jazzldazzl Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 Dear All, I realized that I no longer can open Cakewalk via the Bandlab app on Windows, which is already well known (I found out when googling it), it´s just not so often that I have Cakewalk open. Anyway, I found the place where the cakewalk exe is installed, ran it without issues and could see in the "About" information that my version is activated from Bandlab. However, it´s also telling me that there are updates pending. If I install these updates, will my version still be free and activated, and what if my HD dies one day and I need to install it again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutrageProductions Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 (edited) Have you ever heard of "backups"? If your HD dies, CW will be the least of your issues. A good & recent backup image to an external drive will solve that. There are many free applications that will work. Edited June 18 by OutrageProductions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 This video will bring you up to date on the status of CbB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzldazzl Posted June 18 Author Share Posted June 18 12 hours ago, OutrageProductions said: Have you ever heard of "backups"? If your HD dies, CW will be the least of your issues. A good & recent backup image to an external drive will solve that. There are many free applications that will work. As you may know, the activation of some software is connected to the unique HD on which it´s installed. Also, I could be facing a mobo that dies on me, and if the new mobo is not with a similar chipset, there is a risk that I may need to reinstall Windows again. In such a case, 1000 backups will not help me. With the above in mind, I´m curious about if there´s still a way to retrieve my free activation, should I experience scenarios such as those described. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 (edited) That’s not how it works with Cakewalk. Your account is on line and all your products, free and paid for are stored in your account. We have always been able to install Sonar and Cakewalk on as many machines as we want. And Bandlab was even kind enough to keep all of our Legacy products available on their servers even though those products have nothing to do with them . The linked to a machine copy protection is only used by a few vendors like XLN and Celemony. The way it will be is CbB will be available as a download for a ??? while yet. So no point worrying about it. If they do decide to end it they will be able to control this as when that day come all they need to do is shut down the activation system. Every copy of CbB will become unusable once it times out. As they said . It’s the price of using free software. I think that’s totally fine. Edited June 18 by John Vere 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwal³ Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 all this free?/activation stuff should be in a stickied official faq post imho 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 (edited) 5 minutes ago, pwal³ said: all this free?/activation stuff should be in a stickied official faq post imho Boy do you have that right! I was being corrected by a staff member who quoted me from back in May. That was my answer. If Bandlab doesn’t want speculation flying around this forum then you should have laid it all down a year ago about the future. 100’s of pages of speculation and threats to switch DAWs etc would not have been posted here. I know that the staff are not to blame but there’s got to have been a solution to all this crazy stuff. Edited June 18 by John Vere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwal³ Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 2 minutes ago, John Vere said: Boy do you have that right! I was being corrected by a staff member who quoted me from back in May. That was my answer. If Bandlab don’t want speculation flying around then you should have laid it all down a year ago about the future. 100’s of pages of speculation threats to switch DAWs etc would not have been posted here. yeah i saw that (but didn't comment) i guess anything "official" has to go through some very slow approval process 🤷♀️ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Kelley Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 Buying time? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwal³ Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 36 minutes ago, Terry Kelley said: Buying time? everything's for sale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr No Name Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 5 hours ago, jazzldazzl said: As you may know, the activation of some software is connected to the unique HD on which it´s installed. Also, I could be facing a mobo that dies on me, and if the new mobo is not with a similar chipset, there is a risk that I may need to reinstall Windows again. In such a case, 1000 backups will not help me. With the above in mind, I´m curious about if there´s still a way to retrieve my free activation, should I experience scenarios such as those described. Download the Cakewalk product centre, and save the last released (most recent)cakewalk installer and associated installers/files to it also. Then you will be able to reinstall offline if anything goes wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr No Name Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 That info is now outdated due to the fact we will still have the latest version always available directly from Bandlab. You always need the latest version. The staff member even stated that there will be updates occasionally for maintenance reasons. At this point in time there’s no reason to install the Product Center unless you want to do an off line. Saving old installers is a waste of time unless that is the one from November which you will need someday to install the TTS-1. All new installers don’t have the TTS-1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byron Dickens Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 3 hours ago, pwal³ said: all this free?