This thread is NOT on piracy and/or the effects of piracy. There are plenty of threads that talk about that subject.I'm not against giving my money, then my personal information, and activating the software that I paid for.What I'm concerned about is setting a limit, then having to contact support to ask for a reset. I'm in no way saying that developers should not try to protect themselves. Companies like ORBX, Flight1, and even FSDT, have found a way to ease the process. Congratulations and thank you!BTW, some of the comments I've read are downright appalling, insulting, and directed at me personally. I have not shown any disrespect to anyone on this thread. If you're looking for a dogfight, you've come to the wrong place.Ultimately, the customer will have to decide if a limited amount of installs is something that they want to deal with, I've already made my decision.

I agree with you 100% Jose. When you purchase a piece of software and provide the company with all of your information, as long as your registration information is in good standing and it hasn't been shared with others, there's no reason why limits should be imposed on customers who are legit owners of the software, period. When one goes to install the software on thier machine, as long as your registration infomration matches a legit registration on the companies master server, there's no justification to impose further limits during the re-install process. Doing so simply imposes penalites on those legit software owners who will basically walk away from the experience with a sour taste in their mouth. Orb-X and other fantastic scenery and aircraft producers really have the right idea in terms of the activation process.

Orb-X and other fantastic scenery and aircraft producers really have the right idea in terms of the activation process.<br />

By forcing you to either login during the install process to activate or remember your order number? Everyone has something to fight piracy. Complaining about 5 minutes of "work" to legitimately reinstall is ridiculous.

I agree with you 100% Jose. When you purchase a piece of software and provide the company with all of your information, as long as your registration information is in good standing and it hasn't been shared with others, there's no reason why limits should be imposed on customers who are legit owners of the software, period. When one goes to install the software on thier machine, as long as your registration infomration matches a legit registration on the companies master server, there's no justification to impose further limits during the re-install process. Doing so simply imposes penalites on those legit software owners who will basically walk away from the experience with a sour taste in their mouth. Orb-X and other fantastic scenery and aircraft producers really have the right idea in terms of the activation process.

Because you can get your registration to 50 of your closest friends .. thats why it doesnt work your way

Jocko,What happens if a person shares their code AND their registration information with 10 of their "friends"?

What happens if a person shares their code AND their registration information with 10 of their "friends"?

Means that 10 guys don't support the dev and the value of the product. Some may have a reason for this, some not, but nagging the valid customers with more or less complicated activation steps won't decrease that number, only quality, support and true value will. Increase protection efforts and the guys with the "wrong" value thinking will increase theirs too. Check Google for the proof of this since every product in this small flight sim world seems to be available, for free. And all of them are protected.So better ask why 99% of us don't steal things which are not protected to get a hang on the needed attitude of a whole industry.Ask yourself, why don't you steal other's things? Because they are protected? So you would steal them if they were not? I don't think so. :(

Guess what CoolP, based on our limited activation system all of those people would be stopped. So that number WOULD DECREASE!

Because you can get your registration to 50 of your closest friends .. thats why it doesnt work your way

I have to question the credibility or reality of this point.I happen to be a Certified Flight Instructor (CFII) and I can count on my hand the amount of pilots that I've come in contact that use or even are familiar with FSX.I certainly don't have 50 close friends and if I did, I doubt that they would invest in a modern computer in order to run FSX acceptably.This community is passionate about this hobby. We can come up with all sorts of possible scenarios that would compromise the terms of the agreement, but I prefer to keep it simple and even civil.

OK, how about A USER (NOT YOU) that would share with 2 friends? Should we attempt to stop that situation?And don't believe for a minute that this has nothing to do with piracy because it has everything to do with piracy. Without piracy there would be no need for any type of product protection. And then posts like this, as calm and respectful as you have been, would no longer be necessary.

Guess what CoolP, based on our limited activation system all of those people would be stopped. So that number WOULD DECREASE!

