know that posting here it sounds silly to not have some insane rant, but that's what's up today. (May change tomorrow).

Chris: Nail on head! Forced maintenance = Bad.

It is even worse when the product offered for the maintenance fee is still in development.

Unfortunately, the likes of UG, ProE, etal are going to "see the light" (could read conspire) and magically all do the same thing, at...about the same time.

When ever you enter a contract, and then the terms change from one time open-ended user license, and you do NOT understand that the terms have changed and your OS or your MSOffice or your SolidWorks automatically stop working if you don't/can't keep supplying yearly fees, that will be a show stopper.

There are a lot of small shops and individual designers and engineers that get trapped in cash squeezes, not of their own making. Read the business mags to see all the reasons, including getting scammed or divorced, just to pick the two most likely.

Something tells me a lot of people have to think about keeping XP Pro & Swks 2006 ready to run...just in case.

The number of "phone home" applications seems to be growing with MS WGA, Sony DRM, Amazon's video player, and every danged one of them seems to be causing a row with users. Why are the companies doing it? When in doubt look at the $s. They figure they have to do the "Cable Guy" route to get everyone on a monthly/yearly payment scheme FOREVER.

Am I just a bit paranoid? Does the value of "Open Format" now seem to be more understandable as to why people are starting to recognize the need for this?

Bo

Chris Dubea wrote:

Sorry Matt, you're (how's that Wayne?) right. But being the paranoid guy that I am I want the switch in my hand not SW's. As an independant working out of my basement, I can keep up with my maintenance so far, however at the cost of MasterCam maintenance. I just can't afford $2600 a year to be able to keep my software up to date.

Muggs

Noticed - thanks! :-)

WT

C'mon guys, just read the FAQ:

Activation won't stop piracy, nor will it hinder legitimate users - you have an office and home use activation, providing you are the primary user at work you can have a second copy at home or on a laptop as long as they are both not in use at the same time.

Activation is a one-time thing, so no requirement to be connected to the interweb. Those with dongles need to transfer electronically rather than physically. Those without used to be able to install as many times as they liked - so those of you unscrupulous in the US will come off worse as you'll have to buy more seats - boohoo.

I've kind of worked on the fringe installing on two machines so that while one was regenerating I could work on the other. Getting two licenses to do this is a bummer. If the software had decent performance this wouldn't be such an issue.

There are people who load it on an office computer and a laptop. Only one instance is running at a time. I think I know one well known poster who does that. Those with dongles have no problem with this, just switch the dongle.

Using two network licenses on a single machine seems to also be against the rules, but not on the user's part.

The EULA kind of flops back and forth between the number of users versus licenses and loading SW into memory. This I think is the key statement, "The Software is "in use" on a computer when it is loaded into the temporary memory (i.e. RAM). The Software is "in use" on a computer when it is loaded into the temporary memory (i.e. RAM)." This seems to allow the kind of use mentioned here.

At any rate, activation would seem to preclude this kind of seemingly legitimate use.

My thought is a single user should be able to run as many sessions on different computers as he/she can. Since I was cad admin as well as designer, I had two computers both with Solidworks installed. One was a test machine but on occasion I used the test PC to do work while my main box was crunching. They were on a network license and we had more than enough licenses so no problem.

T> There are people who load it on an office computer and a laptop. Only