A lot of people in this thread complain about Adobe's handling of this, but my experience has been it is really very good. I've been a long time Adobe customer too. The way it works is you are permitted to activate their software on the number of computers specified in the user license agreement. It's usually two -- one desktop and typically a laptop. I have all my Adobe software active on two computers for a single serial number.

Sony could do the same thing and save their paying customers the grief of contacting support, getting lucky if support is not busy, and possibly getting a response the next business day. It's certainly doable and would improve customer satisfaction. Why not just do it?

I hate the activation rigmarole that some software providers make you go through. I think that these days you must be connected to the internet to activate Adobe software. Is that right? This would present a difficulty for me. My video editing computer does not have internet access so I don't need to use antivirus software and the never ending stream of security updates to Windows and other apps. My hack computer (as in a hack horse) does have antivirus software and I notice it when it gets in the way.

I can activate SCS software for my video computer easily via my hack computer and that suits me fine. In fact if I make no major change to my video computer I can reuse my old activation code without referring back to Sony.

I have reinstalled Vegas a few times over the years but never had to contact SCS for anything.

SCS PLEASE DON'T CHANGE YOUR ACTIVATION PROCEDURE!

Nothing fishy is going on.

You don't need to spend any more time on this, as you suggested.

The first thing one needs to do to get out of a hole is to stop digging.

I thought you were going to stop posting?

If you're going to continue, try re-reading what I posted. If you cannot comprehend, I can explain it a little slower.

Thanks.

i'd really stop digging that hole jamil..... ;-)

obviously you are of a minority view hereabouts.

"Too many activation codes" means that your product has been registered with different, unique computer IDs more than the maximum count allowed. Often, this is simply the result of a PC that continually fails and must be reformatted, requiring our software to be reinstalled. Submit an incident to customer service to get this issue resolved.

Now I'm done. Really.

It looks like you're correct I'm in the minority for a small number who has posted in this thread anyway. Although not everyone has stated he or she is totally against me asking for a way to make this process better. Right now, it does not compare to the way other software companies do it.

Too bad this post does absolutely nothing to help me. I'm still waiting for Sony's support to get back to me on this issue.

Did I mention to you that I successfully installed and activated Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Acrobat Standard X on this same desktop?

As fas as I know, the computer you wish to activate an Adobe product on needs an Internet connection just for activation. At least for my laptop, I use my Adobe software with it being offline, and it functions fine. It doesn't open a web page or anything of that nature. It only makes a connection to Adobe's server to activation.

"Too bad this post does absolutely nothing to help me."

Did you really expect a user to user forum to be able to help with activation problems (other than ignorance of procedures)? Whatever the company, you will have to deal directly with them.

My point was that his post did not help the discussion at all and there really was no point in posting it. That's all. Actually, my original post was really straight forward and did not ask anyone for help at all :-)

A newby question.

How do I activate or use the 'authentication code'?

I have now done some 8 or so fresh installs of Vegas Pro 11 and every time I had done a factory reset of my machine. I am able to register the software but then I get an email with 'Autehntication code'. The email says it completes the registration process and that I should activate by entering this Authentication code. There is no mention of where this 'authentication code' needs to be entered and how to complete the activation process.

Is activation different from the registration process where it takes the machine id and the Serial Number?

Any idea on what to do when I get an authentication code. If I go to Sony website and select hte option under 'Register software', It makes me enter the Machine Id and Serial Number and sends me another authentication code with instruction to 'activate'.

Thanks.

I think Adobe's activation process has gotten a little better over the last few versions. Back in the CS2 era, any change to your hardware configuration seemed to trigger a reactivation. For example, you might open your laptop on a flight, plug in an external drive, and your suite would be deactivated because of the hardware change. You'd have to wait until you landed to fix it.

My current experience with CS4 is that it constantly detects updates to install but never successfully installs them. It's a waste of time trying. Extension manager? Won't start. I'm sure it could all be fixed but it works without any of this.

Jamil, if you replace a motherboard, that's a new computer. It sounds like you've replaced everything piecemeal except the chassis and I'm not surprised that Vegas has made new and unique Machine IDs each time you've reinstalled after a hardware change.

