Activation – Intuit Sees The Light

JH
Posted By
Jake_Hannam
Oct 9, 2003
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555
Replies
15
Status
Closed
Intuit, makers of TurboTax, in response to customer complaints about product activation, are dropping it completely. They are also allowing single users to install on multiple machines. See the article below:

< http://msnbc-cnet.com.com/2100-1046_3-5088604.html?part=msnb c-cnet&tag=alert&form=feed&subj=cnetnews>

Jake

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AR
Andrew_Rodney
Oct 9, 2003
Also new today in IR is a discussion of the new CS Activiation scheme. It’s also open to the public and called "Weekly Chatter:PS Licensing"

If your going to run CS on a PC, you might want to know what’s in store for you…
RB
Robert_Blackwell
Oct 9, 2003
I don’t suspect Adobe’s planning to drop activation any time soon. Not till they give it a good test run that’s for sure.
RL
Robert_Levine
Oct 9, 2003
Which they’ve already done in the Australian market.

Bob
JW
John_Waller
Oct 9, 2003
Macromedia is finding activation to be working quite well on their MX 2004 products.

It uses a different method to Intuit’s version of activation.


Regards

John Waller
Y
YrbkMgr
Oct 9, 2003
Give it time. Just wait until you move to a different machine a few times. Uninstall, reinstall, activate is the theoretical process. More than some unknown number, and you need approval. When you reach your limit, as determined by a customer service representative (not the license), you need to buy a new license.
G
Guero
Oct 10, 2003
The problem seem to be that people bought the software, plan to use it legally, but are concerned with the complicated registration procedure. If people really are that concerned about registration there are ways around it. Registration alone should not stop youi from buying this great software.

H
KV
Klaas_Visser
Oct 10, 2003
Guero,

Activation and registration are two very different things. Activation is mandatory, and unavoidable on a legal copy. Registration is totally voluntary.
G
Guero
Oct 10, 2003
Klaas,

Let me rephrase. Activation will not be necessay unless you really want to. And it’s not unavoidable on a legal copy. Forget about registration, I kind of mixed up the two terms.

H
T
Terrat
Oct 10, 2003
I understanding that the software will run for 30 days on a hard drive after installation –without the Activation coding in place.

I haven’t read one good word about the activation experiences on any forum yet EXCEPT from those who think the downside could not possibly happen to them.

Invariabley, they state that the downside of Activation could NOT happen to them because of:
1.) Stalwart honesty &/OR
2.) Binding loyalty to a Corporation that they have personified with traits such as "trustworthy".

For Example: On another list recently under the subject "Activation Hooey":

One person stated: " What’s the ‘significant downside’ except for those who have been violating the licensing agreement? One phone call, or an internet connection and you’re done."

Dan Margulis, Professional CMYK guru, replied:

"Not much, provided you never add RAM to your system, move the software temporarily to a different computer, defragment your hard drive, update your OS, add other applications, inadvertently move some critical file to the trash, rebuild your desktop, make a new disk partition, zap your PRAM, add a scratch disk, install a plug-in that conflicts with the security lock, or install a system extension that overwrites or preempts it.

Also, provided your system never crashes during bootup of the software, the security lockout never gets corrupted by some flaw in the software, and that your computer is never stolen and your hard drive never dies (even if it can be restored from backup), because vendors are notoriously suspicious of such claims. Just as suspicious as I am of assurances from vendors that security software that they haven’t produced themselves but have hired out from other firms won’t malfunction under any variant of the above circumstances, or that they are certain it won’t malfunction when exposed to hardware and software that we currently know nothing about but that may be released over the time that you wish to use the software. Me, I have seen *all* of these things disable protected software from time to time.
And, of course, provided the vendor stays in business during the life of the software, doesn’t lay off so many people in its customer support department that emergency reactivation is a hassle, doesn’t decide to make any retroactive changes to its policies like Quark recently did with respect to resale of previously purchased versions, and never decides to force people to pay to upgrade to newer versions by declining to reactivate older ones.

Other than these points, I agree, there’s very little downside.

Dan Margulis"

It does not sound like anything I want to buy into.
IL
Ian_Lyons
Oct 10, 2003
Dan is full of sh-one-t! Based on his description he hasn’t used Photoshop CS activation and he knows sod all about activation. Those of who have used it didn’t have a problem.
AR
Andrew_Rodney
Oct 11, 2003
Ian’s correct. Dan’s full of it. Doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He says he’s too busy to beta (he didn’t as I don’t think he’ll ever be asked) which means unlike folks like Ian who’s been actually hammering on the software for months, Dan’s just talking after seeing a demo or three at Photoshop world.

The facts are, so long as you do not do a low-level disk format, or replace your hard drive, reinstalling CS will re-use the previous activation for that hardware.
DJ
dennis_johnson
Oct 11, 2003
I’m going to sit on my hands this time, I think, and wait to see what the fallout from the new policy turns out to be.

I am certain that if there are issues arising from the new policy, we will all read about them here.

There are some loud voices raised on both sides of the issue of activation, but the truth is likely going to turn out to be somewhere between the extremes. How far from one side or the other is impossible to say without a darn good crystal ball.
I
Insight
Oct 11, 2003
So I’m kind of curious. What is the cost of a second license? Is it some reasonable number, or the price of another upgrade?

Vaughn
DM
dave_milbut
Oct 11, 2003
a second licence is the same as the first. ~$600ish.
DJ
dennis_johnson
Oct 11, 2003
There is *talk* on the Adobe site of possibly offering a "family" license in the future. Presumably this would cover those situations where more than one seat is required in a non-commercial environment at a reduced price from multiple discrete licenses.

Talk only, however – no offer on the table yet.

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