how do I free trial the new features, now my licence has expired ?

can someone explain to me how, now my update service has expired, I can run a free trial of the new features in subsequent updates - I have tried this for the 25July update [my licence expired 04July] but it will not let me, I get the messages attached below

I sincerely hope I have not received 12 months of patchy updates, in advance, at the price of not being able to test out new features without paying for an update licence first - ie goodbye to free trials

Ok in my particular case I could sandbox a virtual computer - but I shouldn't have to, and nor should anyone else.. so what am I missing?

thanks

As far as I can tell, you're not missing anything. That's part of the mouse trap, buy before you try. Xara is not alone in this. Most big developers are moving to a subscription platform and while I haven't seen such percentages of price increase before, the concept isn't new. Users become dependant on software and then regardless of perceived value, most of the user base has to stay on the boat. I don't want to go deeply into my personal opinions about the new platform, except to say that Xara will likely always be a part of my life, desirable or not. There isn't a lot of difference between Developers/Users and Dealers/Junkies :) Mine is due as well, and I'll likely reluctantly, renew. In the final analysis, in my opinion, Xara does it better and faster than the other high end packages I use which I will always also need. They have a business to run, and at some point the light bulb went on and they figure out this has a much better ROI than funding development during the year and not getting revenue from it until release. Good or bad, if you don't like the weird Uncle being at the party, you need to leave. :D

EDIT: I should also add that in my opinion, having been with Xara I think since 2004, they have always had tech support that is the best in the industry, bar none, as well as a very helpful user community.

existing users: buy before you try - but for you flies not yet in the spiders web - you can still try it for free.... :D

maybe there is a way and someone will tell us how it's done [apart from the obvious [if you're technical] hacking that this will only encourage]

I've been a xara user since 2003 - xara X - never had any problems with xara support - always been very helpful

As far as I can see only new customers get to try it out... Existing customers get to stare at it from the sideline

Quote:

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Originally Posted by katemoir

But do always bear in mind that you don't have to renew until you see enough updates to make it worthwhile for you personally

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Kate - if I cannot free trial updates, how can I be sure they are worthwhile? - are you going to move to a position where the updates are so simplistic and straight forward that a user can tell, merely by reading release notes, just how useful something will be to them personally ?

Your update service page offers up and coming 'new cutting edge features' and that 'you can keep up with the latest trends in....graphic design! - no sign of any of that so far, and I am not going to take it on trust in the future, sorry
[I've not quoted the web stuff, because for all I know that is cutting edge, but somehow, from comments made elsewhere, I doubt it]

So hopfully as I said at the start I am missing something here? [apart from keeping a spare computer and clean image handy for sandbox testing - tiresome]

thanks

Download the trial of the nearest sibling program to the one you have. Most of the "new" features morph across products.

Acorn

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

Download the trial of the nearest sibling program to the one you have. Most of the "new" features morph across products.

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:think:

now I know xara has a bloated product range... but how many times can you actually do this - because as far as I can see, once you have installed a trial once, and it has run out, never again can you install that 365 product as a trial on that computer - it will just tell you've already done that and it's run out

besides, a test of a product A is a test of product A, not product B...

Downloading the nearest sibling does not work for Designer Pro... Cause that one has exclusive features the others don't.

ok six days now and not the courtesy of a reply..

you really do not know what you are doing, do you - you are just floundering around trying to fix what should never have been broken and hiding that under a non-disclosure policy

we are deleting all the endorsements for xara, that once we gladly gave

I am not a betting man, but I think there will be no xara in 5 or so years time, just an absorbtion into magix

thank you to phil and rob and luke and all those who helped along the way; good luck - I think you are going to need it... in an ever evolving market

:(

I've never found that type of aggressiveness productive. Have you actually contacted support though the Xara support ticket system? https://support.xara.com (top left "contact support") If you're looking for a reply, I've always found that very fast and helpful.

Steve...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

ok six days now and not the courtesy of a reply..

you really do not know what you are doing, do you - you are just floundering around trying to fix what should never have been broken and hiding that under a non-disclosure policy

we are deleting all the endorsements for xara, that once we gladly gave

I am not a betting man, but I think there will be no xara in 5 or so years time, just an absorbtion into magix

thank you to phil and rob and luke and all those who helped along the way; good luck - I think you are going to need it... in an ever evolving market

:(

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by bubbbab

I've never found that type of aggressiveness productive. Have you actually contacted support though the Xara support ticket system? https://support.xara.com (top left "contact support") If you're looking for a reply, I've always found that very fast and helpful.
Steve...

