Licensing DAEMON TOOLS Pro

[stuartl]

I'm afraid I just wasted $28 odd dollars buying a license for Daemon tools Pro. After being a user of the lite version for several years I decided it would be a decent thing to do to buy a license.

However after doing so I find the MOST restrictive licensing model I've EVER seen on a piece of software anywhere, even more restrictive than MICROSOFT!

Not only do you restrict to a single machine (Most software vendors allow installation of two machines, desktop and laptop (Even Microsoft!)) but you then restrict it a SINGLE CONFIGURATION. I'm a developer! my machine has 32 Bit XP, 64 bit XP, 32 bit VISTA, 64 bit VISTA, Games XP and Games VISTA all installed as multiboot, all of which I run a virtual DVD drive in. I have no intention of distributing illegally any licensed software, however I do expect to be able to install it more than once on a single machine, after all, that is 'fair and reasonable use' as defined in test cases in both US and european courts.

I'm afraid you've lost me as a customer, I'll NOT be renewing my license next year, I'll be going back to DAEMON Lite. Oh actually I already have haven't I because I CAN'T INSTALL IT ON MY DEV MACHINE.

Excuse the rant but your license terms can ONLY damage you in the long term.

How about this license model (This is what WE do) if the license allows for 2 machines (or even 1 machine) you can install it as many times as you like on that machine (After all only one is ever used at a time), based on CPU ID, MAC address and BIOS ID and a couple of other things. So if the user changes their NIC, or CPU it doesn't blow the license because we can see they've changed something (The other bits stay the same, CPU ID and BIOS ID say they change the NIC). If they install on a second machine, we disable the software on the first machine. That way they can buy a new machine and install without costing us support and not bothering them. If the have a 2 machine license and they install on a third machine, the first machine licensed is disabled etc.

It's easy to do, it's customer friendly and cheap for us to maintain. Unlike your model which is costing you money in lost sales, not just me as a personal user, but as a corporate purchaser also. After all you do have competition.

Yours disgruntled
Ex Customer
Stu

[Blazkowicz]

You can use DT Pro on several OSes, you just have to revoke existing hardware key in your disc-soft.com account.

[stuartl]

Then won't it be licensed on the second OS and not the first, surely that's what 'revoked' means?

[Blazkowicz]

Revoke licensing will enable you to install and use DT Pro on another OS/PC. You only can't use it on the same time.

[stuartl]

Nah, I've just tested it. Installed on one isntance of Vista, switched to a second instance of Vista and installed on that. Had to 'revoke' the license to install it on the second instance of Vista. Switched back to the first instance and Daemon was disabled.

[Blazkowicz]

That is correct so far. When you want to use on another OS/PC, you have to revoke. You only purchased one license. That's what i meant with "You only can't use it on the same time.".

[stuartl]

That's just unusable, having to transfer the license via an external web site everytime I switch from one OS to another.

Sorry, it's just as I said in the first post. The licence should be based on the HARDWARE ID not the partition ID. As you can't run more than one OS on a PC at a time no one is going to be misusing your license if it's based on hardware id. As it is there's no way people will put up with having to re-license a piece of software everytime they want to use it. That's just not acceptable. As a developer I'm switching between OS's 6 or so times a day. A license like this just isn't a viable option.

You need to rethink how you licence this. I am your target audience (Unless you're just after kids with hacked games) and as a professional user, this software, extremely good as it is, isn't usable with this licensing.