I sympathize though. It'd be more helpful if Vegas threw itself into something like a 5 day trial mode so that you'd be covered over a long weekend.

Rob Mack

"The title says it all. Adobe does this very well, and I think Sony should improve in this regard."

Agree with you. That some people here cannot even understand the simple concept that you're trying to get accross is rather alarming.
In fairness to SCS I have never had an activation problem with any of their products, thankfully because living on the other side of the international date line, the costs of making calls to the USA and them being closed for holidays I've never even heard of would make it a nightmare. At least Adobe are open 24/7, they know what it takes to service an international market.
I also have to ask why SCS don't use Live Chat or any of the live support tools that even I can manage to use to support my clients, nothing like being able to see first hand the problem happening.

One suggestion. Have you tried using Acronis to make a full backup of your system disk and then mirror that back, surely doing that avoids the problem of needing to useup another activation of SCS's products. You'e said this works fine for Adobe's products, it should also work for SCS's code as well.

If all else fails a quick Google will find an answer <wink>, <wink>.

Bob.

Thanks for the post, Bob.

The restored disk image would not work so great in this case due to me needing to do fresh installs. Although Acronis TrueImage does support restoring an image to different hardware, in the case of major hardware changes, I do not trust doing it.

I get your point regarding Google searching.

Thanks again.

"The restored disk image would not work so great in this case due to me needing to do fresh installs"

Why do you need to do so many fresh installs and of what, is it just Vegas or OS + Vegas?


Bob.

Thanks for the post, Rob.

Vegas reverting to a five day trial is actually a pretty good idea.

I appreciate your input.

My desktop went from WD Raptor hard drives to Intel SSD drives. After investigating a bit, I've learned that disk images for SSD drives are not the preferred way to go. For this one upgrade, I pretty much had to reinstall everything.

As for my hardware upgrades, I actually had a shop do all this work for me. I am very careful of protecting my licensed software, and the technician needed my Windows password. I basically changed my Windows password and deactivated all the licensed software that I could prior to giving the desktop to them. When I got my desktop back after their work (which was in many cases a replaced motherboard), I always wiped the drives and did a full reinstall from my Windows 7 DVD. My main reason for doing this was my security.

With this last work done, I most likely will not have to go through any of this again. My latest replaced motherboard is a very high quality one, and also there are no more hardware upgrades I really can make at this time. I should not have to go through this again (knocking on wood with crossed fingers).

Jamil says:
"After all these reinstalls, I only had one copy of the software active on this single computer. From the responses I see, I feel like some think if it's not broken, don't fix it. I think it is broken though, and other software handles this much better."

Maybe what is broken is your methodology.

I do disk imaging which DRASTICALLY cuts down on re-installs PERIOD. I keep a 500gig hard drive reserved for nothing but disk imaging and any time I make adjustment or installing of new programs, I do a disk image. I can completely and totally revert back a previous image any time I wish. And it's not like windows restore which does not revert back on certain things but rather reverts COMPLETELY.

When something screws up or my machine becomes slow I go back to my previous image and it's ALL new again. No re-installs... no need to worry about re-registering....etc

I am licensed to use Acronis TrueImage. It's not a good idea to use it on SSD drives though, which is what my desktop uses. You probably know that SSD drives have a limited lifetime during writing, which is why defragging them is also a bad idea.

Back when I had WD Raptors, yes -- I would have simply restored my backed up image and be done with it.

"Sony Can Learn From Adobe Re: Software Activations"

Yes - how NOT to do it. I have had nothing but problems with Adobe activate/deactivate.

"For my single desktop computer after having the hard drives upgraded, the CPU upgraded, the motherboards changed four or five times in total, the video cards changed.

Every change in hardware changes your hardware profile identifier - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724311%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Substantial changes (CPU, MB, or even the HDD) will look like a new computer to the installer. I and others have stated that we have reinstalled Vegas multiple times on the same PC without activation issues, but when you change the CPU or motherboard, it is a new pc. It probably looks to the activation process like you have installed your copy of Vegas on several PC's, triggering the additional step.

The one time I did get the activation problem, I called Customer Support and they reset my activation. The whole process took five minutes. Did you perhaps call "Technical Support", and not "Customer Support"?