Locked out of Xara DP11 once again!

[Phill]

UPDATE
Today I received an email from Xara and Magix stating that it has now been activated on both pc's! However, like the last time there was no apology for the inconvenience. In response to the question by "Acorn" both pc's had been upgraded to Win 10 since the initial install. The computer which locked me out was upgraded to 10 about a month ago which was an automatic upgrade with the transfer of all files and programs completed through that progress. All the installed programs, except for an old one which was incompatible with 10, have been running correctly, as indeed Xara was until yesterday. Even if 10 had been installed as a clean install I should have been allowed to install Xara as non of the hardware had changed. This problem seems isolated to Xara 11 as v 7 and v9 have continued to run when the OS was upgraded from XP to Vista and again to 7. Thanks to all who responded, but I have zero confidence in Xara/Magix and will not be buying any more of their products in future. That only leaves Corel as the only viable alternative as Adobe now require an annual subscription. That's why I am still using CS5. Pity, as Xara DP is a good program but a bad company.

[Acorn]

UPDATE
Today I received an email from Xara and Magix stating that it has now been activated on both pc's! However, like the last time there was no apology for the inconvenience. In response to the question by "Acorn" both pc's had been upgraded to Win 10 since the initial install. The computer which locked me out was upgraded to 10 about a month ago which was an automatic upgrade with the transfer of all files and programs completed through that progress. All the installed programs, except for an old one which was incompatible with 10, have been running correctly, as indeed Xara was until yesterday. Even if 10 had been installed as a clean install I should have been allowed to install Xara as non of the hardware had changed. This problem seems isolated to Xara 11 as v 7 and v9 have continued to run when the OS was upgraded from XP to Vista and again to 7. Thanks to all who responded, but I have zero confidence in Xara/Magix and will not be buying any more of their products in future. That only leaves Corel as the only viable alternative as Adobe now require an annual subscription. That's why I am still using CS5. Pity, as Xara DP is a good program but a bad company.

Phill, not a great experience for you but at least you are sorted. You still have a working application with free upgrades (for V11) in perpetuity so it is still possible to use without ever interacting with the company so keep using it and let the application prove itself. Part of Xara's problem was the introduction to Windows 10 after their launch so that development teams get a view of MS's direction with an alpha release but they can only aim to be ahead of the game. In this case, the contentious on-line activation fell foul of the W10 upgrade such that your application thought it was a new install; you get two bites and then you're into SNAFU territory. Xara did "explain" that W10 upgrades needed a deactivation and reactivation, seconds of effort, to avoid this but they were not smart enough to target all purchasers directly and relied on TG and their Knowledgebase for the detail.

At least stick with TG and Dear Xara... all the issues you find going ahead so we all collectively benefit. An application is not just code, it is the user experience and the after care. Your pain can be turned into a positive.

Merry Christmas,
Acorn

P.S. I told you the Xara Pixies would help; they're just a little shy.

[Michael]

UPDATE
That only leaves Corel as the only viable alternative....

When you're on the lookout for alternative software I'd recommend Alternativeto.net. For instance: if you'd search for an alternative to Xara you will find Inkscape as a free alternative (http://alternativeto.net/software/xara-xtreme/) which is a good vector application (albeit with some major drawbacks compared with Xara) and GIMP or Paint.net for Photoshop.
I wouldn't put my eggs in Crel's basket.

[pauland]

Xara DP is a good program but a bad company.

This is total nonsense and you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It's unfortunate you had the problems, but Xara did sort out the issue and invariably they do.

I'm really disappointed to see how little it takes to make my fellow man descend to use such such derogatory adjectives as you have used to describe Xara in this thread, and I cannot reconcile your description of the company with reality.

I hope you stick with xara and form a better opinion of the company and be a little less free with the accusations in the future.

I've know this company since the very first days when they were producing software and a more ethical and helpful company it would be hard to find.

In case you're wondering - I have no association with this company except as an end-user.

[Acorn]

Car manufacturers learned early on that improving performance and speed all but failed if the cigarette lighter make a grating noise.
Any designer knows that if the buyer has a niggle, however trivial, that becomes Public Enemy No. 1.

Xara is moving to a totally on-line product and is learning on the way; application niggles will be fixed through continuous integration.
Xara clearly must realise that customer service is still paramount and that this has to be developed equally.

We should praise Xara when it hits high and cajole it when it is missing the mark. The problem we have is we do not set the mark.

Acorn

[JET]

I have zero confidence in Xara/Magix and will not be buying any more of their products in future. That only leaves Corel as the only viable alternative as Adobe now require an annual subscription.

Just so you know; it's not as bleak as all that. There are other sources of vector drawing programs in addition to Corel's Draw and Technical Designer (both of which I also use).

ACD's Canvas (now at version X16) is another of the venerable "big four" drawing programs (only FreeHand is gone, having been discontinued by Adobe). There's also Serif's DrawPlus, and open source Inkscape.

Like you and probably countless others, I also refuse to rent software, so my purchase of CS6 was the last money Adobe has received from me, and will remain so unless/until it offers perpetual licenses again. In fact, Adobe's take-it-or-leave-it arrogance against the decades-long customers who made Adobe what it is finally freed me of the ridiculously expensive Master Collection version update cycle I'd allowed myself to be suckered into, the savings of which has more than paid for all the above-mentioned alternatives, and I haven't missed a beat.

