AutoCAD 2005 was announced today (see www.autodesk.com). It will include product activation technology, which has caused much speculation. To head off the flurry of questions that is growing in other groups, please read the FAQs here before posting your questions: http://www.autodesk.com/activation This primarily affects the standalone license rather than the network license, but I thought this info would be of interest to readers of this group. --Cy--
The Product Activation Questions & Answers PDF states that the activation process used will "safely write its license data to an unused sectior of the drive located in track zero." If this is outside of the normal file system, what is the chance that some other specialized protection scheme will also try this trick? Could they interfere with each other? Or could a disk utility such as Partition Magic cause problems? Isn't this the same protection method that was attempted by Intuit last year for TurboTax? I seem to recall a great hue & cry about the problems it caused. (ExtremeTech.com had coverage of it) Ultimately I believe they had to back off using that method. ...Klinn
You don't. Activation only applies to Stand-Alone installation. If you have more than three seats, you should be running network installs anyway, it's just that much more efficient to setup at the get-go. -- James Wedding, P.E. IT Manager Jones & Boyd, Inc. Dallas, TX XP/1 on P4-1.6/512 LDT2004+C3D
Let me rephrase this a hair. If you are running a Network install of Stand-Alone licensing, my understanding is that you Authorize during the NIW process. That way you don't have to do it individually across your firm. I don't use SA installs at all, so I'm sure someone else can speak better, but that's my understanding. -- James Wedding, P.E. IT Manager Jones & Boyd, Inc. Dallas, TX XP/1 on P4-1.6/512 LDT2004+C3D
The activation to get a license file for networked licenses is greately improved. You do it directly over internet or by email. It's simple, fast and great! -- Best Regards, Jimmy Bergmark CAD and Database Developer Manager at www.pharmadule-emtunga.com Take a look at JTB FlexReport (FLEXlm report tool) - www.jtbworld.com/jtbflexreport SmartPurger (Purges automatically) - www.jtbworld.com/?/smartpurger.htm or download some freeware at www.jtbworld.com More on AutoCAD 2005; www.jtbworld.com/autocad2005.htm
If you use the NIW to create a Standalone Licensed deployment then each workstation needs to be individually activated. If you have a multi-seat stand alone license then the activation will occur at the workstations automatically based on the registration information entered using the NIW so long as the workstations have Internet access. If you wish to do this and currently have lots of individual standalone licenses, check with your dealer about getting them exchanged for a single multi-seat license when you upgrade to 2005.
A very reasonable question. All of this has been worked out through extensive testing and coordination with Symantec and other vendors. This has been deployed worldwide for more than three years now. A few problems surfaced at first, and were taken care of. Partition Magic works fine, as does Windows XP, which also uses activation. --Cy-- process used will "safely write its license data to an unused sectior of the drive located in track zero." other specialized protection scheme will also try this trick? Could they interfere with each other? Or could a disk utility such as Partition Magic cause problems?
Oh, and with respect to TurboTax, that was the first year of their implementation, and with all due respect, they had a long way to go to come up to speed with activation. You don't just plug it into a product; you have to integrate it with your entire back end systems as well, for authorization. At Autodesk, we wrote our own entire registration system for connecting to the back end. We also did a great deal of training for support people around the world, and rolled it out slowly to build experience and test for things like interaction with low level utilities. There is detailed error logging and other built-in help to diagnose intermittent or non-reproduceable problems. The ExtremeTech article was riddled with errors, such as confusing SafeCast with SafeDisc (both from Macrovision), and generally whipping up unfounded hysteria. There was never a big outcry that Partition Magic or Symantec utilities accessed the disk directly; why suddenly attack these products? --Cy--
Yes, they even issued a public apology. I believe there's still something of a backlash against them this tax season. A lot of people in the ngs I read regularly seem to be opting for web-based services such as Taxbrain.
I know this is a bit off the subject but has anyone had problems with activation codes getting lost on stand alone installation? I'll get the sofware activated and a few weeks later the activation is no longer valid. The request code has changed and is looking for a new activation code. Any help with this would be appreciated. Rainbow
Not sure why your activation is no longer valid, but the simple solution is to re-activate your product. regards, Efim
