Starise Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 I guess there is something to be said of keeping that old DAW around with older software on it just in case. Unless I misunderstand, once registered on an older computer there should be no need for a check in to the server, at least on older installs. The more recent NI portal is probably not as generous. Several factors were likely involved in the decision to cut these programs. Expired contracts with NI by said 3rd party libraries. No pay no play. The inability to assure the libraries will operate in the future because updates have been discontinued on older versions. Lastly, yep they want to make money on new software. I think a 10 year or longer run is pretty good. One day I'll be that guy though, the one who has a version of Kontakt 5 generations back and wants to keep using it. Almost seems better to buy unregistered Kontakt libraries at this point. You don't have that pretty graphic in the GUI. I can live with that. Everyone wants you in their ecosystem. Kontakt knows they are the king of sample library land, so that gives them a little more leverage. I have Komplete 10 and I don't expect I'll get to keep it the way it is without some kind of an engineered push from NI within the next several years. As a German company(sorry I mean no disrespect to Germans at all here) they have a different way of approaching business that often PO their customers. I see a sort of trend here with these German software makers. Cubase is a good example of this. Look at others. You can buy our stuff but it's going to be expensive and we will charge you for everything. That business model has kept them on top at the expense of a regular small percentage of disgruntled customers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael A.D. Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 The real question would seem to be what strain does it put on NI's resources to allow the re-installation of these legacy products? Isn't it merely the upkeep of a few servers? And wouldn't the demand for re-installing these legacy products be so minimal that virtually no strain would be put on their servers? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Sorrels Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 As long as you have installed and authorized it now, unless your computer changes, it will continue to run. But you won't be able to install it on a new computer. Also if your computer changes too much (Windows Updates?) it could cause the hardware id to change, which would de-authorize the software. I don't think it's server issues that are causing them to do this. More like the fact none of it will work on the new Mac OS, coupled with they don't want to deal with supporting it. There are an infinite number of other (better) solutions they could use in this case. Some of which requires some combination of either changing/updating software they may not be able to easily recompile/rebuild/recreate or removing encryption on files, that they may not be able to do legally. Suppose they had a tool that would remove the encryption on the EastWest libraries, making them plain Kontakt libraries. EastWest might not be so keen on them giving that away, since it would fully unlock their product. I doubt they can make the old Service Center run on new Mac's without a lot of dev work. Dev work on a product they may not even be able to compile that is 32bit (you can't run that on a Mac now). Given all these headaches to support things that aren't bringing in any money it's not a big surprise they are just killing everything. They could have designed Native Access to better support their original copy protection. Maybe. I doubt we'll even know for sure what tipped them this direction. Some sort of unlock generator might be possible (if pirates can do it, they could do it too). Or they could fix Kontakt to not block products protected by the old license scheme. For the plugins those are all NI products, in theory they could just rebuild them to not do challenge-response and just take a serial number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Musician32 Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 The question is always what comes next? Komplete 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ? Lets start a Petition and force them that we can authorize the software we paid for. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Sorrels Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 I think their management is using the Mac OS change as the excuse to also shut down the authorization server. Right now if they kept running the server/everything like it is now they would still have to tell every Mac customer there are no 64-bit versions of some of these plugins (so no way to run them) and the ones that do have 64-bit versions there is no 64-bit version of the Service Center, so you can't auth/use those either. I guess rather than do that they are just shutting it all down for everyone. They seem to think they have legal cover on this with their EULA. Though I'll admit I think they may be a bit optimistic on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reid Rosefelt Posted March 11, 2020 Author Share Posted March 11, 2020 If you used cloning software to create new disks for your new computer, would that work? If your new computer a was a perfect replica of the old one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starise Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 2 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said: If you used cloning software to create new disks for your new computer, would that work? If your new computer a was a perfect replica of the old one? I guess if I had been using those program versions and couldn't part with them I might be attempting something like this. I liked the B4 organ and will miss it. Upgrade pricing being what it is around the holidays I generally just update the products every 2 or three years. Most who have Komplete seem to agree that the price of upgrades these last few years has been greater than the incentive to do it because NI only adds a few new packages every year to Komplete and they often are not the kinds of libraries that I would use very often. After 5 plus years though I would begin to wonder how much longer I could use the program before there were issues with compatibility and updates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rico Belled Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 I'm SO glad I did not buy Komplete as I was thinking about doing. They will never get any of my hard earned cash anymore... R 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 2 minutes ago, Rico Belled said: I'm SO glad I did not buy Komplete as I was thinking about doing. They will never get any of my hard earned cash anymore... R which is shame as it's actually very good .....not trying to defend this decision however Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magic Russ Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 NI put up a FAQ regarding the issue: https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006053397 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amicus717 Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 One of the NI folks is responding to people over at VI Control, talking about this issue, including the updating to the FAQ, etc. Some worthwhile comments here, I think: https://vi-control.net/community/threads/ni-will-no-longer-activate-discontinued-products-from-may-31st.90761/page-15#post-4522462 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grem Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 4 hours ago, Robert Caley said: One of the NI folks is responding to people At least this is a good sign. Evidently they are listening and do care. At least about how it makes them look! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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