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Software Companies and Lost Serial Numbers?
Frustrated by "Customer Support" asks: "My company purchased a retail boxed piece of software from a small company about 8 months ago, before I worked here. My predecessor was not organized at all, and he misplaced the serial numbers. Now it's time for that software to get reinstalled, but we're unable to due to the missing numbers. I contacted support for the company, and they indicated that they were unable to provide replacement keys, even after I faxed them my proof of purchase. The company claims it's the customer's responsibility to keep track of the keys, and that they're unable to supply replacements as the key could still be used to run there software. I find this totally ludicrous, as we've paid for a license to use the software. So Slashdot, does a missing serial number or software key invalidate your license to a piece of software that you purchased? Does one have any recourse to get a replacement serial from a company that won't supply them? Does one purchase software or do you purchase serial numbers?"
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be unhelpful, but thats really the best solution. It's not difficult -- a simple excell sheet with product names and reg keys. Store it someplace safe -- which gets backed up with everything else. The actual paperwork? A simple binder with clear folders. Just stuff all your keys/serials there.
Since you are already *IN* that boat, you may want to try a few things on some test platforms:
(a) install the software on new platform
(b) copy the install directory from the old to the new platform
(c) cross fingers
or
(a) install the software on the new platform
(b) copy the registry entries created by the old software to the new platform
(c) cross fingers
or
(a) install the software on the new platform
(b) crack open your handy disasmbler/softice combo
(c) attempt to ID the protection and disable it
(d) cross your fingers
Don't expect any of these things to work, but it wouldn't hurt to try. Other places you may look for hidden keys: win.ini, *.dll (usually created by the installed software), *.ini, *.cfg, etc etc etc. Keep a sharp eye and you may get lucky but as a betting man, I'd bet that you are going to be buying new licences, though. My guess is that you can't show that you haven't transfered those licences to another party.
Just search for a serial number or a crack for the software, and then never purchase software from that company again.
No, you paid for the software and you have the original disks. Most companies will gladly send you another serial number. It's a support issue, and they shouldn't have a problem with it. Even Microsoft will replace a lost serial number.
Does one have any recourse to get a replacement serial from a company that won't supply them?
Yes, write a letter to their CEO, cc your state's AG, the BBB, and the FTC.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
...but have you asked them to resupply your original serial(s)? Surely they'd keep track of the serial numbers they've given out in the past, right? How much money are we talking about if you have to repurchase the software?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Why the secret? Who is this company and what's the name of the product?
Some of us might be in a position to buy or recommend this kind of software someday, and the information may help guide our choices.
Of course I don't usually use proprietary software, and especially not one with these kinds of ridiculous terms. If you hand your rights over to a company (specifically, the right to run a piece of software legally obtained, which is spelled out in copyright law), you will get burned sooner or later!
It's obvious to most people that people buy the right to use a piece of software, not a magic number. Check out Ambrosia's Lost registration code policy as an example of a company who understands this.
Random and weird software I've written.
Send a bill to your predecessor for the cost of a new license. It was his responsibility. It was a company asset. He lost it. Would it be any different if he had a company laptop and "lost" it before he quit/was let go?
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
We contacted whoever owned ARCServe back then (this was around 1997ish), and they couldn't believe it, but they said "Okay, send us proof of the broken disc, and we'll send you a new one". So I told somebody in the department to fax them the disc. An hour later they returned with the pieces. "Uhh... how do I... err...?"
So I walked them over to the photocopier, laid down the pieces, copied them and handed him the copy. "There. That should be easier".
Heh. Temporary cognitive disconnect in an otherwise intelligent person. I still picture them standing in front of the fax machine with the cover sheet, parts of the disc and a determined look.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Read the EULA for the app if it's handy (or available), just to make sure, but I believe in most cases using a keygen (if one is available) to get the application installed and running isn't actually against the EULA (which just wants you not to run the app on more than one computer without multiple licenses or copy it for your friends).
You can show you've paid for the application. You can show you've tried to resolve the situation in good faith with the vendor, and presumably you can show they were uncooperative. Obviously, you don't tell them you're using the keygen, and you keep complaining to their support group and even their ownership until you get your key back, but you've got your application up and running at least.
If they do somehow figure out you're using a keygen and get huffy/legal with you, you've got plenty to show a court that you are entitled to use the application because you paid for it and that you tried to clear it up with them.
It goes without saying you shouldn't (if you have any choice) do any business with a company like this again. Also, though you already know this, keep better track of keys next time as well.
The only other helpful suggestion I've seen here so far is to keep pestering the company's support team until they cave in, or get the BBB or AG involved (or both). Trying to contact the company's owners or upper management might be a good idea, too.
