ShadowProtect - Activation

Thank you. It is very refreshing to now have a disaster recovery software provider that actually listens to it's customers and tries to accomodate them instead of either ignoring them or arguing with them.

I am referring to Acronis in the first case and Horizon (RollbackRx) in the second case.

 

The activation of SP has nothing to do with HARDWARE and you can change your hardware as many times you want.
The activation is based on the installation of SP and each time you install SP,
you will get ANOTHER "Machine ID", which looks like this "A1E4-234C".
That "Machine ID" is stored on YOUR harddisk and stored by StorageCraft (SC) in THEIR computer.
Each time you activate SP your action is recorded by SC

SC counts the number of different "Machine IDs" and my assumption is that you can have only TWO different "Machine IDs", which means TWO installations without activation problems.
All different "Machine IDs" after that, will be considered as piracy and block the activation and make SP unusable.
The only way to fix this is writing a begging email to SC-support, explain your case and when they believe you, they will reset your activation in their computer. If they don't believe you, your license is terminated.
In other words, SC has all the power over your license and you got nothing but the choice of using SP or not.

Never format or zero your harddisk, because that removes the "Machine ID" from your harddisk. Once that happens you have to re-install SP with another "Machine ID" and remember SC is always counting.
As long your "Machine ID" is still on your harddisk you can re-install SP as many times you want, except when you are a FDISR-user, because each snapshot contains Windows.
When you install and activate SP in a snapshot, you get ANOTHER "Machine ID".
If you have 10 snapshots you get 10 different "Machine IDs" and that is TOO MUCH.
You can only avoid this with the copy/update function of FDISR, but that is not always possible, in case your snapshots have a total different contents.
SC corrected their activation for FDISR-users recently, how that works is a secret and a wild guess for all users.

The activition remains a pain for every user, who buys SP and he doesn't even know in advance how painfull the activation of SP is.
This is only one software, you can imagine how painfull it will be in the future when each software company starts using activation like SC.

 

That doesn't change anything for me. I already solved the problem with FDISR and yes I know about the other softwares and it only will get worse and worse every day, just like infections on the internet.
First the bad guys make it difficult for us to work with computers, now the good guys are going to make it difficult.

 

The following is on page 32 of the SP3 User Guide,

 

Yep. The ole double whammy

But we can't really blame some program manufacturers for tightening their policies, it really is in their interest to protect their intellectual property rights in an attempt to maintain privacy of their inventory. I share in such frustrations on both sides but i guess only time will tell if it helps or hinders distribution of such protected licensed from those who would tamper with another's efforts/research to bolden their own ideas of distributing it to the public, not customers.

 

Well my googling with "ShadowProtect crack" indicates that SP is already cracked by crack-writers and there will be enough users to download this crack, considering the high quality of SP. That is real piracy, not some honest user, who is trying to reinstall SP on his computer.
The bad guys always win, are never punished and don't have to write begging email to reset their activations.

 

The only UpSide (if there is one) or consolation to that type of opposition against commercial distributions is that at least with our PURCHASED items we do have some form of real support (i hope) from a vendor's lab of researchers when unforeseen & sudden issues crop up, as well as solutions?

All of this too is just like a rat race in the same token like the endless marathon cat & mouse of Security vendors vs. Malware distributors.

In reality, i can't help but feel that $M, by some strange design is at least partially responsible for such a global debacle as this is become.

There HAS to be a another better way to maintain the integrity and privacy of commercial software releases & distribution to their customers than all the hoops we are forced to jump thru just to fairly comply with a company's requirement that they need to expect, to keep them from losing sales due to irregular public distributions.

Any Ideas?

 

The main goal of activation is to install SP only on ONE physical computer and not on all computers at home or company. If a user/company has 3 computers he has to buy a license for 3 computers.

If you want to identify a computer, you have to identify one or more HARDWARE components INSIDE the tower. How many and which hardware components is a separate discussion.
During the very first SP-installation, SP sends the identification of these hardware components to StorageCraft (SC) and SC stores that information in their Activation Database.

Later on, when the user has to re-install SP on his computer for whatever reason, SP sends the identification of his computer AGAIN to SC and SC compares that identification with the identification they received from the user during the very first installation.

If there is a match, it means that the user is re-installing SP on the SAME computer and that is normal and there is no counting of activation necessary, because the computer has been identified.
There will be no problem anymore with FDISR, because FDISR has all its snapshots on the same computer.

If there is no match, it means that the user is re-installing SP on ANOTHER computer and then SC is entitled to refuse the activation and ask the user for an explanation.
Keep in mind that ANOTHER computer can also mean a new computer to replace an old one and that is not piracy. It can also mean a SECOND computer and that is piracy. I wonder how SC is going to verify this or do we all have to buy our license back when we buy a new computer to replace the old one. I hope not.

This activation method is total different from the actual activation method, simpler and doesn't pester the user anymore.

 

That's fair enough if it happens to be their policy and their program carries enough tangible usefulness & value to warrant such limitations.

Personally, my choice differs from such policy as a home user. If i have 3 or 23 computers for sake of discussion, ANY software i buy "MUST" afford the freedoms i would expect. And i expect to install to ALL my machines without having to shell out for another new installation for the same program again & again.

Otherwise you can't help but regard such practices as totally redundant expenses likely to be dismissed for other more liberal alternatives in view of this.

I agree Erik, the Home/End users are always & usually the choice audience that gets the shaft from such constraints and demands made to bear on us, and it's not even our fault, but like you say, we end up either having to do without it altogether, or take our chances something else doesn't fudge up the activations of product license tracking making our purchase a waste of money anyhow.

I for one am not into Temporary Limited uses of any program.

In that light, yes, the Enterprise environment customers that SC views as their most safe private sales prospects is perhaps the only safe course they have left as options against losing control of their creations, and i have no problem with that. Businesses MUST progress with enough profit to propell them (staff + researchers) forward and establish a solid market position in their chosen field of expertise.

I would swoon to have SP myself, just from all the positive reports entered in record here at the forums. And in the future maybe some restraints will become relaxed for us, but in the meantime, current IMAGING programs i use are quite popular, fast, and reliable enough that theres no need to run to something newer that unfortunately employs radical provisions fashioned in it against installing to multiple in-home machines.

My others do not even hint as such limitations. Bottom Line. It's a matter of choice, and my choice is even though the origins of a competing product is very popular and desired, doesn't make it the best choice for everyone.

 

How many users are ABLE to trick the activation server, certainly not the majority of average users, including me. I wouldn't even know where to begin.

 

Erik, I can't really describe the details to you, but I can tell you that you are only seeing a piece of the actual puzzle, and in fact you're making some statements that are frankly incorrect, especially as of a few days ago when we made some changes on our side (which do not require our users to change anything on their side).

 

That's what you get, when StorageCraft doesn't tell users anything about their activation. So I can say whatever I want, based on MY experiences and it's upto to StorageCraft to give users a decent understandable explanation about activation of ShadowProtect IN ADVANCE, before you let them buy ShadowProtect and you don't have to reveal any secrets. Just tell people what is allowed and what is not allowed.
I don't care if I was right or wrong. StorageCraft created the confusion, not me or any other user and I never asked for an activation either.

 

Touché