NI have announced they will no longer activate discontinued products

[PAK]

Nice way to build / keep faith amongst your longest term customers NI. The right thing to do would be to provide versions which don't require activation and give people a period of time to download. That way you discontinue the product but people get to keep what they paid for.

If you fail to do that then don't think there won't be some impact. I'd certainly be wary of buying NI products now, because once you've decide to start pulling the plug on things the question then becomes which products do you do that to next? That WILL translate to how you're viewed and discussed on forums like this one which, even if it impacts sales only slighlty, will ultimately cost you more than the price of getting someone to remove the copy protection on those old products and letting people keep what they paid for.

More and more, the lesson seems to be support companies which only require simple serials, or simply avoid software kompletely and look for hardware alternatives.

[chk071]

And what about changing the hard drive only? (keeping the same computer) - would I also lose my activation? I still use Spektral Delay, Vokator, Pro-53, and Kore.

I know that real solutions will only earn me taunt and refusal, but, in that case, you could clone the hard drive. It should work, if you don't make some other major hardware changes.

Best would be if you contact NI though. Maybe they will look for a option how customers of those old plugins can activate them again. Not sure how good the chances are, though. I really can't imagine them investing much time and effort in such old plugins, and such a small user base. That's how it is, I'm afraid.

[Kr3eM]

nm

[GRUMP]

Fortunately I never expected them to be good Guys and a good Investment.

[thecontrolcentre]

Have NI been bought by Apple? I think this is a disgraceful way to treat loyal customers.

[thecontrolcentre]

DP

[thecontrolcentre]

TP

[Teksonik]

Oh I forgot Chk071 owns MassiveX and became an NI fanboi. That explains his defensive posture here.

Says the no.1 Synapse Audio fanboy of this forum, who always gets a cry attack when someone mentions that he's not a fan of one of their plugins. Oh the irony.

Says the guy who would be attacking Synapse Audio if they did the same thing with Dune 2 for example. Oh the irony.

It's ok to be a Fanboi. I'm simply pointing out that's why you're going after anyone who has a problem with this douche bag move by N.I.

[Russell Grand]

Oh now this is some bullsh*t. I hope NI reconsiders this because, like others here, if this happens, I'll be done with NI. That's not how a company should treat long-time customers.

[AnX]

glad I never spent a penny on NI and their shitty service centre crap.....and now they have shown what they really think of their customers

[Teksonik]

Oh now this is some bullsh*t. I hope NI reconsiders this because, like others here, if this happens, I'll be done with NI. That's not how a company should treat long-time customers.

I've been an N.I. customer since the early 2000's. They can KMA

Anyway with the world economy in free fall due to Covid-19 concerns I question the timing of this move by N.I. Might want to wait for the Global Pandemic to be over to see if you have any customers still standing.....

[Kr3eM]

And what about changing the hard drive only? (keeping the same computer) - would I also lose my activation? I still use Spektral Delay, Vokator, Pro-53, and Kore.

Most likely the challenge response is tied to the motherboard or a combination of hardware on it, like the cpu or similair, but if it does use unique hard drive ID's then you are out of luck.

I have no clue if you can do a Service Center offline activation any longer, I abandon NI the day they went all online NI Access. This sentence makes me doubt it still can be done...

You can still continue using the products in your projects, but new and re-installations will not be possible after May 31st

However, if they still are running the service center offline authorization, then you can re-install them (despite what NI says) by doing an offline activation (in the old service center) and then you save the response files as well as keep/backup all the installers inc service center (if that is a installation by itself, can't remember atm). Then when the time comes you can do the offline procedure and load your old response files and it will activate the plugins again, that is unless you have changed any hardware which has been used to make your computer ID.

[sprnva]

I've changed hard drives here and restored from Time Machine backups with everything still activated. I still have Vokator, Spektral Delay, B4 II and Pro 53 installed here (and more on my legacy Snow Leopard system).

It was possible to do offline activations with Service Center on new hardware via support but I assume that's not going to be an option going forward.

The right thing to do would be to release updates with no activation. Even Adobe did this when turning off activation servers.

[MikeCallon]

Dear NI. I purchased my products from you, as far as I'm aware it wasn't a loan. You can spout some legal shizzle about licence agreements and such, but please do the right thing and allow continued use of what I bought in good faith. I'm not expecting you to support the software, just provide me with the ability to use what I have if I need to change my PC.

Think carefully NI, you're going to drive legitimate users to have no choice but to find alternatives

[JonSolo]

Personally I believe there has to be SOME solution to this. So wrong. There is surely something they could do.