FSDreamTeam forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: virtuali on February 07, 2011, 03:15:29 pm
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In an effort to make our activation method as user friendly as possible, we added today a new feature:
User controlled Deactivation
With this option, you'll be able to remove an existing activation for a computer, without having to contact us. Very useful in case you are planning to upgrade your system with major hardware components, reinstall Windows from scratch, or buy an entirely new PC.
If you use this option before starting the hardware upgrade, the OS reinstall or giving away/selling your old PC, the existing activation for any product handled by the Addon Manager will be removed from your system AND from the Esellerate Activation servers too. Which means, your counter of remaining activations will be increased by one.
The big advantage of this feature is, even if you already used all your 6 activations and need a new activation, there will be no need to email us anymore, just remember to Deactivate your existing system before upgrading.
How to get it
You'll get this upgrade automatically if you run any of our scenery installers OR, by downloading and installing the Stand-Alone Addon Manager. The updated versions are 2.8.0.0 in FSX and 1.80 in FS9.
How to use it
With the updated Addon Manager, select any product which is currently Activated on your system, and choose "Deactivate" from the Addon Manager menu for that product, with an Internet connection alive.
After a brief wait, you'll get a message stating that Deactivation completed successfully. Your existing Serial Number will be automatically saved in a .REG file in your Home folder (the folder with your Windows user name), the Serial Number will be cleaned from the registry, and the product will go back in TRIAL MODE, as if was never activated on this system and your remaining activations counter on the server has now increased by one.
Limitations
Please note, you have to do this on the computer you want to update/reformat/sell/dispose BEFORE doing any of those operations. You can't Deactivate a system remotely using another one, or Deactivate it after you have started or completed your upgrade.
There are no limits how many times you can perform a deactivation.
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thanks Umberto I'm very happy you continue to approve the add-on manger I had to reactivate my scenery allot of times since I'm obsessed with reformatting every so often or I'm sometimes changing parts like a network card etc etc. this way reminds me of SecuROM Deactivation but it works well thanks for the update.
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Hey that's very nice. :)
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That is good news and a major step forward towards user friendly management of the licences.
Thank you, Umberto
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Thanks for this updating, is very useful and hope be followed.
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So if I get a new hard drive with just Windows 7 on it can I still install all my fsdt products without this Deactivation program?
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Agree. This is a nice touch. I think you guys have one of the best installers out there. Now you will probably have one of the un-installers, ;).
Clutch
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So if I get a new hard drive with just Windows 7 on it can I still install all my fsdt products without this Deactivation program?
When upgrading your system drive (the drive Windows boots from), you'll have to Deactivate before the hard drive change, this will increase your remaining activations by one. It will basically "forget" you installed the scenery on that system.
You then install the new hard drive, do all the installations including FSDT products, and activate them all using your Serial Number. This will use an activation, so the net total would be unchanged at the end of the upgrade.
Without Deactivation, this would have consumed an activation more.
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Sorry if I'm sneezing on the party cake, but this is like going from the sewer into the unflushed toilet; it is not an improvement! The DRM is still there. And, among other things, what happens when Virtualis/FSDreamTeam decides to stop supporting your products, or go out of business? (Hint: The same thing that happened with Yahoo Music, and will happen with MSN's music later this year.)
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it is not an improvement!
Surely is. Before, if you upgraded your hardware, it would use one of your activations. Now, if you deactivate first, it won't.
The DRM is still there
And it's going to stay, just like FSX, which is the host program our products runs into, just like Windows, which is the OS under which both FSX and our products runs under. All of them use online activation, except we give more activations than Microsoft, and FSX/Windows DRMs don't allow user controlled deactivation.
So, if you have accepted FSX and Windows DRM with online activations, there are no reasons why you couldn't accept ours.
And, among other things, what happens when Virtualis/FSDreamTeam decides to stop supporting your products, or go out of business? (Hint: The same thing that happened with Yahoo Music, and will happen with MSN's music later this year.
This has been already explained long ago: if we went of out business, what will happen, is basically nothing. We don't run the activations servers ourselves, Esellerate/Digital River does. Which means, you should worry if THEY would go out of business...
The activations are handled automatically, and now there's the Deactivation, it would be very difficult to consume all your 6 activations. AND, since there's the auto-reclaim of older activations after 90 days, our products will self-activate indefinitely, even in our absence.
In the unlikely event Digital River would go out of business, we will of course find another ecommerce provider by then, and migrate all the existing activations to a different system.
