Tracktion 3 re-activation on new system

[phantasm13]

Hello dear Tracktion community,
I do have a lifetime license for Tracktion 3 and used it on my old Windows XP system until now. I decided to upgrade my system to Windows 11 and upgraded mainboard and CPU for compatibility. Now I re-installed Tracktion 3 and am stuck at the license activation step as the Machine ID changed. License activation servers are not reachable / offline and manual activation is not possible anymore according to the official Tracktion support. Support is not able to provide any help as means got lost after acquisition to create new activation keys. Now to my question … I do have a backup of the old system and want to know if there is any way to restore the activation from the old system to the new system? Are there any registry entries or files that can be migrated to the new system?

[operandx]

To be honest you would be better off getting hold of the free Tracktion WaveForm 13 version. It's way more advanced than T3, that is unless you have to absolutely use 32 bit VSTs. I don't think there is any way to register T3 on a new machine.

[pough]

Now to my question … I do have a backup of the old system and want to know if there is any way to restore the activation from the old system to the new system? Are there any registry entries or files that can be migrated to the new system?

I can't imagine this can be done. It's not simply a case of registry entries or files. The software generates a specific ID for a computer and the now-defunct server generates a license key based on that. No server = no key.

It's all part of a system designed to punish paying customers, as far as I can tell. And if you want a little salt to go with your wounds, there are inevitably promises made that license-free versions would be created if the software was abandoned.

Mmm... salty wounds...

Some of my projects from T3 will have weird interface issues in newer versions of WF, but they seem to run okay. I use jBridge for old 32-bit plugins. That can also have some issues*, but they're not universal - it's a case-by-case thing. I think T7 was the last version to run 32-bit.

* Some old plugins refuse to load the saved parameters, so you get the default preset instead of what was saved. The code to load parameter states seems to have changed in WF10 or WF11 and some plugins can't deal with it. WF9 doesn't seem to have this problem. I wonder if you can beg TSC for a WF9 or T7 license...

[phantasm13]

Thanks for the quick replies! I know that it would be the easy way to just go with the newer version, it just feels wrong to not give it a try at least. Additionaly, I've tried out the free version and ran into a bug where all my project files have been deleted due to a known bugfix that was later on fixed in a following version. Not the nicest first impression for the successor ...

I've seen that there have been efforts to still activate on newer systems using a guide provided by metamorphosis here in the forum but unfortunately the guide went missing. I am not sure if it would still be applicable to Windows 11 systems.

[Watchful]

I'd say it won't work--T3 was actually a Mackie product, not a Tracktion one, right? Those servers were shut down a looong time ago. Ironically, you'd probably have better luck with T2.

[bk]

IIRC, the guide suggested using an unsavory piece of software to generate a new key. However, I think the software was known to have at least one trojan horse on board. I went through this years and years ago, but wasn't willing to risk borking my system to get a working T3. Once Jules bought it back from Mackie, and T4 came out, it became a moot point.
Best of luck to you, but I really don't think you'll get it running in Win 11.
Please let us know if you do, though!