I have recently purchased a third party plane addon and they have a somewhat strict activation process that requires activation from within FSX. I have bought and run another one of their aircraft for many years without issue.Upon installation of the new product I tried to activate it but found that I was unable to do so (menu items were missing from FSX). It turns out a few users were also experiencing this issue and the developer quickly came up with a patch that resolved everyones issues; it turns out I'm the only one that still has the problem. I'm not a FSX newbie and have been a software developer for the past 15 years so have experience debugging applications. This one I can't seem to figure out.In an email to the developer I asked if a refund could be given as I had not activated the product, so obviously could not run it. Their response was:"We are sorry but a refund is not an option. It will tag you with every other affiliate we work with and they may choose to not allow you to buy from them so we like to find a solution and as we said, if that means running some form of interrogation then we may take that action."Does this sound fair/ethical to anyone or am I being overly sensitive as I found this statement simply outrageous. Yes, I understand software license agreements that you digitally sign when you purchase. But to "tag" me so I can't buy from certain retailers simply becasue they issued a refund?!? Surely there are exceptions when the activation of a product can't be done because of the developers software. I applaud their effort to try and help resolve this issue but I can just imagine how long this could take and I'm not keen on allowing a custom application to run on my system to interrogate it, not that I have anything to hide mind you.Andreas

Have you tried resetting the flight from the file menu. I recently had the exact same problem with an Ariane aircraft; the activation option did not appear on the menus until I reset the flight in FSX. Default key to reset the flight is Control+ the semicolon key.Might be worth a shot.And yes, if a product cannot be activated, I think a refund would be fair, but I guess if it's a user issue, then they would prefer to resolve that, and I daresay so would you if you bought the thing.Al

Sounds kind of fishy to me. They cannot take your money and not deliver the goods. In fact, there are companies who say that they will ONLY offer refunds when activation has not or cannot take place.I'm curious as to what he means by affiliates. Is he talking about something like eSellerate? A voluntary refund by a developer should not (I believe) cause any type of retribution or negative consequence. A chargeback initiated by you with your credit card company would/could, however. And what does he mean by an interrogation?I would give them a time frame for a resolution, or at least progress towards a resolution, then do a chargeback if you're not satisfied. Amex/MC/Visa would also probably be interested in his practices with regard to their cards.Also, if your problem is with the Addons menu, you might want to check out the dll.xml file and make sure it's properly formed (run it through a XML validator). There may be some unclosed tag or something.

Have you tried resetting the flight from the file menu. I recently had the exact same problem with an Ariane aircraft; the activation option did not appear on the menus until I reset the flight in FSX. Default key to reset the flight is Control+ the semicolon key.Might be worth a shot.And yes, if a product cannot be activated, I think a refund would be fair, but I guess if it's a user issue, then they would prefer to resolve that, and I daresay so would you if you bought the thing.Al

You solved my problem!!! Thanks Al, very much appreciated. I'm not sure why their support couldn't suggest that given that this seems to happen to a fair number of users.In the end I'm glad this is resolved but I still find their stand on refunds poor customer relations.

Sounds kind of fishy to me. They cannot take your money and not deliver the goods. In fact, there are companies who say that they will ONLY offer refunds when activation has not or cannot take place.I'm curious as to what he means by affiliates. Is he talking about something like eSellerate? A voluntary refund by a developer should not (I believe) cause any type of retribution or negative consequence. A chargeback initiated by you with your credit card company would/could, however. And what does he mean by an interrogation?I would give them a time frame for a resolution, or at least progress towards a resolution, then do a chargeback if you're not satisfied. Amex/MC/Visa would also probably be interested in his practices with regard to their cards.Also, if your problem is with the Addons menu, you might want to check out the dll.xml file and make sure it's properly formed (run it through a XML validator). There may be some unclosed tag or something.

I'm glad I was able to resolve the problem (thanks again Al) which surely was an issue with their add-on as a reset of a flight should not be required to activate a menu. Will definitely never spend another $ on this company given their position. I didn't get details on what affiliates they were referring to as I wasn't pushing that until a few days/weeks passed without resolution. I understood the interrogation they wanted to do would be a system scan tracking all software, drivers, versions, etc on the machine. Quite extensive and would not have allowed that to happen as whow knows what "bug" they may have in the scan that could run amock on my system (as it was a custom written app).

Glad you got it sorted.Al

Is it possible for us to know, what is the company which want to 'tag' You?

Is it possible for us to know, what is the company which want to 'tag' You?

I too would be very interested to know which company was involved. If we don't pass on the names of those with these kinds of policies how can we separate the ones we have to be cautious about or to avoid doing business with from those who should have a chance to earn our trust?For me, if receiving a refund is not an option, buying from them will never be an option either, regardless of what they sell.Stephen

I have learned my lesson, the product has to be backed by flight1 for me to take a chance on it, few exceptions the PMDG, Fsdreamteam,REX,HiFi, FS2Crew, and Radar Contact guys.

Is it possible for us to know, what is the company which want to 'tag' You?

+1 on that.I would really like to know as I will definitely avoid that company's products if at all possible. If other companies can refund my money for legitimate reasons, there should be no reason on God's green earth why any reputable outfit could not do the same without labelling you a financial pariah. Do us all a favor and tell us which company it is. It is your only leverage against these guys as a consumer, if you don't do this they will continue to #@** on the small guys with impunity. They must be made to realize that their policies and how they treat their customers have CONSEQUENCES!Alex C

I'll wager a cyber-$1.00 that the answer has already been given, albeit indirectly.

I'll wager a cyber-$1.00 that the answer has already been given, albeit indirectly.

And I'll also bet

I'll wager a cyber-$1.00 that the answer has already been given, albeit indirectly.

You both win the dollar, Ariane is the company. It wasn't (and still isn't) my intent to give a company a bad name but was to simply confirm "I wasn't off my rocker" in having issue with their response. I'm glad to get the program to work but will never, ever, spend another dollar with the company. It's one thing to refuse a refund (which I would have gladly taken up with my credit card company if I could never actually use the program because of their programming faults/shortcomings) but quite another to threaten your customers with the potential of a smear campaign with resellers not allowing you to buy products from them. Quite unethical if you ask me.

I have bought their 737-800 for FSX and while it is not a bad plane(it actually is quite good) the thing that bothers me the most is the price. Granted i really wanted a 737 for FSX and PMDG was a long way away at the time. But when you concider that my level d 767, coolsky md 80,and captain sim 757 are all in the $50 range and arguably have more system depth than the Ariane model. Adding the fact that their FMC is horribly out of date so that most sids and star waypoints are not even in the database. I do lots of flying of VATSIM and this fact alone makes the aircraft unflyable. I had it installed on my system, had to reactivate after i reinstalled windows vista and they sent me some message about they are going to count my activations and i will only get so many. I was so tired of it by the time I installed windows 7 i havent even reinstalled it. Now that the PMDG plane is on the way ill just wait and get that. The sad thing is PMDG has an intial estimate of around $80 for the plane with is about $35 less than what Ariane's costs. I have no doubt which will be of better quality.

Thanks for the warning.