I've always considered it a matter of professional advantage to maintain comfortable proficiency in multiple drawing programs, thereby avoiding being held captive to and victimized by a single vendor. Adobe's move rather validated my stance on that.

JET

[jaydear]

I've used CorelDRAW from v3 through to v12, an expensive exercise, and I have to say it was anything but plain sailing! I stopped at v12 because I got tired of upgrading for little benefit or new 'killer' features that turned out to be bloat that was dropped in the next version only to be replaced with more. The integration between CorelDRAW and it's bitmap editor PhotoPAINT was poor because they remained separate applications, and there were never any of the clever features and tight integration we see in Xara WDP11 today. And certainly no website design! Corel's biggest draw (sorry) for me was the ability to import and export a huge list of graphics and vector (CAD) formats, but having said that, most of it was very buggy or only for years' old versions, never the latest, and the tech support to fix those problems was really non-existent, you just had to work around them. Believe it or not, later versions of CorelDRAW will just crash in a heap if you try to open older versions of their own .cdr file format, only a few versions old, and the only way I found to do this was to keep versions 4, 8, 10 and 12 installed - which was possible up to Win XP, but not later. So it got very messy and too much of a burden ultimately.

Years and years ago I purchased an early version of Xara 3d and I was fascinated to find out about their historical links with the Corel brand - it makes a good read. Anyway I upgraded Xara 3d over the years, mainly for making animated and 3d web graphics for Frontpage (which went the way of the dinosaurs). Then last year when I was looking for a new, affordable web design program I came across Xara again, and you know what?, when I keyed in my old username and password I was still in their database with all the versions I'd bought listed there. I was highly impressed that I had not been dumped like so many other software vendors do when you miss an upgrade or two. I bought v10 of Xara Web Design and Photo & Graphic Designer and upgraded this year to v11 of XDP. It is great value, the forums are friendly, and from what I've seen, if you have found a repeatable problem you will get the support you need.

It's unfortunate that you've experienced such trouble, and I feel your aggravation. We all do things with our PCs our own way and suffer consequences when we do something the programmers didn't anticipate, so don't be too hard on them, it takes two to tango. There are lots of users with many versions of Windows and yet I haven't seen a landslide of complaints like yours on these forums (or is that fora?). I started on win 8.0, allowed the upgrade to 8.1 and then 10 and rolled back to 8.1 because I didn't like 10, all without any Xara lockout issues. When I upgraded from the Xara v10 app's I put them on another PC running Win 8.0 without issues. I get a good feeling using Xara XDP11 and I wish I had made the jump away from CorelDRAW years ago. I think Xara have done some very clever and original stuff and deserve our support.

[Phill]

I cannot believe that this has happened yet AGAIN, and barely 1 week later! I have a small print shop with office overhead like many small businesses. Therefore downtime means loss of customers and loss of revenue. I have not changed any software, hardware, memory, nor had any upgrades to any program in any of the 2 computers since I was graciously "unlocked" about a week ago. Despite this, when I tried to open Xara DP 11 on my laptop at the office I was greeted with a message to the effect that I would have to activate (yes, for the umpteenth time) and I would need an internet connection. At that time our cable internet was down. However I was able to connect and tether my smartphone and get connected. A screen appeared complete with email address and serial no. requesting my password to Xara. When I logged on the next screen informed me that I would have to "deactivate" one computer in order to activate, but when I tried to do this I received message to the effect that I was not allowed to activate for another 21 days! Another screen listed the 2 computers that had previously been activated, and what's more listed them correctly, i.e., with no changes. In that case why do I have to "reactivate" again, and why must I wait another 21 days?

I had promised a forms job to a customer today, but because of this I was unable to deliver through no fault of my own, but why should the customer care who's fault it was. Fortunately my customer in this case was understanding but I had intended not going in over the New Years holiday, so to keep a customer, guess what?

In this last instance I think what happened was that when I tried to open the program without being connected the program tried to "phone home" and could not get a connection so I was denied access. Of course that is my opinion and I do not know that for a fact but in previous instances Xara are not telling me what is going on.

Xara have an incredible customer be damned attitude. I would like to explore the possibilities of a class action lawsuit against this terrible company. I feel extra bad as I had recommended Xara to several clients in the past because (1) I thought it a good program and (2) the learning curve was shorter than some others and(3) I, like many other printers, lose money on art prep and would much rather have "camera-ready" art supplied ready to go.

Of course I have written Magix once again only this time asking for a refund. No doubt I will receive a response with no apologies but stating that they have unlocked the program (just as they did last week). BTW, when I tried to use an earlier version I had installed last week I again received a message that I would not be allowed to activate it for several weeks, despite the fact that it had previously only been installed on the very same computers!

[Phill]

In response to Jaydear, you have been very lucky. I mentioned before that all my other programs transferred over without activation iussues on Win10 auto upgrade.
This last instance has really put me over the top as NOTHING HAS CHANGED ON THAT COMPUTER, I checked and it has not even had a windows update as I had changed my settings not to allow autocratic updates, but notifications only. Also, I have checked my Corel programs on both pc's and they do not have activation issues and open per normal.

[PhilM]

Hi Phill,

I'm sorry you're having these problems with XDP11. I guess that some software or hardware on your machine is interacting badly with our copy protection mechanism. This is very unusual. Most installations work smoothly.

I have forwarded a link to this thread to the people in Xara who need to know about your problems.

Phil