ShadowProtect - Activation

The activation of ShadowProtect Desktop doesn't work properly.
Today, I uninstalled ShadowProtect and tried to install it again.

The on-line activation didn't work anymore.
So I logged in my personal account at Storage Craft and gave my full name, email-address, serial number, machine ID and version number and clicked on the submit-button and I didn't make any mistake.
I got a message that the activation key will be sent by email.
I didn't get that email.
So I tried several times again : no email with activation key.
Why don't they give me that activation key on their website, so I can copy/paste it to the activation screen of SP. After all I gave my name, email-address, serial number and Machine ID. Isn't that enough to verify ME and MY COMPUTER.

Then I contacted support of storagecraft.

That's not my problem, they created the problem by not sending me an email with the activation key.
This also indicates that the number of activation is LIMITED.
The email didn't gave me an activation key either and this is called "support".

So the on-line activation does NOT work and the manual activation does NOT work either and I can NOT use ShadowProtect anymore, because I can't activate it.
I do understand that they want to protect their software and like to do it complicated, but then they have to make it work and it doesn't work.

Although their software under Windows didn't work anymore due to the missing activation key, I could nevertheless RESTORE an old image of my system partition with the Recovery CD.
Now I can backup and restore again with ShadowProtect under Windows, but that was not my intention. I wanted to re-install ShadowProtect like any other software.
Suppose I was re-installing my computer from scratch and I was unable to make any clean backup.

So the Recovery CD doesn't seem to need that activation key, which doesn't make sense to me, because the software itself is well protected under Windows, while the Recovery CD isn't.

 

Yup, being honest customer is a pain in the ass

I bought Shadowprotect yesterday and did a mistake downloading the files (from their webpage) twice, I even stopped one download within seconds but it still counted as a download :/ so now I only have three downloads left. But that is not as bad as your luck. I made ten copies of the files and spread them everywhere I could (DVD, CD, online harddrive, USBdrive, USB stick, gmail, hotmail and a couple of other free email providers with free space) so I probably never will have to download them again from stragecraft
I just hope I never by another computer so I have to reinstall the software

 

Indeed. In that case you will have at least two problems :
1. the Machine ID won't match anymore.
2. to get the activation key.
The software is pretty good, but to get it re-installed is a nightmare.
It's certainly NOT a practical system and the problem is that you have to find the right person to solve this. The support couldn't solve it otherwise I would have my activation key already. The only thing I can do is keep on emailing until the problem is solved.
StorageCraft seems to think that ONE installation is enough and when somebody installs it more than once, they get suspicious.

 

You can install SP from the recovery CD [there is a .exe on it] just throw
the CD in while in windows and see what happen,though i guess it should not expand the timelimit,maybe i am wrong on this,just try it.

 

I know that but then I get activation key problem again. As far as I can think, each re-installation = ANOTHER activation key.
So each time you want to re-install you have to request a new activation key via their website, the problem is I didn't get that email.
There is something wrong with their AUTOMATIC emailing for sending the activation key.

I can try your solution, but I'm almost sure it won't work, because you need both keys. Besides, that would be a workaround and doesn't solve the problem.

 

Well, I find this entire discussion extremely disturbing. It is unfortunate, since I was very much interested in purchasing the product after the release of v3.

I asked "Nate" about the re-install scenario on the SC support forum. He indicated that he didn't believe it would be a problem as it would be "only fair" to allow users to transfer their license to another PC in the event the need arose. Now, however, it appears as if that *would* be a problem.

Frankly, I find this issue confounding. This software costs $70 which, as has been pointed out, is considerably more than competing products. One rationale for the higher price involved support costs (i.e. the company wanted to ensure they could provide the proper level of support for users). In light of Erik's issue, that rationale does not appear to be justified. I mean, how can they justify charging more for "better support" when they can't get an activation key to a customer via e-mail

 

I have already contacted support on Sunday and they know I still don't have an activation key. But if I don't get a decent answer I will email again.
I had troubles with getting a serial number also, but that was MY mistake.