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Steve, handrawn has expressed his frustration over a problem he has identified with the new Xara product provision. You mentioned he should "leave" so there is no high ground to be gained here.

I believe that the model Xara has chosen, or has been forced to adopt, has not been properly rehearsed across relatively simple and obvious user scenarios.
For example, I have yet to see how bug fixes in your year of purchase are delivered once you revert to your original purchase version. Once a version is uplifted, the previous one does not seem to have bug fixes applied. [Xara - do correct me here].

In the past, with big number updates, it was possible to retain and run prior version concurrently. This is the opposite of what handrawn is after but it demonstrates things we have lost.

Keep it factual,
Acorn

Acorn, thanks for the comments. There was no high ground being sought, no gauntlet being laid upon the field. While there was a healthy amount of humor intended with my presentation of the word "Leave", it was in fact my point, that if something isn't working for you anymore, then it's time to move on and seek out a competitive solution. That was in fact a lead up to explaining my situation in that I certainly find the new process lacking in value by contrast to the old. Given that about half of my design work has moved to Xara (AI other part), I really don't see myself positioned well to depart. Less value now? Yes. Enough value to keep using it? Again, yes. Enough value to want to renew annually? No, but I likely will anyway.

Secondly, I was merely pointing out that with other users weighing in, it may be time to seek assistance from the Xara Support System where the user can track responses.

As far as your professional critique of the new platform, yeah, agree.

Best,
Steve...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

Steve, handrawn has expressed his frustration over a problem he has identified with the new Xara product provision. You mentioned he should "leave" so there is no high ground to be gained here.

I believe that the model Xara has chosen, or has been forced to adopt, has not been properly rehearsed across relatively simple and obvious user scenarios.
For example, I have yet to see how bug fixes in your year of purchase are delivered once you revert to your original purchase version. Once a version is uplifted, the previous one does not seem to have bug fixes applied. [Xara - do correct me here].

In the past, with big number updates, it was possible to retain and run prior version concurrently. This is the opposite of what handrawn is after but it demonstrates things we have lost.

Keep it factual,
Acorn

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Hi Bubbbab

I see you joined the forum in june 2006 and have so far posted 38 times

I joined in february 2007 and have so far posted over 15,000 times :eek:

now not all of my posts were that great, I would be the first to admit, but there was an unspoken contract here - we gave support to xara for free, they listened

I am not being agressive, I am, as acorn said, frustrated; very

I feel taken advantage of

I trust that in your posts to come, you will help others on this forum with their problems, which is what it is really all about

I have done my share

I do not need to send a support ticket - if xara cared they could send me a PM

I don't think they care any more

so they get no more help from me

I don't suppose they will loose any sleep, but there again, neither will I

Quote:

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Originally Posted by acorn

[Xara - do correct me here]

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good luck with this ;)

Hi,

It seems that the situation is similar or worse with the other Magix programs. At the risk of fanning the flames, it appears that Magix is dropping the Update Service. There is no longer any mention of Update Service on the Magix.com website, except if one happens to click on a small "i" beside the Upgrade button for most of the products, and except as a footnote for Xara products. The asterisk leading to the footnote is for the On-line Catalogue, then you have to scroll to the very bottom of the page to find it. The full message about what it means is there, but nowhere else.

Magix may have given up because it was just too complicated for most of the products where there are several flavours, Premium being one of them. Premium includes the features of the top program plus third party plugins. There is really no easy way to make this work. Even the next level down for the video editor Movie Edit Pro Plus is having a special sale including some third party plugins. So, how is an existing user enticed to upgrade with all of this? Magix continued with the update service and enticed existing users to upgrade upon renewal by offering to include the third party plugins, or else you didn't get them. But, the plugins may no longer be offered, depending on when you renew. etc. A real mess. Add to this handrawn's problem (everyone's problem) of running a trial version after expiry, and you have failure.

To draw a parallel, Corel PaintShop Pro has issued a new version with a discounted upgrade price. But for the Ultimate version, I already have or received with another purchase, the additional programs. So upgrading to Ultimate is out, a waste of money. Plus, the new features are not very interesting. Changing the user interface and rearranging things does not count much as new features. Compared to Xara P&G Designer, its new features over the last year far exceed those in the new version of PSP, and I mean by a lot. So, Xara did pretty well, IMHO, whereas Corel failed.

