Yes I know that we should copy any payware downloads to a cd just in case anything happens to our hard drives and I always do, but I was just wondering (whilst eating my lunchtime sandwiches!) why some companies allow unlimited downloads of any purchased products whilst others don't. Seeing as we purchase a licence to use the product rather than the product itself (Isn't that one of the reasons why we aren't supposed to sell on downloaded software to other users?)I don't understand why they make this restriction? If it's to prevent multiple downloads, what's to stop someone making numerous copies from a cd? Victor

Several reasons.One is direct cost. Every time you download something you incurr a cost on the person renting (or owning) the machine you download it from.That cost is the bandwidth needed to download that item.But it get worse in that the company will need to schedule an amount of bandwidth for such repeat downloads even if they don't happen so there's a continuous extra running cost as well.Another is making piracy harder.It's far easier and cheaper to send someone a download URL and a username/password or maybe a license key by email than a 100MB file.If you give someone a URL for a download that can be used say 5 times you limit the risk of casual piracy that way.While it doesn't stop people making multiple copies on CD and handing them out to everyone and their friend, it does prevent such extremely casual things as I mentioned which adds an extra hurdle (financial and in time) to the process.

This is a big issue all over the software industry, not just in the flightsim community. It is always a blurry line between protecting software versus annoying customers.To avoid future headaches, follow two simple steps:1) _before_ you buy, read the company policy on software activation, multiple downloads, etc. If it isn't clear, than ask _before_ you buy. 2) (as you already mentioned) - Back up everything you get from the vendor. This includes the download file, any keys, a copy of any and all e-mail messages to and from the vendor. (the last one people don't always think of). Burn them onto a cd, external hard drive, etc. Personally I have never had a problem getting any addon reactivated, provided that I have something to show them about the order.