I bought it and it's barely different. Mostly just had bugs that were not present in 3.

Will never buy a Stardock product again. I hate predatory tactics. I get it - at some point you have to make a new version and recharge for it. But in this case Fences 3 barely changed over time and 4 just barely adds anything new with maybe some Win 11 support...and you get a measly couple dollars off. Li9terally, 20% off but that's just $2. It should been 50% off at the very least.

Nah - I'm good.

I am not being hostile, I am just standing against bad business practices.

No one is "physically" forcing me yes, but by way of discontinuing support for the old version and requiring purchase of the new version that will be updated...yeah..that's as close to forcing as you can get.

Discontinued support for older versions is normal practice for most programs/apps out there, and may I add that Fences 3 is working very well for the vast majority of customers. My guess is you must be very content with Fences 3, since I can't find a single post from you in the Forum asking for help or pointing out bugs or other things not working for you regarding Fences 3.

Rest your case and move on.

This thread is about the differences between Fences 3 & 4, not about opinions of their pricing.

Hello everyone,

Even though I don't agree with hostile attitudes or rude behavior in general, I do want to show my discontentment with this practice.

I completely understand that Stardock has, in fact, as every other company in the world, to find ways to make money and fund development for its products. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to continue to see this product being continuously developed and improved, a strong community support, etc. All those things cost a lot of money and employees do have families to support and deserve our support.

I do not, however, understand the logic behind a 20% discount for current loyal customers and agree that we should have been more appreciated. I use Stardock products for more then 10 years now. Since the release of the first Windowblinds, where skins / desktop customization were all the rage [ deviantart anyone? ] . You can imagine my disappointment when I saw that I have to basically pay almost the same price as everybody else for continuing to have support for a product that I have already bought. I think that it might be worth it to review customer loyalty practices.     

That being said I am upgrading it anyway through Steam as i find it be a good product at a reasonable price for what it does. Please just don't create Fences 5 in a year or 2 with the same "discount".

just my 2 cents 

Steam clients received a 50% coupon for upgrading to Fences 4, not 20%.  We did that as we had to work out new deployment criteria that Valve has for software products.  It took us WAY longer than we would have liked - 8 months to be exact.  Since Fences 4 was discounted at Stardock, on top of it being discounted even further from sales during those months, we felt the 50% was where we wanted the discount to be for Steam clients for 30 days.

Thanks for the feedback and support, MySelf5646.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

I have Fences 3 on Steam.  

UPDATE:  I found the coupon.  Too bad it's not usable for the multi-device upgrade as well, so not really worth it.

Not gonna upgrade. I found itop easy desktop as a good alternative.

Interesting.  Can you tell us what you like about it more?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Well. I'm from Russia, and to buy fences 4(thanks that we can) it costs around 9-10 USD(4-5$ with coupon).
It can feel a bit terrible that you need to pay an extra fee for a minor features in fences 4, like windows 11 support(wasn't it in fences 3? How do i used it then). 

But from another side, to pay a 4-5$ fee, for a "~5 year subscription"(fences 1(2009), fences 2(2012), fences 3(2017) and fences 4(2022)) it's not a big deal, to make company stay safe and make an amazing software to help me be "sorted" and feel comfortable when i'm using my PC, and yet it's only the begining of fences 4. so, maybe we will have other features in the future.

Just please, don't make strange decisions, like when you made a "DeskScapes" and then block fences to be compatible with other similar to "DeskScapes" programs(but for a short period of time).

P.S.: sorry my main languages are russian and bulgarian, and i can have some grammatical issues

I probably will upgrade it if it was only <5 dollars, but in I bought the license last year and in just a few months they ask me to pay the same price again with the upgrade.

Look at Dopus for instance, they offer constant upgrades for free, that is the way to trust a developer, if you do something really major then we can pay for an upgrade but having to pay for the same product twice is ridiculous and make us look for alternatives.

The problem is that you are trying to earn on the product with minimal own contribution and using the situation with the appearance of Windows 11.

You have to adapt to it, so you have to kill few birds with one stone. It is also very important that the update is not really an update because you are TAKING something that customers already have. 1 out of 5 devices remains - so after update becomes product with much worse licence.