"Would" talk means subjunctive talk. Since you can't measure the success, this "would" and some strong believe is all you have there. Now Mr. Google clearly shows that this believe is heavily grounded when it comes to facts. For example, your soft will surely be available, for free, without any activation and without getting disturbed by any protection at all.Now, the main question remains. What holds back people from doing bad things like e. g. running software without buying it? Protection? That thing which proved to fail since software exists? Still in doubt there and awaiting a disproof. :(My assumption still is that all fancy protection heavily fails to show it's class (ask Google about it) while some parts of it have a huge potential when it comes to spoiling valid customers. See DJ Jose. I don't have the feeling that he's happy about his purchase and I also think that he might avoid that dev in the future (not talking about him becoming a pirate). Is that a win situation for the "protected" software we are talking about? A customer which avoids the product completely because the so called protection kicked him out of the rules which some companies set up?

"By forcing you to either login during the install process to activate or remember your order number? Everyone has something to fight piracy. Complaining about 5 minutes of "work" to legitimately reinstall is ridiculous."Interesting, it looks like it sailed directly over your head, please, read carefully next time as you will notice I never said anywhere in my post that I minded loging in to re-activate my software. The Flight Sim Store wrapper that Orb-X scenery uses is quite satisfactory and effective in my opinion. I do however mind when I am limited by a company the amount of re-installs I am allowed to make on my computer. Poisoning ones userbase by usless and moot software authentication services is bad for buisness and only further pushes people towards using pirated software when they can't get the legitimate copy of the software they paid for up and running, as in many cases of legitimate FSX copies being over the install limit."Because you can get your registration to 50 of your closest friends .. thats why it doesnt work your way"Hardware ID based registration techniques would take care of this situation, many companies currently employ such techniques without imposing limits on the number of installs unless of course you build a new computer.

It is also a fact that Mr. Google leads to mostly dead ends. And don't think for a minute just because you find something using Mr. Google that you will be able to install and properly use that software found by Mr. G."Hardware ID based registration techniques would take care of this situation, many companies currently employ such techniques without imposing limits on the number of installs unless of course you build a new computer."Which of course is an example of activation limits of which you are arguing against.

"Which of course is an example of activation limits of which you are arguing against."Again, please read carefully. Activation limitations and install limits are completely different things. I can, for example, install a software product 100 times on my computer that uses a hardware based registration ID. As long as I am installing it on my machine the software functions correctly. I don't think it is to much to ask a user to re-activate either via website or email when one builds a new computer, that would be completely understandable. But limiting the amount of installs to one computer hardware ID a specific number of times is counter productive to your products userbase.

It is also a fact that Mr. Google leads to mostly dead ends. And don't think for a minute just because you find something using Mr. Google that you will be able to install and properly use that software found by Mr. G.

So not only you are fighting some 'dead end' pirates, you also haven't answered the main question in that whole 'we need protection' thingy. As it was already posted twice, I leave it out now.My suggestion would be to start from an awareness of the threat you are fighting against to then evaluate the countermeasures. I don't see any current protection method to be successful as the increased effort on the one side always triggers the exact same thing on the other one. And complaining about that bad piracy losses while stating that all net wide offers are dead ends seems a little .. naive.Since no one can measure those losses, no one can measure the success of protection too.One "success" of heavy protection can be seen here, on the example of the thread starter. A valid customer not planning to buy anything again from that company. Well done!This might give an impression towards the answer to the mentioned (open) question. People don't buy stuff because you force them to, and they also don't start enjoying things then, but they are driven by the quality, the value and the support attitude. Fail at one spot and you're becoming a constant complainer about pirates and other things while always overlooking the main cause of the problem, your (not speaking especially about Jim's) attitude.Proud of this protection? Not with this outcome in my eyes.

"Which of course is an example of activation limits of which you are arguing against."Again, please read carefully. Activation limitations and install limits are completely different things. I can, for example, install a software product 100 times on my computer that uses a hardware based registration ID. As long as I am installing it on my machine the software functions correctly. I don't think it is to much to ask a user to re-activate either via website or email when one builds a new computer, that would be completely understandable. But limiting the amount of installs to one computer hardware ID a specific number of times is counter productive to your products userbase.

And the OPs situation could have been caused by a hardware change which means much of this was a to-do about nothing!