About Xara's always-online hardware-hashing DRM

[katemoir]

Let me put you out of your misery, the software does not stop working after 30 days if there is no online check. I believe Magix did require an online check after 30 days for a while on some titles, but this was never in the Xara titles. I have drawn their attention to the out of date support article. Of course you do need a connection for initial activation and any subsequent activations, for the online services etc - but the software itself does not stop working if you don't connect.

For activations you can have two at once. If you want to install on a third computer you need to deactivate one of your existing copies first. You can do that via the Help menu in the copy you want to deactivate. There is no limit on the number of times you can do this or the frequency, if you use the deactivate option in the Help menu. If for some reason you can't do that (eg the computer is dead) then you can connect to the service center when you are installing the new copy and de-activate one of your existing copies, but you can only do this once in 30 days. If you can't deactivate via the help menu AND you have used your once a month de-activation via the service center, then you have to contact support to ask them to deactivate one of your existing copies for you.

Hope that makes it clearer!

[handrawn]

thank you very much for that kate

I think I am going to have to assume that re-partitioning a HDD will still count as new machine - as long as I remember to deactivate first it is no worse than the position last JUly when ver 11 of XDP came out

if the computer will carry on without problems when disconnected from the web then I no longer have a problem either with the system - activation online once at purchase, or when swapping computers is all fair enough....

[Acorn]

Let me put you out of your misery, the software does not stop working after 30 days if there is no online check. I believe Magix did require an online check after 30 days for a while on some titles, but this was never in the Xara titles. I have drawn their attention to the out of date support article. Of course you do need a connection for initial activation and any subsequent activations, for the online services etc - but the software itself does not stop working if you don't connect.

For activations you can have two at once. If you want to install on a third computer you need to deactivate one of your existing copies first. You can do that via the Help menu in the copy you want to deactivate. There is no limit on the number of times you can do this or the frequency, if you use the deactivate option in the Help menu. If for some reason you can't do that (eg the computer is dead) then you can connect to the service center when you are installing the new copy and de-activate one of your existing copies, but you can only do this once in 30 days. If you can't deactivate via the help menu AND you have used your once a month de-activation via the service center, then you have to contact support to ask them to deactivate one of your existing copies for you.

Hope that makes it clearer!

Kate, thank you, it does clear up this aspect rather well.
Regards,
Acorn

[Rob-Xar]

So I decided to look into the RegEdit side of my Xara installation.

There is a key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Xara\WebDesignerPremium x64\12\Options\Update called ServerCheck.
My product has a value of 1464112201.
This was suspiciously like a second count since 1970 so I used http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/tryit...yjsref_settime and put in 1464112201000 to get Tue May 24 2016 18:50:01 GMT+0100 (GMT Summer Time).

The brave out there might check their values but BEWARE this is mucking about with your machine Registry so you really have no comeback.

I would prefer if Xara came back and stated that if this value was changed to today's date, for example, the licence would run for 30-days ahead without an Internet connection.
The key has been there since version 8 if not earlier but may not have been implemented in this one month licence reset.

Acorn

Yea sorry to disappoint guys this registry key doesn't have anything to do with activation

[pauland]

I think that if you set it to Rob's birthday, it turns WD into Designer Pro..

[Rob-Xar]

I do need a new Graphics Card so if you want to send me something... (*cough Nvidia GTX 1080 cough*)

[Acorn]

Yea sorry to disappoint guys this registry key doesn't have anything to do with activation

I hadn't expected it too but the discussion gained a useful response from Kate Moir.

Acorn