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I am new to the "Vienna Key/Syncrosoft" dongle, but not to USB copy protection dongles, having used iLoks for almost 10 years now.
This technology is garbage. in 10 years using iLok, I have never experienced anywhere close to the errors I've had to deal with while trying to register only 3 products.
This choice of technology may have been cheaper, or German, but it's not good.
Next time, try iLok. It actually works without pissing your customers off.
I have to agree, I just bought a download library and it took multiple attempts on multiple different computers before it finally worked. Worst experience dealing with copy protection in recent memory.
I have used many different products on iLok over the years, and I have never had any issues remotely as bad as what I just went through with this other one.
@mike connelly said:
I have used many different products on iLok over the years, and I have never had any issues remotely as bad as what I just went through with this other one.
And I have used Syncrosoft "protected" products for around 7 years and never experienced any of the problems that you have, but iLok has been pretty much a disaster until the last year or so. I can also tell you why you are having problems, and I'm not. You are using OSX and I am using Windows. As I said, there is unfortunately no dongled protection system that works equally well for OSX and Windows. Furthermore, most iLok products have historically been cracked within days of being released, which is not good for the developer.
I totally agree with you that a better system is needed. However, I don't agree that it is iLok.
One other thing to recognise is that there are no 64bit iLoked apps yet (AFAIK), so VE Pro and Vi would still be 32bit if they were iLok protected products.
DG
@DG said:
Furthermore, most iLok products have historically been cracked within days of being released, which is not good for the developer.
I'm skeptical of this claim - you say this based on what?
@DG said:
Furthermore, most iLok products have historically been cracked within days of being released, which is not good for the developer.
I'm skeptical of this claim - you say this based on what?
Mike, I can only tell you personal anecdotal evidence, as that's all I have. At the time that Vienna Instruments was released, a number of my friends had working cracks of most iLoked plugs. Not that they didn't own the official version, but it meant that they didn't have to deal with the dreadful; copy protection, and risk getting locked out from using plugs that they had paid to use.
DG
When I finally replaced my 9-10 year old PPC G4 iMac last month with a 2010 MacPro, I thought "all my problems would go away".
Well, they did, with one glaring exception: eLicenser hiccups!
Maybe going from a behind-the-times machine to an ahead-of-the-times machine put me outside the range of Steiberg's "commitment" to the Mac? :-)
Whatever the case, the latest update to Mac OS X Snow Leopard (I could never go past Tiger on the 700 MHz iMac), which is 10.6.5, MAY have corrected the problem, as I miraculously have have a week's worth of sessions now without a single eLicneser hiccup.
I tried to make things better by off-loading most of my download library licenses to a separate eLicenser key, but I still have upwards of 40+ licenses on the main key (the other one is in storage as those licenses are redundant vs. the DVD collections).
When I set up the new key, I actually moved my most important licenses to that key and left the unused ones behind on the old key. Everything went great until I got to around 20 licenses. Then I started getting the familiar "license not found" errors mid-session, only correctable by rebooting the computer.
There is a new iLok on its way right now, but I haven't read all the details yet about whether it supports 64-bit apps.
At any rate, the most obvious thing VSL could do to help, is to offer consolidated licenses to people who own big chunks of the library. Maybe an all-brass license, etc. I guess the tricky thing is that this might get complicated if more instruments in that category are added later.
I've kept my computer on for several days now, which is something I NEVER did in the past. One of the reasons (not the least of which is flakey power in my region), was that "stale" sessions were the most frequent cause of eLicenser troubles.
So I keep my fingers crossed that my sessions will go well today. VSL isn't all that I have on that key: the Eiosis plug-ins, a few soft synths, and one or two other vendors are on that key as well. All have the same problem as VSL licenses.
The Vienna Suite licenses, for some reason, have flagged the error far more frequently than Vienna Instruments. I have no idea why that woulkd be, other than that maybe it's because Vienna Suite uses several licenses, whereas each Vienna Instruments instance presumably only has to look up the license for the library that is being loaded?
I have come to the conclusion that ilok is superior in Mac over eLicenser. eLicenser does much better in windows, but it really does suck large stinkin rotten eggs in mac. I constantly have to reinstall it, about every few months or so. Never have to do that with ilok - never, not even once.