One final tip: if you've been dealing with the support minions by phone or e-mail, stop. Do it in writing, to leave a paper trail and give them a better sense of urgency about the problem. Make it clear that you will not stop until they make this right; letters are far more powerful and effective in this than persistent phone calls or e-mails.
Read my stuff.
Admittedly, I don't tend to read volumes of cost comparisons between open-source and proprietary software but one thing I haven't seen in the cost comparisons I have read is the cost of managing licenses. In my experience this is non-trivial.
As you have noted here there is a cost in wasted time dealing with the vendor and probably in down-time for your users who need the software.
Even if the key wasn't lost there is a cost in maintaining the records of keys.
If you can't convince them to provide you with your key then there may be the cost of buying another copy if you decide to continue doing business with the crooks who are currently screwing you.
I have personally spent days with tech-support trying to work around buggy activation schemes. This was not only lost time for me but for the projects that relied on the equipment in question.
I've also had to battle with vendors to get rid of evergreen clauses or to carefully track them when they couldn't be removed.
Then there is the recent issue with certain Adobe software not installing on machines with RAID arrays (you are installing on multiple disks which is prohibited...). Go figure.
And the issue of Intuit not providing keys for old versions of software even though they acknowledge that they have them. Upgrade or kiss your data goodby.
When you add users or machines you need to track your license status, get purchase orders, etc. Renegotiating bulk contracts, watching out for evergreen clauses and such takes legal and management time.
One need only scroll through a few of Ed Foster's "Gripe Line" columns from InfoWorld to see how much pain product activation is causing.
Good luck.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Imagine if you bought a book that had a lock on it. You received the key with the book as you purchased it, and were able to unlock the book to read it. Now imagine that you lose that key. What can you do? You could force your way into the book or try to get a locksmith to make a new key for you. But it's your copy of the book and you have a right to read it anytime you like, right? In fact, if you got sick of unlocking the book evertime you wanted to use it, couldn't you just bypass the lock altogether?
With propietary software, you have no such rights. In fact, the rights you do have are surprisingly few. Let's pretend you were using the software and the company that made the software fell off the face of the earth. Now you have no recourse whatsoever. Let's consider that you are using the software and you discover an error. Are you allowed to fix it? At least with the book, you can mark in your copy and even add or remove pages. But you can't do that with the copy of the software you purchased.
Let's say you like the book a lot, and you want to share it with your friends. That's totally legal with a book, but not with software. Some licenses are so restricted that you can't allow more than one person to use the computer if it is installed on that computer.
Stop paying people for limited rights to use software. Start contributing to the solution: sensibly copyrighted software in the free and open source communities.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Truth is stranger than fiction. The Treasury Department will replace damaged or destroyed currency if you can supply satisfactory proof to them.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
> stopped supporting the app in July 2003
I know that feeling. Red Hat screwed-over all of the people that bought their credit card processing software. We bought almost $12,000 worth of licenses to CCVS, and we need to change our merchant account #. That requires changing the software key. Red Hat made an intentional decision to no longer provide the keys. They even removed the damn documentation from their web site. Our accounting system and online store ties-into the system via both the C and PHP libraries. Changing the interface to the credit card system is going to cost us a lot of time and money. I'm the only full-time IT person now (down from 21 at peak four years ago), so changing everything means I'm looking at 80 hour weeks for probably the next three or four months.
I will never buy anything else from Red Hat. My boss also sold his more than 20,000 shares of Red Hat after they screwed us. I've had a bad experience with Microsoft, but they're always indifferently incompetent. Red Hat screwed the CCVS customers over on purpose.
I met several of the Red Hat guys at the Linux Expo in 1997 at the NC Biotech Center. They talked to me about a job offer, but I didn't follow-up on it. Jeff Uphoff from NRAO made several negative comments about them, and thankfully I followed my gut feeling. I'm very glad I didn't take a job with a dishonest group like that.
If the software company is a member of the Business Software Alliance you may be in luck.
Having suffered through the begginings of a BSA audit, one thing they made clear to us was that having the disks/serial numbers wasn't relivant, it was proof of purchase that gave us a legal copy of the software.
So, since you do have that proof, according to the BSA you have a legal right to the software.
Your lawyer should be able to have lots of fun with this.
I work for a computer repair shop, and we sometimes need to recover keys from machines to do a re-install. Usually, we ask to see the original licence, but in cases where we have seen the licence but it is no longer available (urgent job, client can't bring us the bit of paper, licences destroyed in fire, stolen etc) we try to recover them from the machine.
One of the best tools for this is AIDA32ee (Enterprise Edition). It's free, and will display the licence codes for a number of programs including Windows, MS Office, Works etc. The only problem is you have to be able to boot the system to run it. Windows licences can be recovered from a hard drive by reading in the registry.
Moral of the story: back up your paper licences!
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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