This is about the activation key and it doesn't work. I just followed the instructions on the website with the exact data, but never got my email with the activation key.
Maybe I'm the first user at Wilders, who tries to re-install ShadowProtect and that's probably the reason why this has never been mentioned.
After all you don't re-install ShadowProtect every day.
I only tested this, because I'm planning a re-install in september and I'm glad I did it.
I need ShadowProtect to take my clean images and I can only takes these images during an install from scratch.
So this problem MUST be fixed, not only for me, but also for other users.
One day these users have to re-install SP also.

 

I know there are mechanisms built into the activation process to deal with re-activation. If this isn't resolved by Monday please let me know. I know the developer who works on the activation stuff and if there is a real problem i can get it fixed asap. Erik, I'm sorry you have had so many problems with activation. It's very puzzling. We rarely have such issues, even with reactivations.

 

I'm sorry, I must have been unclear when I mentioned this. The price is not "high" in order to have additional resources for support. But rather one of the reasons the price is NOT LOW is that if it was very low then it would be purchased by a lot of end/home users and we really aren't trying to target that demographic (we target the enterprise). Also, frankly, we feel that the functionality is so good and solid that it merits the cost.

I think I said something (in response to questions about lowering the price) to the effect that I doubted the price would go down because it would just bring in more customers of the wrong type. I know that may sound crazy, but it's an unfortunate business reality that we have to stay highly focused on enterprise customers. That being said, we still do a lot to cater to other types of users, even if it's not in our business' best interest.

I probably shouldn't be commenting on this. I develop the software. I don't market or sell it or set its price, so in the end I'm only speculating on the reasons for the pricing.

 

on the promotial side of this product,i think SP get alot of attention here at wilders , and many here are involved or have connections to IT in big company's so it would be wise to solve these issues quick.

 

I absolutely agree that this software is worth every penny, I would even pay a bit more if I had to.

I understand that a software company wants to protect their work. But it is indeed a sad fact that it is us paying customers that "suffer" from the protective actions. I often wonder if they really do help though.

I´m sure it is just a simple glitch in the system and hope that it is swiftly resolved coz it is no fun ending up in these catch 22 situations. My experience with the support this weekend is good so far though, got a fast response that solved my problem (it was just me not using my brain that caused it )

 

Another possible reason is your spam blocker from Telenet.
Did you recently change anything inside Mijn Telenet?
If so, I should warn you that whenever you change anything there, your spam blocker is activated again (= bug).
If it's active, that message could be considered spam and as a result it's gone forever.

Not saying that's the case, but better check it to make sure.

 

Yes I changed it back and Telenet shouldn't block my spams anymore.

Do you really consider this as a GOOD solution, that a customer is FORCED by StorageCraft, to disable the spam blocking of his ISP
I don't think my ISP is the problem. There is something wrong with automatic emails of StorageCraft. I receive the manual emails of StorageCraft's support, but I don't receive the automatic emails.

Do you really consider this as a SAFE solution, that StorageCraft is sending emails with "serial numbers" and "activation keys" all over the internet, while they want to protect their software
Any employee working at an ISP can read these emails and abuse or sell that information.

I have a better suggestion to solve BOTH problems, once and for all.

 

The final result of my experience is that I'm now AFRAID to re-install ShadowProtect. That is the very first time I'm afraid of installing a software.

StorageCraft targets COMPANIES, but StorageCraft seems to forget that lots of home-users are working at COMPANIES and when these home-users are very happy with ShadowProtect, they will talk about it at work and try to get it at work also.

 

Yes, but could you make sure it isn't active anymore. It won't be the first time it resets itself.

It's not StorageCraft who's forcing you to disable your spam blocker from your ISP.
It happens with lots of other companies from which I received order confirmations, including the license key. That's not StorageCraft's fault that your ISP blocks 'Spam'. Every spam blocker makes mistakes, so that's not different from the one Telenet's using.

I de-activated that spam blocker long ago and regularly I check to make sure it stays that way. You never know it will re-activate on its own.

That doesn't mean a thing. I also received messages which weren't marked as spam and others from the same company were marked spam.

Safe, I don't know, but I don't think employees from an ISP would read all those messages. It could happen, but that's searching it a bit far IMO.

Each company uses different strategies to protect their software. Even then they don't succeed, but it minimizes the loss however.

Let' s hear it, I'm curious to know you could offer them something bullet-proof.

