Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]

cityrat

Keith Albright [Cakewalk]
As Noel said, the .crq request file generated is per machine.  But once you receive the .dat file you can archive that for the machine and reinstall at any point and reimport that file.  You own it.  
Just like any other product key, it's good to back that up.  We thought a lot about your experience so changing the pc's hardware shouldn't invalidate your setup.

That's extremely helpful info - does the dat file work if you change hardware on the computer?  For instance if a hard-drive dies etc?

Yes it does, its not hardware dependent. 

that's interesting. If it is not hardware-dependent why is it necessray to activate serarately on each machine? Why is it not possible to use that same file on another computer? If it is possible, I am fine with the new system, because that means that once I downloaded everything and made a backup of the authorization file I depend no more on the Cakewalk servers. Please, clarify.
 
Cheers, drjee

Anderton

Ric4001
But access to the activation servers is a legitimate concern.

 
That's the direction all software is going. 
 

Does anyone remember Opcode Vision?  It was one of the most popular midi sequencers in the early days of sequencers.  It also required a challenge-response type of activation to install.  Gibson bought Opcode and shut down the Opcode Vision development.

 
I do research. I researched what happened with Opcode thoroughly before joining Gibson and talked with both Chris Halaby (Opcode's president) and Henry to get their sides of the story. They matched up perfectly. Chris emphasized he had no ill will toward Henry, and wished me success with Gibson.
 
Short form: Opcode was failing at the time of the acquisition. Most of the key developers had already left to go to Apple or another company. Gibson hoped to be able to resurrect the company, but around that time, Apple was about to introduce OS X and the people who could have made the transition were no longer at Opcode. The Windows version never got traction. At that time Gibson did not have the resources to create an entire software development team from scratch. Both Chris and Henry described the setup as one that was "doomed to fail."
 
If you've been following Cakewalk's progress since 2013, the scenario has played out very differently this time. As to all the people who said Cakewalk wouldn't last a year after being acquired by Gibson, Cakewalk is still here and doing much better than it was prior to the acquisition.
 
(And just FYI, over 80% of all acquisitions fail. I'm glad Cakewalk is in the 20% category.)

Very interesting and enlightening.  Do you know the inside scoop about Tascam and Gigastudio?

John T
Well, it's challenge / response for now. How do we know that 11 months in to the membership, it won't become blood sacrifice?

Answer: We don't.
 

drjee
 
that's interesting. If it is not hardware-dependent why is it necessray to activate serarately on each machine? Why is it not possible to use that same file on another computer? If it is possible, I am fine with the new system, because that means that once I downloaded everything and made a backup of the authorization file I depend no more on the Cakewalk servers. Please, clarify.
Cheers, drjee

Its not hardware dependent as in you can change hardware components in your system. But it is system dependent as in the same file won't work on a physically different computer. ie. You can back it up for use on the same computer but not on a physically different one. If its different you must go through our server at least once. There is no way around that.

... too bad.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]

drjee
 
that's interesting. If it is not hardware-dependent why is it necessray to activate serarately on each machine? Why is it not possible to use that same file on another computer? If it is possible, I am fine with the new system, because that means that once I downloaded everything and made a backup of the authorization file I depend no more on the Cakewalk servers. Please, clarify.
Cheers, drjee

Its not hardware dependent as in you can change hardware components in your system. But it is system dependent as in the same file won't work on a physically different computer. ie. You can back it up for use on the same computer but not on a physically different one. If its different you must go through our server at least once. There is no way around that.

Thanks.  To me that's reasonable.  Sounds a lot like Windows - and "computer" usually means MB /Chip generated machine ID, or it's OS id dependent.  It has to be tied to SOMETHING right? 
 
Either way it satisfys my "restore from backup emergency w/o reactivation" scenario.  Which in reality I will probably just install C3 and forget about it. 
 
Anyway it sounds like I certainly wont get stuck (and I HAVE been stuck) having to beg a reset license after my system went down and took the last of my two licenses I get allotted.
 
 
 
 
 

vintagevibe
 
Very interesting and enlightening.  Do you know the inside scoop about Tascam and Gigastudio?

Yes, I do. I had a peripheral role in the TASCAM acquisition and found out the full story. The technology ended up with Garritan. I asked Gary Garritan if he planned to resurrect GigaStudio, and he basically gave me the same reasons for not doing that as the reasons TASCAM gave for why they couldn't make a go of it.  

Hi.
 
I have big problems with challenge/response. Ableton allows three activations before you have to contact tech support or write a wordy explanation via email why you changed your hardware configuration, upgraded your cpu or inserted more ram.
 
AAS allows three activations in 90 days for any of their products before you have to contact tech support.
 
Besides making music, one of my hobbies is upgrading/changing/destroying my system, so I regularly have to reinstall often.  How many activations are possible before I have to apologize for taking valuable tech support time?
 
Thanks in advance.

Anderton

vintagevibe
 
Very interesting and enlightening.  Do you know the inside scoop about Tascam and Gigastudio?

Yes, I do. I had a peripheral role in the TASCAM acquisition and found out the full story. The technology ended up with Garritan. I asked Gary Garritan if he planned to resurrect GigaStudio, and he basically gave me the same reasons for not doing that as the reasons TASCAM gave for why they couldn't make a go of it.  

Remember too that Gigastudio was huge when we all had limited RAM in our 32-bit machines and streaming from disk was the only way to play back large sample sets.  Giga was never going to survive the 64-bit desktop revolution, so its days were always numbered, IMHO.

Cakewalk doesn't predetermine an amount of activations but if the frequency should be suspect then they have a means to ask for an explanation. They have said they are tightening up but for legit users there shouldn't be a problem. But again you only have to do it once per machine. So go trash every installation as many times as you like. You can activate it offline and have all the details and files on each of your own PCs where you have Sonar installed. Command Centre asks for a default folder for placing installation files. c:\Program Data\Cakewalk\Downloads if I remember correctly.