I was trying to upgrade to Designer 10 from an older version this afternoon, encountered some of the same troubles, program at activation said I was not on line, then after activation/serial number etc.....when loading the new program I received "Error unable to download file C:\user...10 cash\designs" so there were no templates to work with. All of this upset me. Xara has been the greatest software for my web development for many years. It never occurred to me their system was screwed up. I hope to get my new version working soon, if not hoping to get a refund for the upgrade price they offer a 30 trial. I will continue to use my older Designer Pro X which probably has more stuff than I will ever understand.