Keerist! I'm a victim of this sham too! I just got off the phone from ordering a new dongle key that doesn't require being connected to the internet so it can check in with the server they shut down. Not terribly impressed that a system designed to protect them is inconveniencing me... because they didn't keep up their equipment.
DRM (essentially what it is) of any kind is going to be an inconvenience to end users. Just the way that it is.
Plus I fought with the frikkin dongle for hours and hours trying to get it to work... apparently with absolutely no hope of success. (They had all the info needed to contact us about this shut down but didn't.)
Driver issue? That is usually been the cause of my issues when I was running dongle software.
Then they have the temerity to charge us for the cure!
Wonderful world of closed source software to where you only paying for the privilege to use it.
One thing that I have to wonder is if they will continue to do this after something may have happened to the dongle later on down the road.
I've always had to deal with software that used dongles and after so long, they didn't even replace the dongles. Doesn't matter if you could show proof of having a valid license or not. Upgrade or go elsewhere and this is really expensive software.
In the mean time I'm using an ancient computer with XP loaded on it to run my plotter... with FlexiStarter and the dongle it came with.(no internet connection needed on that one) Thinking back, I had to buy a new version of Flexi and this now defunct dongle when I upgraded to a Windows 7 computer. Progress.
One thing that I do if I'm needing legacy software that requires legacy OSs, I'll VM it. That way the box and the host OS can be modern and I don't have to worry about keeping old computers running (which at some point is going to be cost prohibitive).
It does require having a beefier computer then what my ordinarily be needed for the same type of workflow, but that is an option.
When all software goes subscription you realize they will have absolute power over whether we can run our machines... or not. Scary stuff.
It is very scary. Imagine though if the OS becomes subscription as well? Something that MS already does for their enterprise customers. While I don't see the exact same type of subscription for end users, I could easily see it be on certain modules. Want a module for a better gaming experience or what a module that helps with graphic intensive content creation software?
I can see stuff like that being subscription for end users, but it's quite possible that they do the same thing as they do with their business customers.
Alot of people are tied into a certain platform and that gives a certain amount of power in how they do things.
