IK Multimedia creating unpurchased Custom Shop *.dlls

[Kontrast13]

Keep deleting files within your Program Files and see what happens one day.

Haha~ Touche Of course my comment is assuming that a person knows what they're doing. I've been dealing with computers for decades so... my attitude is a bit direct. I can't imagine how many DirectX and Gamespy (and MPlayer too!) installs I've deleted out of Program Files in my lifetime

[jancivil]

SO, TRackS plugins I bought and were authorized (at least one that is not the CS version! CS itself tells me I bought [Vintage Comp 670] July 2013. I bought it four years before that, in fact. I believe my non-purchase acquisition of OptoComp would date to around 7-13.) are now in demo mode from this adventure. this is DEEPLY FVCKED UP.
In order to get back to work, I have to go find the serial numbers and reauthorize the things which were deauthorized magically through this interaction with CS.

Authorizing CS again makes the OptoComp I did not buy work normally in the template. Opening them now tells me nothing of a demo/I need to go buy. A few minutes ago I was prompted to go buy that, and Vintage 670, to find I had bought it on a fictitious date.) This is not just a matter of me being stupid, this is just wrong. The behavior I just described didn't occur in a viframe that had never been molested by CS. So not having it installed works this way. Do not instantiate CS versions of things you are licensed to use already.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

If an IK product isn't working on your system like it should, please use this link to contact support and they will help you get it working: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/support or reopen an existing ticket. Thank you.

[hibidy]

I'll draw the line at arrogant short sided

There is some cheese, but I can't go that far.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Orbit-50: CVSTOM SHOP is installed as part of the product and is used for certain functions (demoing, restoring gear, etc) so it needs to remain installed but does not need to be run during use if the plugins unless you need to demo them. Hope that helps.

If you or anyone else has trouble running Custom Shop (or the plugins themselves) please let the support team know at http://www.ikmultimedia.com/support and they will happily assist.

Added some emphasis, in case anybody missed the part that directly answers the question asked, in which case "I feel your pain".

[jancivil]

I looked at Custom Shop some more. The TRackS things I bought all were supposedly purchased on July 25 2013. I think most of all of them go back to 2009. But now I see this OptoComp was purchased in 16 Sept 2013. And no, I didn't buy that, or anything then. That's a relief, it being legit however. I have that in every project for months. But I do have to keep the CS preferences or these things are demos in the VE Pro 64-bit server. Not true of the 32-bit server, where I never instantiated CS versions. These are facts.

[jancivil]

If an IK product isn't working on your system like it should

Insofar as they work now to force me into Custom Shop, I'm sure they are working as they should. I do not think that requiring CS.plist to be intact in order to use these TRackS plugins (first I assumed that only CS versions, aka TR3 would be affected, but I went to reinstatiate one with the older version and it blasted noise at me too) is an operational failure either.

I think things should work normally and not be complicated by this insane marketing thrust and complicate people's setups and lives behind such a silly notion. It would be great if you would follow the actual thread rather than suggest this is a support issue.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/support

[jancivil]

Orbit-50: CVSTOM SHOP is installed as part of the product and is used for certain functions (demoing, restoring gear, etc) so it needs to remain installed but does not need to be run during use if the plugins unless you need to demo them. Hope that helps.

If you or anyone else has trouble running Custom Shop (or the plugins themselves) please let the support team know at http://www.ikmultimedia.com/support and they will happily assist.

Added some emphasis, in case anybody missed the part that directly answers the question asked, in which case "I feel your pain".

No, in fact you said it needs to remain installed for certain functions. I had to find out it needs to remain installed in order for things I had instantiated since CS to remain authorized. And for non-CS versions of those plugins.
I fully understood CS needs to be installed in order to use CS per se.

Thanks for cherry-picking in order to insult people's intelligence. If I were in big business, I would have to have someone that could behave themselves as an adult to be the face of the company on forums. Your snark is not appreciated.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/support can explain anything anybody does not understand about Custom Shop or whether cherry-picking parts of our products for removal will cause any issues running them. They are very helpful. The form also accepts pasted text last I checked so it should be smooth sailing if anything has been posted elsewhere by mistake, since that form is the appropriate place for issues running IK plugins.

Nice edit, BTW.

[jancivil]

Nice edit, BTW.

Yeah, Peter, you want to talk about an edit. We both know about an edit you made after having at me here, who do you think you're kidding.
(FTR, I said 'You're a dick' here but found a better expression of the same f**king idea. But thanks for illustrating exactly my point, again.)

& thanks for the substantive heads-up, sincerely. As it is I found out in the concrete exactly what I needed to know.

[Breeze]

ALL THE VITRIOL ASIDE... (amazing how things can degenerate into the personal...), one solution that occurs to me that would work to satisfy the two big issues (installer bloat & undesired demos) with the Custom Shops is to take the whole CS to the Cloud. IMO implementing the CS this way would satisfy most of the problems with the current implementation and also allow the CS to work the way it currently works for those who like it:

1. Give the user the option of loading the entire CS and/or TR-CS archive onto their local hard disc or not. If not, then all CS interaction will be online and plugin bodies are only downloaded on request.

2. For TR-CS, give the user the option of instantiating single demo plugins on request, not by default, like in Amplitube. Throw in the option to instantiate ALL plugins to replicate the current behaviour.

The third issue is this matter of giving the user the option, and I think that's fundamentally what has gotten people so riled up and fanned the flames. That's really just a question of respect.

[djscorb]

The third issue is this matter of giving the user the option, and I think that's fundamentally what has gotten people so riled up and fanned the flames. That's really just a question of respect.

Exactly. Music production is a pretty techincal process and most of us are not simple minded. Having flexibility removed that we know should be there rubs us up the wrong way. I ranted before that to call Custom Shop "Custom" is an insult to users because it is far from customisable!

IK Multimedia seem to be less interested in giving customers what they want and more interested in justifying their practices, no matter how many users hate it and that they are the only vendors doing stuff this way.

If you are the only ones doing something a certain way, you are either genius pioneers or the idea is basically crap. Judging by the sheer volume of complaints it should be a piece of cake for IK to determine which one of these possibilties is actually the case.

I saw recently that they had a sale where you could buy a plugin and get "any*" free. The asterix denoted that new plugins were excluded from the deal. Well, that's not "Any" at all then is it? Like with "unlimited" broadband internet that actually isn't. Companies that think they can redefine unambiguous words can not be trusted. At least, I don't trust them.

Cheers

Scorb

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

We do take complaints into consideration and have made changes where appropriate in many cases based on user feedback. We have a large user base and do our best to serve them well as a whole. Thanks to those who have provided their feedback and suggestions here.

[Dewdman42]

My two cents on this, I love the way IK products sound. I **HATE** the custom shop. It brings the shopping experience into my studio too much. I don't want to be inundated all day long with information about plugins I don't have. Just trying to use Amplitube I am constantly reminded through presets and such that there are certain models I don't own yet, etc.. I much much preferred the pre-custom shop world. Its good for IK's sake to put their custom shop in our face, so they can sell more stuff, but its distracting for me and I hate it, and I hate any other product that does that too. And I hate that Custom shop installs a bunch of bloat on my system, and into my plugin lists that I don't own and can't use unless I buy it too. I don't keep demo junk on my computer at all and for a good reason, I don't want to be bothered by it. But with IK's current approach, this always comes back every once in a while as a distraction that I have to then go in and administrate in order to remove the distraction, and in some cases can't completely remove the distraction.

IK stuff sounds great to me, I will keep using CSR and sometimes even amplitube, for sure Ampeg, but there are increasingly other good options without all this bloat. IK should find a better way to handle all of this, it doesn't have to be this over bearing. I'm sure it doesn't bother some people, particularly at first, but clearly it does bother a lot of us.