 

Simple : StorageCraft stops with sending emails and displays the activation key on the website after the customer logged in with his name and password.

To get the activation key the customer has to mention first :
1. Full Name
2. Email-address (for verification only)
3. Serial Number
4. Machine ID
5. Version number of ShadowProtect
If one or more data is wrong, you don't get an activation key.
If all data is correct you get an activation key on another webpage and you can copy/paste it to anywhere you want it in your computer.
You already have to give these 5 data, but you don't get an activation key, instead of that you get a message that you will receive an email with the activation key.

No emailing anymore and no possible spam problems anymore for all customers in the world.
Only one person has seen the activation key : the customer.
The customer doesn't have to wait and gets his activation key IMMEDIATELY and that's what the customer wants because he is installing ShadowProtect. Everybody HAPPY.
The same procedure can be used for the "serial number", if the customer pays with a credit card.

The Machine ID makes it impossible to install ShadowProtect on another computer, so StorageCraft doesn't need to limit the number of activations, because it can only be installed on ONE computer and the customer can install ShadowProtect as many times he wants but only on ONE computer. Everybody HAPPY.

It would be nice to know in advance, what StorageCraft will do if I buy a new computer with another Machine ID. I hope I don't have to buy SP again.

 

You make it sound so simple, but there's one deciding factor as to why they would implement this technique and that's how much this will cost to generate those keys online for their customers.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but whether it will ever be so is up to ShadowProtect and other companies, some of which don't have the funds to pay for such.

I even ask myself, if it's technically possible to provide an activation key this way.

You could always contact them to discuss your idea.

 

That is NOT my idea.
Since I have my new computer, I bought several softwares on the internet and some websites display the serial number immediately and send even an email afterwards. So it can be done.
A computer can do alot of things, but not every programmer is smart enough to know how to do it.
Application analysts always provide the ideas behind an application, the programmer only has to translate these ideas in a computer language.

Acronis has such a website already and some companies have a better bookkeeping than others.

 

Erik, I've asked the engineer who works on the activation functionality to address your issue personally. We rarely experience any problems with this. This functionality is even expressly designed to handle situations like yours (reactivation on the same machine).

My experience has been that most online-purchased software products do not display the key/activation information directly after purchase, but instead email such information. There is a very good reason for this, namely, to cut down on purchases made with stolen credit cards (we experience many such attempts daily). We only send such information through email because it then requires the customer to provide an authentic email address, which, especially for large purchases (we tend to require non-yahoo/hotmail email addresses for such), can be used as a trail in the event of fraud.

 

I received an email from support and they claim I tried to install SP on ANOTHER computer with a different Machine ID.

I didn't do that but I found the reason, why StorageCraft assumed this.

I installed ShadowProtect on the SAME computer, but in TWO snapshots of FirstDefense-ISR and each snapshot has a different Machine ID, while StorageCraft knows only one Machine ID.
Because I have 2 snapshots, I also have 2 Machine ID's and if I had 10 snapshots, I would have 10 Machine ID's and that is a problem for the activation, because StorageCraft can only handle one Machine ID.

I don't have that problem with other softwares, because they have only a serial number.

I wrote an email to support about this and I will wait for an answer.

 

An interesting experience that could easily put potential users off.

I like the idea of SP but having suffered poor support during the period FD / SP clashed - if VSS was used this jsu adds to my doubts.


Peter have you noticed this problem?

 

Indeed an interesting experience and a BIG problem too for FDISR-users.
Snapshots can be created, duplicated, removed and archived.
So the Machine ID can change all the time.

 

That would be me, for one.

I understand what happened in Erik's case but am now totally perplexed as to the replacement scenario. I mean, if your current PC just flat out died or you decided to buy a new PC and junk the old one for some other reason (e.g. better performance), then what? Of course the replacement PC would have a different Machine ID, so would you just be SOL.......forced to buy another copy of SP for the new machine?

I still maintain that $70 is a lot of money for this type of s/w *if* the license is not transferable from one PC to another. I realize piracy is a reality and that companies need protection therefrom but I really think this is carrying things a bit too far.

 

I guess SC would give out a new activation in that situation but ..... I guess they are worried about pros tranfering the lic from machine to machine without buying the pro product