This does not solve the problem of how to try out the new features after expiry. But, do we really want to go back to annual new versions with the inherent problems of setting everything up again, copying files over (brushes, fills, etc.)? Having multiple versions on the computer? Not getting new features as they come out? Is there a solution that would work, I wonder? The only thing that I can think of is that a new trial version should detect that Xara is already on the computer, detect that it has expired, and change something in the program name to allow it to install itself as a separate program in separate folders. Then the problem remains as to what to do if the user accepts to renew. I suspect that Xara's silence is because they have not yet found a complete solution, so we wait...patiently. Ok, not me, I renewed.

John

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

Hi Bubbbab

I see you joined the forum in june 2006 and have so far posted 38 times

I joined in february 2007 and have so far posted over 15,000 times :eek:

now not all of my posts were that great, I would be the first to admit, but there was an unspoken contract here - we gave support to xara for free, they listened

I am not being agressive, I am, as acorn said, frustrated; very

I feel taken advantage of

I trust that in your posts to come, you will help others on this forum with their problems, which is what it is really all about

I have done my share

I do not need to send a support ticket - if xara cared they could send me a PM

I don't think they care any more

so they get no more help from me

I don't suppose they will loose any sleep, but there again, neither will I



good luck with this ;)

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Well, since you've posted so many times, I'll face you, bow and slowly withdraw from the room.....

Hope it works out for you.

Steve...

so here we are, with xara offering a me a time-limited 'massive' 40% off.. desperation kicking in? - not because of me of course, but because sales in general are slipping?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bubbbab

Hope it works out for you

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thanks, things are going along very nicely; really I'm back because there is now a need for art created from shapes, as opposed to line art... something xara is rather good at - fortunately the current toolset will do it all very nicely [bar when there is animation, which is tiresome in xara without morphing, timelines etc] - in fact the basics could be done in any version of xara going back as far as will work on win 10 - herein maybe, lies one of Xara's problems...

so thought I might as well keep a watching brief and throw in the odd post... but the old days are gone in more ways than one....

@browj2

interesting what you say about magix update service, thanks

.........

pax :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

and throw in the odd post...

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;))

[QUOTE=handrawn;582273]...

@browj2

interesting what you say about magix update service, thanks
QUOTE]

Hi,

Glad to see that you are still around.

I should have given an update. What has actually happened is that Magix Music Maker has plateaued, as far as the engine is concerned and Magix will no longer be releasing any new versions. There is a free version, a Plus version and a Premium version, which share an identical motor. The difference is in the features and presets which become activated depending on the version and Magix now sells and will sell in the future, new Soundpools, instruments, functions and presets through the Store which is embedded in the program. Of course, getting the free version and then buying the elements individually is much. much more costly than purchasing the Plus or Premium version. The emphasis is
on content, soundpool loops, and Magix can just recycle these, especially for new users. This is much more lucrative than selling the program. The rollout of this was not without problems, in fact it has been almost a disaster and Magix is working hard to try to correct this. The main problem has been for existing users who had instruments from previous versions or had purchased instruments separately. In the former case, most could be activated, but some could not. In the latter case, the purchased instruments could not be activated. In both cases, the non-activated instruments did not even show up in the Store for sale. Worse, many unpurchased instruments did not show up and the user/purchaser of a Plus or Premium version was given free coupons to activate new instruments that did not show up. The saga continues.

As for other programs with the update service, life continues. Movie Edit Pro users received a new version as an update recently. I wonder how that will play out if the user does not renew after a year and then has to reinstall the program. For existing users and maybe even those who purchase new, it is rather confusing with no version number. The adverts say "New version" each time. So we are now at the "New, New" version, just like it will be for Xara. Those who know Movie Edit Pro, know that we have versions 2017 and 2018. It seems that the patch system still has not been perfected, just like Xara, unless I missed something.

I expect that we will be seeing something new for Xara DPX in a few weeks time, as it will be 4 months since the last issue of new features.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Boy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

and throw in the odd post

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;))

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as opposed to the odd spanner.... :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by browj2

Glad to see that you are still around.

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thanks... and thanks too for the update :)

looks like the answer is here: https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...signer-Updated

there will be trials still available along the way [presumably when the primary version number increments ?]

hopefully for those with a licence it will reinstall over thier existing installation and keep settings