Converting to NTFS invalidates PMDG737 Registration

[Ray Proudfoot 9,053]

All,If any of you have XP are are considering converting from FAT32 to NTFS then please be aware you will invalidate your registration for the PMDG737. After doing this earlier this evening I couldn't then generate a Transfer Code so as things stand I'm awaiting support from the group.Security seems a little over-keen. :-( Cheers,

[BobP 56]

I agree Ray. I support the developers need to protect their software 100% and hope they can find the proper balance between protecting their rights and useablity. I think PMDG's approach has reached the limit (or exceeded for some) what customers will put up with.During one of my "thoughts while shaving" sessions I wondered how much piracy actually is lost opportunity for our vendors. FS payware stuff is a very vertical marketa and the majority of people who steal the planes and scenery would not have bought it anyway. Oh... well I'm sure that is easy to say when it is not your "ox that is being gored".BobP :)

[Guest]

Piracy accounts for over half the FS addon market.If only 10% of those people would have purchased it had they not had access to a pirated copy that would mean a 10% increase (or more) in sales.At a sales volume of 10.000 units at $40,-- each that means another $40.000,-- income to the company selling the addon.I believe the percentage of people who would have purchased without piracy to be closer to 25% (and that's conservative) and percentage of actual piracy to be higher as well.Going from 80% piracy of which 25% would have purchased (about the max I imagine) that leaves us with potentially DOUBLE the sales were there no piracy or another $400.000,-- income based on actual sales of 10.000 units at $40,-- each.Say the actual figure is somewhere in between the two, you're still talking of about $200.000,-- in income lost due to piracy.Now factor in the money one would save if anti-piracy protection weren't needed and the figures get even higher.In part due to lower development cost, in part due to higher sales achieved by giving that lower development cost back to the customer in lower prices (which drives up sales).

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

Jeroen-Your thought process is essentially correct- (the basic economics of the price/deman curve, I mean...)The problem is that the percentage of stolen software is MUCH higher. So much so that it is very close to invalidating all returns on the initial development costs.Yes- think about that. Tens of thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of man-hours in development- and based on the rate of theft it is hard to make a profit.10,000 units of sales would be a nice figure! I think that if 10,000 units are in distribution you will find that nearly 50% are stolen.Hence the need for the protection.Unfortunately it becomes a chicken and egg argument. To protect the Intellectual Property- you have to make the additional steps in security. This increases cost and increases support. This in turn gets passed on to the customer... The more theft that takes place- the higher the spiral goes until the developer ceases producing for the community or legal order is brought forward....The recording industry is slamming down hard on file sharing. It's close to happening with the software industry. Yes- we are going to participate. ;-)Nobody wishes more than PMDG that theft protection wasn't necessary. It is. Whether we like it or not- it has become a necessary part of the way business is done.

[John_Tavendale 453]

It only takes a few moments of your time to generate a code, send it off and have a new key emailed to you. For me atleast its much better than paying an increased price to cover for software theft that occurs from a less secure software package. :)

[enyap 0]

Does converting to NTFS make any difference? The only time I tried this the process went into a loop and I had to reformat. John

[Ray Proudfoot 9,053]

Hi Bob,Thanks to the support team I'm now up and running again. The automated registration process is excellent. My only quibble is how often I should have to access it ;-)I'm sure that once the bug fix / FS2004 patch is out and the team have had a chance to catch breath they will review the security procedures.You're right about protecting their financial interests. It's their livelihood after all.Cheers,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,053]

John,<>You're quite right but it's the circumstances that require a new code to be requested I disagree with. No hardware changes were made so I don't feel it should be necessary to require a new code. The security could be just as good with only HARDWARE changes requiring a re-registration.Cheers,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,053]

Hi John,It improves security I believe. Access times are slightly slower. Fragmentation is much less of a problem. I was a bit nervous during the process but thankfully it went very smoothly.Cheers,

[Guest]

I knew I was being conservative, going on the (apparently incorrect) assumption that piracy is less of a problem in the flightsim community than with other games because it is relatively close-knit.I know the average percentage of piracy of entertainment titles has been estimated by major industry partners as approaching 90% as a worldwide average (against 50-60% for office applications and operating systems).I am in full support of ANY means necessary to protect against piracy.If that includes subscription based software and hardware locking than so be it.

[Guest]

changing a disk from FAT to NTFS constitutes a hardware change for the operating system.May sound weird but that's the way of things.

[Guest]

NTFS disks are more stable, faster and less prone to dataloss.But then again, it has been called "never the same filesystem" (though that was NTFS 3) :)

[Ray Proudfoot 9,053]

It's completely illogical! I can change my graphics card or add / remove memory modules and not need to re-register. But changing the file structure does? I'm speechless!Cheers,

[Guest]

> For me atleast>its much better than paying an increased price to cover for>software theft that occurs from a less secure software>package. :)You will have to pay an increased price anyway as you will have to pay for all those improved security - features, too!In the end the honest, paying customer has to1) pay the price for the software2) deal with the drawbacks of the security-system3) pay the price for the security-systemwhile the pirates have to1) pay NOTHING2) will NOT get plagued by the security-system.Is it only me or do others feel too, that there must be some error in this equation?Whatever the pirates do, the honest customer has to pay for it - surely this cannot be called "just"!!!???Walter

[Guest]

>I knew I was being conservative, going on the (apparently>incorrect) assumption that piracy is less of a problem in the>flightsim community than with other games because it is>relatively close-knit.>>I know the average percentage of piracy of entertainment>titles has been estimated by major industry partners as>approaching 90% as a worldwide average (against 50-60% for>office applications and operating systems).I wonder from where you get all your "datas". I bet the software-pirates will not tell you that they have stolen your software! And if this is as accurate as any other statistics, you can forget it!Or did you really believe that the Concorde was the safest plane on earth BEFORE the Paris disaster. And do you really believe that the Concorde has suddenly become the MOST DANGEROUS commercial jet AFTER the Paris-disaster??? Yet this is exactely what the statistics will tell you!(I doubt that everybody who uses stolen software would have bought it if he hadn