It is:

• expensive,
• unchanged,
• and out of necessity Microsoft put you in front of you (Win11),
• you withdraw your customers' licenses for other devices and yo,
• do not allow the votes of those who paid you.

Stardock... you are you are walking towards the abyss.

@mich4u

That Fences is 'unchanged' between versions 3 and 4 is just not true.

Also, we do not 'withdraw' anyone's license for any reason. 

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

@sdRohan

OK Fences changed...your are right.. but it's really little change. Much bigger change is downgrading licence from 5 to 1 device and hudge price increase for update and for new licences.

It's your choice how you approach clients ... the path may not seem right to me (and as I can see even here also for others), but I guess your accountant probably calculated his own way.

Did you know Fences have free alternative

Moderator: Link removed as the software mentioned is a rip of Fences.

'She' did 😉

But this is a question of value and how people use Fences. 

Of course. It's a far cry from what we offer but we welcome the comparison. Can you give us your impressions of the product after you installed \ used it?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

this software looks like a cheap copy. I have tried it and uninstalled it. But it is very similar to yours.

@sdRohan:

I can make tests and compare both products,  for you.

If you are interested and want to know what's on market and how far from Fences is Easy Desktop just write to me. For sure we will we'll come to an agreement...

I was just looking to upgrade to Fences 4 but checked the forums first because I was confused over licensing and found this thread about the downgrade of the 5 licenses to 1 after license upgrade.

so licensing change is affecting existing customers right, it seems a bit silly if it is!? If it does than I currently have it installed on 4 devices, so the "upgrade" would actually cost me £35.96 or I can buy the product again like new and get it for £31.49 if I buy the Multi-Device license.

That's a very steep "upgrade" cost! 

Edit - Just found the previous email and the upgrade price from 2 to 3 was $4.99! Upgrade now is around 6x more than it was previously. I must be missing something here???

@davidpitt03

You are not missinig anything.

Stardock started to pretend to be Adobe / Autodesk with prices. They forget to create really valuable product first and that Fances is just small gadget for desktop.  Without even one serious update since beginning.

I really have hope new upgrade policy is mistake.

I agree, they prefer a 1% update at that price than 50% at a fair price. I stick with the old version just because I think it is not a reasonable price.

Asking for 5-20% of what they paid initially should be much fair for the update

Strangely enough I have received an email for a promo on Fences 4 while I haven't received an email from Stardock for years! Why is that?

Curious I wanted to learn more on Fences 4 but I have a 5 licences v3 and when I go on the Fences 4 page I'm only offered and upgrade price for the single licence? Why is that? Make no sense.

Bye!

Hello,

Please refer here: https://forums.stardock.com/508196/fences-4-upgrade-faq

Thank you.
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

As it is coming up to black Friday, I thought I'd come and check if there was any offers to upgrade to version 4.  I started with the free version 1. Bought version 2 (Multiple license's) and upgraded them to 3. Not that I have had issues, but I knew that version 3 was out of support and generally better to have the newest version, but I could not stomach the price for zero more features I would use.

Low and behold the beta for version 5 is out and us loyal customers have been rewarded with Stardock trying to drive us to a subscription model. (I googled changes between 3 and 5 and ended up here)

Yes, you can buy Fences 5 outright at 3 x the subscription price, but version 4 is only around 1.5 years old so they are really trying to make that a rip off, so that the subscription is the "value" product. Version 2 lasted 2.5 years before being superseded and Version 3 which went for 6 years. With Windows 12 just around the corner, could fences 6 may not be far behind. depending on compatibility of 5!!

Such a high price to upgrade for features many won't use plus a subscription model is really making this product unpalatable.  

From my point of view, the cost to benefit ratio no longer adds up  for Fences 5.

Really disappointed, but it's Stardock's product to do with as they will.  

Here we are again. Another new version and must re-buy again. 

Bought 3 and 4 now I have to buy 5 if I want new features. Not going to purchase any Stardock product ever again. I understand it's a business, but not a customer oriented one so I will avoid.

Oh wow. Not only that but it's a freaking SUBSCRIPTION. So now not only do you have to buy something you already bought multiple times, but you have to buy it every year.

Yeah, get lost.

Installed it, and it looks a bit like Fences, without many of the pluses Fences has.

On using the Windows unistaller, 449 files and 13 registry entries were left over which Iobit Uninstaller 12 removed successfully.