Cannot use my second activation

[iamtheblues]

I suppose one answer for those who would rather that Xara/Magix became less obtrusive would be to instruct one's firewall to prevent Xara having access...but then one wouldn't receive all the updates - tough choice!
Bob.

[handrawn]

Bob - you mean someone in the 'cloud' is dropping large hints?

I promised the good Rob that henceforth I would try to be constructive, and the only constructive thing I have to say about the update service is that in my instance it is not working properly on my laptop computer that [as a backup] is not used regularly - it may be because I restored earlier from an image with an earlier ver 12 number and it does not like this at the activation end, but I don't know

Certainly from my point of view the whole 365 model looks like a dogs breakfast, but, being constructive I am not a typical user in that I customise rebuild and change things around in the OS... is that relevant? I don't know.. but I don't think there is any excuse for offering an update to which the licence user is not entitled that will then lock their program - I can play around with things but Xara appear to be aiming for those who like things to work out of the box and stay that way... so sooner or later, if the system is flaky and not robust, it might well cause a lot of issues, headaches and heartache - but of course it is quite possible that for those who 'work out of the box' all is robust...

For me XDPX is one tool used in animation process - the Animation in done in Toon Boom Harmony - Toon Boom Harmony is a World Class animation program, very powerful and with a great animation oriented toolset, but asset creation and working out complicated keyframe posing is better done in Illustrator/Photoshop or equivalent program of choice - in my case XDPX, and Affinty Photo for some of the really raster-intense work where Xara's particular way of doing those things is not efficient to my workflow - I have Photoshop CS2 but it is getting very long in the tooth now and I cannot afford CC because Harmony costs are on a par and I cannot afford/justify adobe as well - at least Toon Boom allows you to buy a perpetual licence but they are not cheap and if you buy a perpetual licence, which I have, you still need to save for the next upgrade you can't be out of step with the latest features at this level of the proccess

Which brings me neatly back to xdpx - 'every little helps' as they [used to] say at Tesco and so if I don't upgrade Xara I have money to put towards Toon Boom; I have also reluctantly put the pause on Corel Painter, again because the feature set has all I need at present, and I frankly hardly have the time to use it now except for some rather neat tools like particle brushes that can be very useful on occasion

If it had not been for the ability to assign names to layers, and the PSD import/export layer/object options I would have stayed with ver 11 - I stlll have it installed because it has it's uses eg: as mike and others have said, ver 12 PDF export has some issues

I see no future in the drawing side of Xara down the line.... again, being constructive, this is a personal viewpoint, the way things are going I will have moved on by the time any happen to come through; online designer is an irrelevance to me... quite apart from the IPR constraints that prevent routine cloud usage, it would give me no advantage whatsoever and tie me to the internet - it's for networking design...

I think that might be quite enough for one post... to each their own and may you have success with it

cheers
steve

[handrawn]

PS Bob - yes it is perfectly feasible to block Xara in a firewall, but that might cause the very issue I had, or similar, on system restore if the program is prevented from having access to the magix server for extended length of time... quite apart from any update issues

[iamtheblues]

Steve, given the hassle you (and others) have experienced, I cannot see that there is any point in sticking with the 365 model, which is obviously flaky beyond belief. I would be inclined at this point to say, "OK, Xara, what else can you show me?" There is no hint of a roadmap, no clue as to which way forward (if any) is proposed. I don't see any point in sticking with the updates when it is palpably obvious that nothing is forthcoming. Xara/Magix really do not deserve the support of its customer base. I'd be inclined to say that at this point it is probably better to stick rather than twist. There is already more than enough proof of the way that things are going, vector drawing tools will probably never get any better than they are at present, and there seems to be either no will, or an inability to update existing tools (eg: Bitmap Tracer) because of coding issues. I am not saying that it is up to Xara/Magix to be up front about these issues, it is for the customer to decide when the flim-flammery is worthess and the reason to upgrade the software is pointless. That is where we and the company stand right now. It's a watershed moment.
Bob.

[handrawn]

there are certainly advantages in using what other people use, which in my case is Illustrator - but is it worth the 20 GBP a month? - in a business sense yes it is, if it maximises income, but if I do that everything gets ported over

you see, sticking with a version of any program and not updating is only a short term option, medium at best.. because sooner or later as windows and graphics move on, something will break in a major way - I had a nasty shock with artefacts all over the place when drawing freehand in xdpx12 a while back - not sure what caused it, nvidia update maybe if not windows itself - on that occasion reinstalling Xara resolved the issue, but there is no guarantee that such an issue can always be fixed - if you do take the cost of adobe on as a business expense, then you 'forget' about it in the same way you 'forget' about other regular bills.. they just happen - and you can be confident that it will keep on truckin'

adobe does deliver.. and you are free of the time wasting analysis of whether to update or not - I'm not saying here that adobe is better value in any sense, but if you asked me which of the two companies would be most likely to still be here in 10 years time... well, you would already know the answer I would give... which is not to say they won't both be, but now it comes down to faith and trust

I have been losing faith these last couple of years because the drawing side is effectively stagnant.. there have been a couple of ripples on the surface but nothing else. Xara can promise what they like for only so long before it starts to sound like Aesop's Boy and the Wolf only this time the problem is the promised wolf ain't anywhere in sight...

and I have to say, the squish issue has severely dented trust.. it would not be constructive to say that Xara don't really know what they are doing anymore and beside, they almost certainly do within their own lights... just it suddenly does not seem that they do to me anymore in the areas in which I use their software

so there is always the 'what next?' hanging in the air

you could be right about watershed, at least for me...

the xara guys we deal with on this forum are all good people, and genuine I am sure.. but they have to follow the company line and the company like you say is very secretive.. I could speculate on reasons for that, but speculation is not constructive.. it's just such a shame it 'has' to be that way...

[handrawn]

and now version 11 is freezing at the activation stage:



despite above ruminations I am not really intending to abandon 11/12 at the moment because the workflow is just too darn good for the current project work

but this is really becoming very tiresome....

[Egg Bramhill]

My machine had a serious issue that required me to reinstall Windows 10 but deleting all my software.
Having done so, I downloaded XDPX and installed it.
I went to the activation page, downloading the serial/activation code by logging in to Xara's site.
This code wouldn't be recognised so I'm stuck using the trial until support sorts this out.
This should be simple, but Xara/Magix seems to making it a total dogs dinner.

[handrawn]

it was fine until magix took it over - it appears the transfer could have been done better shall we say

I managed to fix version 11 by going to my account deactivating version 11 for that computer and then trying again whn it reactivated ok

never ever had to do this before, I've been swapping between windows and linux on the computer for years - some programs want you to re-enter the activation key, some don't; I have no objections to re-entering the activation key if it works just so long as it dioes not reset all my config which deactivating first does, no other program I have does that on simple reactivation of what is in reality a backup image....

[Egg Bramhill]

Support gave me a different activation code other than the one on My Products page so I'm still somewhat baffled what went on Anyway, all sorted now until the next time.

[handrawn]

glad you got it sorted - it does sound like there was/is a problemm with porting the accoiunts over from xara to magix...