actually guys the copy protection is a bit naff

Amaury · Post by **Amaury** » Wed May 30, 2007 8:50 am

Hi,

Just to be clear: there are generally people checking for emergency unlocks even on WE, as a matter of fact, Forge had his unlocks on Saturday afternoon - and also, for the people gigging: once again, it is absolutely no problem gigging with Live in demo mode. It is fully functional, has no limitation but saving, but I don't think a lot of people save their gigs? You can open your sets, record audio and so on. Just in case of emergency.

Regards,
Amaury

forge · Post by **forge** » Wed May 30, 2007 1:04 pm

Amaury wrote:Hi,

Just to be clear: there are generally people checking for emergency unlocks even on WE, as a matter of fact, Forge had his unlocks on Saturday afternoon - and also, for the people gigging: once again, it is absolutely no problem gigging with Live in demo mode. It is fully functional, has no limitation but saving, but I don't think a lot of people save their gigs? You can open your sets, record audio and so on. Just in case of emergency.

Regards,
Amaury

true - but I then had to reinstall windows again after Christian kindly helped me on the weekend, but this time lost not only operator but EIC and Sampler too!

and for that unlock I got it tueday

nobody is questioning the great service of Abe

really, just offering feedback - it would definitely be better to automate it somehow, then it also saves your time

it is sometimes the nature of reinstalling and configuring computers that some times people have to go through these experiences - like people who build a new PC or add a new processor or whatever - excited after spending all saturday building their brand new 26 core positronic monster only to power it on saturday night and find they cant use the 287 instances of Operator racks they wanted to try!

sometimes unforseen things happen when tinkering - like the case for me trying to get a dual boot on a brand new machine that doesnt even have XP drivers, accidentally deleting or moving a key boot file

vista has changed the system significantly so mistakes can be made

And the need to reinstall can also happen unexpectedly sometimes for people when it's not convenient

to be honest I never realised before Live's unlock wasnt done on hardware - if it was I could have installed on this machine as many times as I like with the same unlock

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:59 am

There are easier ways to go about these goals.

XP and Vista very happily co exist on a single hard drive using hidden partitions. You can set this up with Partition Magic or any number of other partition managers. You end up with two separate OS installs that are unaware of each other, and a choice of OS from a menu at startup. This is the only fool proof way to go multi OS with MS.

Once you have setup your partitions, installed and registered your apps, then use an image app such as Ghost to image the drive, and then put it away on external media somewhere. If you need to blat your drive back to a known working state, then just restore the partition, with the programs already registered and away you go.

This may or may not work after hardware changes.

IF you want to get even trickier, then before you image, make a small say 5 gig partition for your windows installation, and install all of your apps and your Live Library to a different partition. As long as you dont move your drive letters around, you should be able to image over that C partition with your backup, and all programs will point to the right places. The big advantage is that then you only have to image a small C drive, not a massive partition that contains everything.

There are several great articles on the web for this sort of setup, if anyone is having trouble finding them or wrapping their head around it, let me know.

My C drive recently became corrupted and couldnt boot. I loaded the last good image over it, which took less than 30 minutes, and I was making music within the hour. This setup takes a fair bit of work in the beginning but the confidence of knowing you will never have to spend your weekend reinstalling and re registering is more than worth it!

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 12:37 pm

Poster wrote:
hoffman2k wrote:That actually works/worked.
I think I did that once with Live 4.
Made a backup of all the prefs and .cfg files. Did an OS reinstall and placed them all back. Live didn't notice a thing.
If that doesn't work now, it might be due to hidden files or something you forgot to back up. Or it simply doesn't work and I have a bad memory.
I believe that it worked on the G5, but the same backup didn't work on my G4.
I did a OS reinstall 2 weeks ago..
I knew I was out of unlocks so I emailed Support if they could add one..
I also asked if I could just collect all related files and put them back afterwards..
They said this is impossible..

It might have worked prior to L6 though..

I've done it several times, but I don't think I've formatted since v6 came out. Will soon though... hmm.

frugalpole · Post by **frugalpole** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 3:57 pm

noisetonepause wrote:
Poster wrote:
hoffman2k wrote:That actually works/worked.
I think I did that once with Live 4.
Made a backup of all the prefs and .cfg files. Did an OS reinstall and placed them all back. Live didn't notice a thing.
If that doesn't work now, it might be due to hidden files or something you forgot to back up. Or it simply doesn't work and I have a bad memory.
I believe that it worked on the G5, but the same backup didn't work on my G4.
I did a OS reinstall 2 weeks ago..
I knew I was out of unlocks so I emailed Support if they could add one..
I also asked if I could just collect all related files and put them back afterwards..
They said this is impossible..

