Activation--The final frontier

How do you all feel about the new activation policy for SW coming in an
SP for 2007? I read it through on the customer portal. What really
caught my eye is the FAQ about support for prior releases. It seems to
say that activation will be supported for the life of the product which
I take to mean the release cycle. So if you are doing business with an
earlier stable release it may just die when the end of activation comes
along. Am I reading this wrong?

 

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?

 

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

 

I dont really understand the point in releasing on the web and not having
actication required - or - was it that you " signed " in to get the download
?

 

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?

 

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

 

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

 

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?

None of mine do.

 

so use a thumb drive.