My take on activations

from Stardock Forums

I notice a lot of requests for resetting of activations from people claiming to be reformatting/reinstalling the OS a number of times. Obviously this is true in many cases but I could be handing out copies of my serial number and later claim to have been reinstalling and get my activation count reset.

Why not include an option in Start8 to be able to deactivate an activated serial number ? With that people reinstalling their OS could deactivate before the reinstall and simply reactivate afterwards without affecting the activation count.

On another point regarding activation, I purchased my own copy for my work PC and liked it so much that I purchased another 10 licences through corporate pricing for use at work. When these licences are activated my email address and password have to be supplied !

Why require email and password to activate a licence ? Surely, based on the issued serial number, that information could be looked up transparently (if it is actually required) so I don't have to provide my private login details to other users in the company.

Cheers,

Brett

start8
3,537 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

The activation issue is a mess. The method they use is a mess. The fact that it takes them days to fix each request is a mess. And clogging up the technical forums with activation questions is a mess.

Start8 uses the MachineName and MachineSID as identifiers for activation. The latter changes with every windows installation, even to the same exact machine.

So, if you re-install windows a lot to the same machine, you're better off to do one installation, and then image it before you do anything to it, and then save that image for when you want to start fresh again (instead of re-installing windows from scratch). This will keep the same MachineName and MachineSID, so Start8 activation will stay the same.

Start8 would be better if it used something like a check of windows 8 product key, or maybe some other hardware identifier that doesn't change when the OS is installed again to the same machine.

As for me, I've given up trying to keep my Start8 and ModernMix activations working. 

 

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Why not include an option in Start8 to be able to deactivate an activated serial number ? With that people reinstalling their OS could deactivate before the reinstall and simply reactivate afterwards without affecting the activation count.
End of quote

We are always looking to improve the system and this is one option we are looking into.

I purchased another 10 licences through corporate pricing for use at work. When these licences are activated my email address and password have to be supplied !
End of quote

I would suggest creating a more generic account ("Stardock.fences@YOURCOMPANY.com"?) and using those credentials.

For larger deployments we have a license server.

 

Thanks for all the feedback though.  It does get noticed.

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop