Activation Error -1

I have been operating Designer Pro 6 since it was introduced. Tonight I started to get errors and then the activation screen came up. When I tried to reactivate it said that it could not, error -1 and to contact support which I have.

I uninstalled the software after first trying a repair and got the same error.

My question is has anyone else experienced this and while I am waiting for a reply, how was it fixed.

This is not new machine and I have not done anything different. The only reality is that I lost a night's work.

Thanx for your time.

Do you have the most recent updates installed? Help > Update Program. The first dialog says Failed to Conctact Xara.com. Press Continue. Then let Designer check to see if there are any updates installed and install them if there are.

Another thing that seems to work for some people is right click on the program icon and select Run as Administrator. This often solves the problem.

Your work may not be lost. Not all of it at any rate.

Designer Pro makes back ups every 10 minutes by default. If you go to File > Open Recent > at the bottom of the list is Backups... Try opening some of the more recent backups. if you find one that is close to where you where, rename it and save it.