as an ex it consultant first thing i did in any company i set servers up for was to create an INSTALL share on a server and put all software and drivers on there.. at home i do the same each pc has an install folder not on system drive.. every piece of software i own goes in that folder in its own directory BEFORE it gets installed.. that way its always there for a re install..... also i back it up to an external drive in case pc melts down.. personally i think devs should not charge for further downloads of a registered product.. the bandwidth is actually 'free' as it's online always for purchases .. we not talking about downloading 40gb blu ray movies here..

. i would call it after sales support and customer respect

.. but like i said better to avoid issue totally by organizing ur files yourself.. geesh 16gb usb sticks are like $10 these days...

 

Sent from my GT-P3113 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

 

oh and also i save a notepad file in each install folder containing the licence key. i actually name the tsxt file using the key.. so right click rename /copy puts the key in the clipboard.. easy peasy

 

Sent from my GT-P3113 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

I can't imagine why anyone would not back up downloaded software. It's a simple as downloading the installation package, and then copying it to a USB memory stick. I also keep a small Word document with all of the activation codes for each downloaded product. In fact, I have all of these downloads backed up on an 8GB USB memory stick and an external hard disk.

I can't imagine why anyone would not back up downloaded software. It's a simple as downloading the installation package, and then copying it to a USB memory stick. I also keep a small Word document with all of the activation codes for each downloaded product. In fact, I have all of these downloads backed up on an 8GB USB memory stick and an external hard disk.

 

Hey Chris, 

 

Because in this day and age, people tend to go by the norm of the industry. In this case, the norm is to be able to retrieve old downloads if you need to reinstall. In the gaming/simulation industry in particular, it is commonplace for all developers to allow bandwidth for repeat downloads. 

I cant speak the the relevance of PMDG in this situation but for a lot of software I dont bother with a backup because if I need it in a year I have to go through a multiple patch process to get it up to date.

 

    Its just easier if I need to install some software in a year that I get the up to date version.

 

    Having said that, I do tend to keep copies of all my things about on the network but my experience is as above, if I need to reinstall it its usually worth downloading the latest version first.

 

    Bandwidth is cheap, even expensive bandwidth is cheap unless in the price of the product you are only allocating a few cents.  If a product allocated  $1 of its price to distribution then that should cover all reasonable costs.  $1 for 10 gigs, thats a lot of re downloads.

Dragonmount, on 16 May 2013 - 10:18 PM, said:

 

Ok, so I had to do a complete reformat of my hard drive, and forgot to backup the JS41, now my link has expired, and I have to spend more money to download it again. To date I have had to do this multiple times, and the cost adds up. I think it is an unfair practice to be honest. Any money at all to download something I have already legally purchased, makes me feel like a criminal for wanting my aircraft again.

 

Patrick Boynton

I think you should spend a bit of money and buy an external hard drive, I have all the hundreds of addons I own backed up with installers + all the info needed for installation, most of them in three different locations (computer hard drive, small external hard drive and new large external hard drive).

 

Sure it's way more practical than downloading them all again from many different locations where I bought them. Also developers and FS stores may always close down, thus it's better to be safe than sorry and backup everything.

 

 

Regards

 

Joona L

Whether some of you want to believe it or not, redownload requests have been a HUGE source of operating cost for us as far back as 2006 when we implemented the extended download service policy. We have in general more people per day requesting new downloads than we do new purchases. This is not sustainable - bandwidth for a company that serves up large files in the volume that we do is most definitely NOT free. Neither is the time Paul and I spend every single day processing all of the requests - users often have their products on multiple accounts in our store, they buy the EDS on one account while the products are on a different one etc. Each NGX base pack installer is a good part of 1GB in size and a lot of people who write in want new downloads of every file they've purchased from us going back to 2003. It's often well over 2GB per batch if they own everything we've made.

 

Even after 7 years of having this policy in place, people still buy the extended download service over and over again instead of just backing up their files. I don't get it at all. Any computer that can run FSX has the ability to burn CDs/DVDs, copy to USB flash drives or external hard drives etc. You can get a Dropbox, Google Drive, MS Skydrive etc account for free that will hold everything we've ever made.

 

This is not new, everyone in this community knows about our policy on it. We maintain that it's your responsibility to back up what you've purchased, not ours. We are not an off-site backup service, which is effectively what people who say we should offer unlimited downloads are. It's a waste of money, electricity, etc for us to just constantly send out the same file to people over and over.

 

Ryan, you should have this post appear in large letters on the first page of the installer and also on the purchase confirmation email.  It might get some people to backup.  Up until this was posted I was under the impression the download service was basically an automatic process, its clear that it involves a lot of manual work as well.