The comparison with Yahoo Music and MSN music is also wrong for a different reason: they weren't selling their own stuff, they licensed music from someone else, which means they couldn't plan a solution for the existing purchasers. We have the full rights to our stuff so, in case we'd go out of business, the most likely outcome could be we'll pass our products and our customers orders data to another flight sim company.
What happened to Cloud9 customers when they decided to quit from the flight sim business ? Nothing: they handled their product support to us, and all existing customers had their order preserved, and much better licensing conditions too.
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Haven't needed this (yet) but its nice that you are looking at ways to make life easier for your customers.
scott s.
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Nice addition! Definately a nice improvement! :)
Must admit, that I've been sighing for this for some time! Thanks FSDreamTeam for your continuous support!
Just a question... (don't know, if you can answer this, but here goes...):
Does this new 'policy' apply to other products using the eSellerate engine? I.e QualityWings Boeing 757 Series?
Thanks again!
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Does this new 'policy' apply to other products using the eSellerate engine? I.e QualityWings Boeing 757 Series?
Yes, all Flight sim products that use our Addon Manager for activation already got this feature because of the update.
The only thing that might change depending on the developer is (like the number of Activations before emailing) the maximum allowable Deactivations before emailing.
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okay,I get it and thanks for the reply. :)
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Have FS9, I am getting a new computer for FSX and FS9, can I use the FS9 airports on both computers?
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Have FS9, I am getting a new computer for FSX and FS9, can I use the FS9 airports on both computers
Yes, of course. You have 6 activations, should be more than enough to use both versions on different computers.
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Hallo,
The computer installing FSDT (earlier cloud9) sceneries has no internetaccess (I am familiar activating manually). Now this new feature might not help me in a case of necessity of reactivation. So would it be in future possible to perform reactivation by e-mailing in the future, too ?
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Hi Umberto,
this seems to be a smart and easy way to handle, thank you.
A question based on that, i purchased a new GPU some days ago, does this change affect the licensing of your sceneries and should i deactivate them before fitting the new GPU?
Or generally speaking, which changes does effect FSDT/CLOUD9 licensing, so we know, when it is really necessary to deactivate. Some hints could be useful.
regards
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So would it be in future possible to perform reactivation by e-mailing in the future, too ?
The user-controlled deactivation doesn't replace the ability to email us for a reactivation, it's just an additional option.
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A question based on that, i purchased a new GPU some days ago, does this change affect the licensing of your sceneries and should i deactivate them before fitting the new GPU?
Usually not, but it depends on the video card. It doesn't do any harm reactivating anyway.
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I just built a new system and successfully installed and activated four of my FSDT products and the new addon manager worked like a charm. I activated them all in one FSX session. Thanks for a great product.
Best regards,
Jim
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EDIT:
After the initial testing period with the user-controlled Deactivation, starting from today, we also removed the limit of 6 maximum reactivations, they are now unlimited.
There's nothing to do to be upgraded to the new system: it was only a server-side configuration so, it's in already in effect without having to upgrade anything in your installed software.
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EDIT:
After the initial testing period with the user-controlled Deactivation, starting from today, we also removed the limit of 6 maximum reactivations, they are now unlimited.
There's nothing to do to be upgrade to the new system: it was only a server-side configuration so, it's in already in effect without having to upgrade anything in your installed software.
That is really some great news Umberto I'm fortunate enough to get a new system after years of waiting and I have to reinstall everything again soon, thanks for making everything better and easier for us its really appreciated.
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If I am switching my FSX from one hard-drive to another (no computer upgrading, already have 2 hard-drives), is it necessary to deactivate?
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If I am switching my FSX from one hard-drive to another (no computer upgrading, already have 2 hard-drives), is it necessary to deactivate?
No, if you don't reinstall Windows, it won't use an activation.
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Well in my case I built a new computer with all new parts and have broken down my old one and wiped them the drives clean but I still have all my scenery installers, Do I need to just reinstall?
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Well in my case I built a new computer with all new parts and have broken down my old one and wiped them the drives clean but I still have all my scenery installers, Do I need to just reinstall?
You just reinstall the Trial and activate it using your Serial Number.
As explained in this thread, to use the user-controlled Deactivation, you have to deactivate the scenery when is still active on the old system. If you can't do this anymore for any reasons, that's not a problem, you will just consume 1 activation when reinstalling on the new system, of the 6 you have available.
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For overclocking a computer is it necessary to do so? (software and hardware is already-installed, just want to test out how sceneries work prior to overclocking my new card)
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Overclocking doesn't affect activation. If if did, I guess we would have heard plenty of complains by now, since many users overclock their system...
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All greetings!