It might have worked prior to L6 though..
I've done it several times, but I don't think I've formatted since v6 came out. Will soon though... hmm.

this is a big question for me right now. i need to reauthorize the same computer that is already authorized. i thought it authorized to a machine number?

can anyone confirm that my unlock.cfg file used on the same machine will allow me to reauthorize?

jasefos · Post by **jasefos** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 1:51 am

I must say it would be GREAT to have the OPTION of using a dongle in preference to Challenge/Response.

Cycling '74 and Izotope allow the user to optionally (permanently) their license(s) into an iLok dongle.

For those of us using other dongled software, provided one of the current standards is used (iLok or Syncro being the 2 most widely used) there would be no further inconvenience suffered.

I like portable licenses - it makes moving from one computer to the next painless and is very convenient should you need to reinstall your OS or if you have multiple OSs on the one system to authorise software on.

Cheers

onslaught · Post by **onslaught** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 11:41 am

1. Get new laptop, install Live.
2. One week later, install Mac OS X 10.5 on a new partition, install Live on this partition.
3. Next week, discover problem the computer, have to get logic board replaced.
4. Next week, get laptop back, install latest Live 7 beta discover Sampler has used all it's unlocks and stays in demo mode.
5. Open Live 6, it's also in demo mode.
6. Boot into 10.4, to use Live there, it's also in demo.
7. Finally work out it's cause of the hardware change, but it's now Saturday morning.

Please set up some sort of weekend unlock system. I realize I am in unlucky position, but it really sucks not to be able to use software one has paid for.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 1:31 pm

did you mail support? there's a reasonable chance they are in the office working toward L7 launch

support@ableton.com

forge · Post by **forge** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 1:46 pm

also, you probably got a 'beta' Sampler serial with all the others - have another look in case you missed it!

forge · Post by **forge** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 2:40 pm

funny you bump this though - I recently flattened my HD and now have 3 seperate OSes on my computer - just went to unlock on Vista and I've run out of unlocks

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 4:02 pm

my sampler's out also

onslaught · Post by **onslaught** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 7:11 am

Angstrom wrote:did you mail support? there's a reasonable chance they are in the office working toward L7 launch

support@ableton.com

Sure did

That's the first thing I did. Still waiting by the way.

edit:
Actually it was customercare@ableton.com that i sent the email to, as this was the email address that appeared in the alert window within Live. I got a automated reply, so I know it got through.

forge · Post by **forge** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:57 pm

forge wrote:funny you bump this though - I recently flattened my HD and now have 3 seperate OSes on my computer - just went to unlock on Vista and I've run out of unlocks

hmm....I just came to bump, and saw that I posted this last time - but I only have unlocked XP and Vista so far afaik - so does that mean we only have4 one unlock now?

now I just tried to unlock in OSX and I have run out

in these days of intel macs that people could easily have 3 OSes installed

maybe 3 unlocks would be better until the unlocking system is better:

Dear Ableton Customer,

Happy holidays from the Ableton Customer Care Team! Thanks for contacting us;
we always appreciate hearing from our customers directly.

Due to the holiday season, our responses may be delayed.

The Ableton office will be closed for the winter holidays from December 24th
to December 26th, and again from December 31st to January 1st. Regular office
hours will resume on January 2nd.

In the meantime, you may find our website helpful:

forge · Post by **forge** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 1:58 am

just to add

I'd still like the option of installing it on 2 computers so just 3 unlocks wouldnt be sufficient

really what we need is for the unlock to be global for the computer so that no matter how many OSes are installed on the one machine 1 unlock will do them all - or the online activation system somehow recognises that it is the same machine

smutek · Post by **smutek** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 7:50 pm

Maybe a system sort of like Adobe uses would work. If you know you are about to wipe your disk, or install on a new machine you have the option of de-authorizing the software before uninstall. Doing this will free up an unlock for the new machine/install.

For example, in your case Forge, before wiping your disk you would run an Ableton uninstall application during which you would be prompted to de-authorize you're machine and free up an unlock for the next install.

People who's machines have crashed or otherwise been unexpectedly rendered inoperable would still have to deal with contacting support manually, but at least a good percentage of users who are doing planned re-installs would be covered.