What some people here do not understand is that you are not paying a new licence nor the full price again.

You pay $5 for a service that last for a whole year. If within that year you lost you install files again, you send a support ticket and you get a new download link.

Anyone else think that the best solution for this problem would be if pmdg just released .torrents for their packages. Tranfering via torrent is a totally legal way of doing it, the user still needs his original key and I'm sure there would be more than enough users willing to seed.
Eagle dynamics does it with all of their DCS modules and it works great!

You can still let people pay if they want to use the pmdg redownload service or just put out the torrent and it doesn't cost you a thing as the users themselves are putting up the bandwith

Think about it

PS. Just stressing here that I'm not recommending any sort of illegal downloading in any way!


Marijn De Gusseme

 

 

I can't imagine why anyone would not back up downloaded software. It's a simple as downloading the installation package, and then copying it to a USB memory stick. I also keep a small Word document with all of the activation codes for each downloaded product. In fact, I have all of these downloads backed up on an 8GB USB memory stick and an external hard disk.

 

Exactly!

 

I think it's quite clear in this thread who has ever had to handle software on multiple floppies, and potentially CDs.  Gotta love the entitlement and lack of forward thought of those who really haven't handled that kind of thing.  I never sat there, finished an install and promptly tossed my install disks in the trash.

 

*GASP* "That would be stupid," you say!

 

So, what, exactly does the Recycle Bin on your computer look like, and why would it be more valid to destroy the very thing that puts the software onto your computer?

 

It's not okay to trash physical CDs that contain your software, but it's okay to trash downloaded software.  Hmm.

 

There is, unfortunately, a startling amount of ignorance in this thread.

 

You are not paying for your product again, you are paying for the bandwidth of the download. I work in IT in a systems administrator position and I can tell you right now, bandwidth is not cheap. PMDG are recouping their costs of this bandwidth when you pay for their EDS. Nothing more, nothing less. If other companies are taking a hit on it, fair enough - it may be that other companies products have a smaller installer size and as such don't use so much bandwidth.

 

Additionally, there are a number of free cloud storage options, as well as USB pens and external hard drives that you could keep at home. If you want to be a touch more adventurous, have a look at some NAS (network attached storage) for your home. Typically these consist of dual (or more) hard drives for redundancy plus you have a lot of extra storage for other backups.

 

 

Frankly, the re-download costs should be a non-issue.

woofalong, on 17 May 2013 - 07:27 AM, said:

One thing (that I hope I won't get flamed for it here) I might suggest is that if the software security is as good as it can be, why not allow users to upload to a torrent site such as TPB (which can be used for good!) allowing everyone to download the base package and then use their license to activate it? Better yet, if someone from PMDG actually uploaded it to that site, it would be a safe torrent to download!

 

This would avoid bandwidth spaces, make downloads probably faster and save PMDG time for people requesting new links (just direct them to the file on the torrent server)

 

I would like to state here that ALL my PMDG products were bought legally :-)

I have to say, I agree with this. Torrents (when not used for piracy) are a great way of distributing files. One consideration that must be taken is the confusion between 'cracked'/broken/infected versions - this could be negated by providing an MD5 hash etc.

 

To be fair, this would probably be too much of a risk for PMDG to take.

 

 

Because in this day and age, people tend to go by the norm of the industry. In this case, the norm is to be able to retrieve old downloads if you need to reinstall

 

So the norm is being lazy and not responsible for your own files?

Gotcha.

I'll stop since obviously this isn't going anywhere.

 

Would someone just host the installer for the guy on dropbox and get it over with? *******, what is a big deal? If he has his license info it shouldn't be.

 

Because in this day and age, people tend to go by the norm of the industry. In this case, the norm is to be able to retrieve old downloads if you need to reinstall

[/

 

So the norm is being lazy and not responsible for your own files?

Gotcha.

 

.. the 'norm' in the software industry is for customers to be ignorant rather than lazy.. they pay the devs to be smart for them or at least that's what they think they are doing.. page one of every manual and tutorial...

page 1: 'thank u for purchasing our product! have you backed up your installation media to a safe location yet? if not please follow these instructions before progressing to page two..'

page 2: 'did you skip page 1? if so please be warned if you lose your installation media you WILL be charged for a replacement set.. please click this link to return to page 1.'

Drumcode, on 17 May 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

 

Would someone just host the installer for the guy on dropbox and get it over with? *******, what is a big deal? If he has his license info it shouldn't be.

 

So you're suggesting someone else break the terms of their purchase and the EULA with PMDG just to bail this guy out of his own laziness?

Guess you didn't read the Software License Agreement.

It clearly says,

 

"k. You agree that you will not distribute unauthorized copies of this software to any person by any means."