At me in the house two computers and on both computers stand scenes, thus for each scene I fairly used 2 activation. But me it is not clear a little, whether it is possible to make, that when I will buy within the next few days the new computer and I activate there my bought airports, the quantity of registration for the airports remains in number of 2 times? If it is possible, it becomes by means of a choice "Addon menager-> the necessary airport-> Deactivate"?
regards :)
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To use the Deactivate feature, you need to be on the old computer, when the scenery is active. Doing this, will remove the activation on the old computer, so your available activations will increase by 1 and the scenery will go back in Trial mode on the old computer.
After you install the new computer, activate the scenery normally, this will use 1 activation so, if you use the Deactivate feature, you can change your system without consuming any activations.
It's very similar to the system iTunes use: you have 5 activations there (we give 6...), and you can deactivate a system before upgrading it, selling it, dispose of it, to reclaim its activation.
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To use the Deactivate feature, you need to be on the old computer, when the scenery is active. Doing this, will remove the activation on the old computer, so your available activations will increase by 1 and the scenery will go back in Trial mode on the old computer.
After you install the new computer, activate the scenery normally, this will use 1 activation so, if you use the Deactivate feature, you can change your system without consuming any activations.
It's very similar to the system iTunes use: you have 5 activations there (we give 6...), and you can deactivate a system before upgrading it, selling it, dispose of it, to reclaim its activation.
Thanks for a definite answer!
And if I have a crash to windows ( or hard disk)? What to do in this case?
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And if I have a crash to windows ( or hard disk)? What to do in this case?
Reinstalling Windows requires reactivation but, it's not certain if will count as a new activation, I guess it's different if you just reformat your old hard drive or you buy a new one.
Crashes are one reason we provide 6 activations to begin with. On an ideal world with no crashes or hardware failures, we could give just 1 activation, because with the deactivate feature it should be enough for 1 user, maybe 2 for a 2nd PC, and that's it.
And of course, those 6 activations are not for the life of the product, don't forget that, if more than 90 days passed since the last time you have been granted an activation, you'll be automatically reactivated anyway even if you used all the 6 activations, because the oldest one will be reclaimed without the need to deactivate yourself.
And, of course, you can always contact us asking for a manual reactivation, even if you consumed all your 6 and even if less than 90 days have passed from the last activation.
It's really not possible being in a situation you can't use the product with our method, users mistakenly think it's "complex", but only because it has a lot of backup and safety features built in.
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Thanks big!
I wait for new scenery ::).
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Hi Virtuali, don't know if this is the right section for my question. But I would like to have your advise before doing anything like reactivation.
Since last night I get the "mismatch machine error 25007" when starting up FS9.1 This is for all the sceneries I bought from FSDT except KLAX. Funny detail, it also asks for the Cloud 9 reactivation of EHAM and KLAX, while no longer installed for a long time. Of course I spelled the forum for this error. But the point is that there was no change whatever on my hardware nor did I have a system crash. All sceneries are in the register.
1)How is this possible?
2)Should I simply re-activate all?
Thanks,
Tompie
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The 25007 code means there WAS an hardware change. Maybe you haven't done it yourself, but something in your system changed and reported a new hardware id for some items.
It's possible this might be caused by buggy drivers, possibly ide or sata drivers, bios acpi drivers, a bios reflash, etc. it doesn't happen under normal conditions.
However, even if you get that message and reactivate, it's not necessarily mean it will *consume* one of your activations, because the system might still recognize it as a minor update so, it's never a problem, usually.
It's absolutely normal you would get a prompt to reactivate Cloud9 products you have uninstalled. When you uninstall, your Serial Number is NOT removed from the registry, and rightly so because if it was, you would then have to reactivate every time you want to uninstall/reinstall a scenery, perhaps just for test reasons.
If you want to really uninstall and remove the Serial in the registry too, that's precisely what the deactivate function does: it will remove your Serial Number and its activation from the registry so, on top of reclaiming one activation for further use, it will not prompt to reactivate a product you removed, in case an hardware change is detected.
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Thanks Umberto. However still sounds strange to me that my PC does things I am not aware of or even have no influence on.
I'll try and solve the issue.
Tompie
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OK....Great. I just saw this. I've been going batty trying to get my scenery's ReActivated after having gone thru numerous uninstalls, re-installs. Had no idea that there was a limit to activations. I kept my licences, assuming that anytime I need them to activate on an updated system, or after reinstalling due to crashes... I would have it. Paid for it and not using on any other systems. Always, just installed on one system at a time. So, I'm not quite sure why you limit the number of activations in the first place once we've purchased the product. However, now (7 years ago!) you offer a round about fix. OK. But, this is not working for me because I can't get my sceneries to reactivate at all now.
Please help!
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Had no idea that there was a limit to activations. I kept my licences, assuming that anytime I need them to activate on an updated system, or after reinstalling due to crashes... I would have it.
http://www.fsdreamteam.com/faq.html
It's true I'm not free to change hardware by using this purchasing system?
We chose to offer a very liberal licensing policy regarding activations: there are 6 activations available per order, coupled with auto-reclaim every 90 days. This means, in general, that you can change your hardware up to 6 times in a 90 days period, without running into activation issues.
So, I'm not quite sure why you limit the number of activations in the first place once we've purchased the product
For the obvious reason of preventing sharing the serial number with the whole world. Each and every software out there has some kind of activation limit. The difference is, many of them don't even advertise it clearly, like we do.
However, now (7 years ago!) you offer a round about fix.
Exactly, the ability to Deactivate was added 7 years ago...
But, this is not working for me because I can't get my sceneries to reactivate at all now.
That's because you never used the Deactivate function before reinstalling. Yes, the one available since 2011...Of course, for any issues related to orders, you should not use the forum, and use the support email instead, which is listed both in your purchase receipt and in the "Contact us" page of this site.
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Hi Umberto,
I have a old Dead email associated with most of the scenery I have purchased from you. I need to change it so I can download them again. I just did a complete clean install of windows and P3D. Can you help?
Scott
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You must contact support by email for any questions about reactivation, indicating:
- the old mail you use
- the new one you want to change your existing orders to
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question i installed V5 on a diverent drive how can the scenery be installed cause its still installing it on V4.5
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question i installed V5 on a diverent drive how can the scenery be installed cause its still installing it on V4.5
I'm not sure what do you mean with "still installing it on V4.5":
- If you mean "inside the P3D 4.5 root folder", our installer doesn't install like that. It installs in a shared folder, which by default is C:\Program Files (x86)\Addon Manager, which will contain all FSDT products, with all different variations ( when required ) of files used by all different simulators you use.
When you install the first FSDT product in your system, you CAN change this folder, which can be anywhere, and changing it to be "inside" the root of the simulator, is probably the worse choice you can do.
- If you mean "in their own folder, but activated in 4.5", if you are starting an FSDT installer, and you don't see the option to "install" into P3D V5 ( which doesn't mean "installing inside its folder" ), the only possible explanations is that you are using an outdated installer that supports only P3D V4, so you must download the updated installer.
So, in order to install into V5, the only thing you should do, is to download the latest installer for P3D4/5, and this will surely "install" in P3D V5.
If you originally decided you didn't like the default install in C:\Program Files (x86)\Addon Manager, and changed it to the worse possible choice of installing INTO the V4 folder, I can see how this can be very confusing to you, and that's precisely why I said installing INTO the sim is probably the worse possible choice, because you are likely to assume the products are installed *there* ( and there only ), when in fact that is supposed to be a shared folder for all simulators, which HAPPENED to end up inside one of the simulators own root folder, just because you told the installer to do that.
So yes, while IT IS possible to have an FSDT installation INSIDE the V4 folder, that can be used by V5 ( provided you used the latest installer, and asked to install in V5 ), it's extremely confusing and messy. There IS a reason why our installer suggest a folder completely outside the sim.
So, if you are in the situation you must remedy your initial mistake of not accepting the default installation folder, and want to redo everything from scratch, do as follows:
- Uninstall every FSDT product you have. Every scenery and GSX
- Reply YES to the question "Do you want to remove the Addon Manager ?". THIS IS IMPORTANT, if you skip this step, you won't be able to freely choose a folder when reinstalling
- Reinstall all your FSDT products again, and this time either accept the default installation folder, or any other folder, but don't select the simulator folder. If you have a separate disk with more space, just select that disk root, it will create an Addon Manager folder inside, and this is also perfectly fine.
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Hello, I tried to make a purchase GSX + GSX L2 by Paypal several times and I couldn't, I entered all the data and nothing. I would like to know why? Thanks
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Hello, I tried to make a purchase GSX + GSX L2 by Paypal several times and I couldn't, I entered all the data and nothing. I would like to know why?
You must understand that, nothing related to the actual purchase process happens under out control or on our site. Your are buying from Digital River, on Digital River site, and we don't have any details about your payment or how it works, we only get notified by Digital River after the whole transaction that happened on their site completes.
So, for any questions about the actual payment process, I suggest to contact Digital River here:
https://www.mycommerce.com/shopper-support/
Compile the "Still need help?" form.
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mine is running well, thanks mate