/activation stuff should be in a stickied official faq post imho No one would read it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T Boog Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 1 hour ago, John Vere said: You always need the latest version. Hey John, I read one of ur messages this morning where u mentioned reactivation. I'm SO glad u said that cause after taking a couple weeks off from recording, I went open my project and it said I had only 1 day left to reactivate. So thankfully, I caught it in time. I'm just curious what happens if I ever miss the reactivation deadline. Would I have to uninstall then reinstall CbB again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr No Name Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 (edited) 1 hour ago, John Vere said: That info is now outdated due to the fact we will still have the latest version always available directly from Bandlab. You always need the latest version. The staff member even stated that there will be updates occasionally for maintenance reasons. At this point in time there’s no reason to install the Product Center unless you want to do an off line. Saving old installers is a waste of time unless that is the one from November which you will need someday to install the TTS-1. All new installers don’t have the TTS-1. I have the product centre installed, I have the files saved in a seperate folder. I think this will be useful incase of a need for an offline reinstall in future if needed, If for some unforseen reason the d/l file become unavailiable directly from Bandlab. belts and braces John, belts and braces. Edited June 18 by Mr No Name Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 (edited) 1 hour ago, T Boog said: Hey John, I read one of ur messages this morning where u mentioned reactivation. I'm SO glad u said that cause after taking a couple weeks off from recording, I went open my project and it said I had only 1 day left to reactivate. So thankfully, I caught it in time. I'm just curious what happens if I ever miss the reactivation deadline. Would I have to uninstall then reinstall CbB again? I find it odd that people are not understanding all this?? Activation has nothing to do with the installation of the software. You can install any version you so choose and it will stay installed forever. You'll even be able to do stuff with it. But you will not be able to Save any changes or export the project. To do that the software needs to be activated. Bandlab is 100% in control of the activation. In other words the software is worthless without it. This is true of a lot of software, not just Cakewalk...OK is that Clear! Next, the other mystery to me is even though this has been said a over and over by staff and forum members! Sure you can use the old installers, they will install Cakewalk, but they will not activate. Only the latest release can be activated. In other words there's no point saving old installers as they are basically useless. This has been done on purpose stating last fall. The only exception to this is I recommend saving the full installer from last November as it was the last version that will install the TTS-1. But you would have to immediately update after your ran it. This below, is the only version of Cakewalk that can be activated right now as far as I know. And sure you can save it as a back up 'till the cows come home but why? This seems the other thing people are not understanding. Even this copy shown below will be updated someday as stated in the announcement. So it too will become useless. It would seem the Cakewalks installers will most certainly remain available from the web site ( or the Product Center) as long as Cakewalk is kept alive. The day Bandlab announces the end of life for Cakewalk it is highly likely they will not allow new installations to be activated. And all the old installs will slowly become de activated. Therefore once again there's seems no reason to save old installers of Cakewalk as it is most probable they will be useless. Note: I cannot comment on that Offline activation possibly is a loophole in the system as I have not tried that myself. Edited June 18 by John Vere 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirWillyDS12 Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 31 minutes ago, John Vere said: Sure you can use the old installers, they will install Cakewalk, but they will not activate. Only the latest release can be activated. In other words there's no point saving old installers as they are basically useless. This has been done on purpose stating last fall. This is not true... Versions 2021.04 Update 1 [Updated 17-May-2021] thru 2022.11 Update 1 [Updated 1-Dec-2022] were all Self Activating on installation... You did not need to be online to activate... You can install an older version then install one of the self activating versions over top and reset your activation all offline... No need for the Cakewalk Activation Servers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr No Name Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 51 minutes ago, John Vere said: I find it odd that people are not understanding all this?? Activation has nothing to do with the installation of the software. You can install any version you so choose and it will stay installed forever. You'll even be able to do stuff with it. But you will not be able to Save any changes or export the project. To do that the software needs to be activated. Bandlab is 100% in control of the activation. In other words the software is worthless without it. This is true of a lot of software, not just Cakewalk...OK is that Clear! Next, the other mystery to me is even though this has been said a over and over by staff and forum members! Sure you can use the old installers, they will install Cakewalk, but they will not activate. Only the latest release can be activated. In other words there's no point saving old installers as they are basically useless. This has been done on purpose stating last fall. The only exception to this is I recommend saving the full installer from last November as it was the last version that will install the TTS-1. But you would have to immediately update after your ran it. This below, is the only version of Cakewalk that can be activated right now as far as I know. And sure you can save it as a back up 'till the cows come home but why? This seems the other thing people are not understanding. Even this copy shown below will be updated someday as stated in the announcement. So it too will become useless. It would seem the Cakewalks installers will most certainly remain available from the web site ( or the Product Center) as long as Cakewalk is kept alive. The day Bandlab announces the end of life for Cakewalk it is highly likely they will not allow new installations to be activated. And all the old installs will slowly become de activated. Therefore once again there's seems no reason to save old installers of Cakewalk as it is most probable they will be useless. Note: I cannot comment on that Offline activation possibly is a loophole in the system as I have not tried that myself. As far as I understand it John, is, is that up until a certain point you will be able to download an installer for cakewalk (CbB), the original free version, this will be to keep forever (or as near to) and be able to be activated forever or as near to, at some point this will cease and after that point new people will not have access to it (too late sorry buddy) so when it is still available for activation but not any more available for download , you better make sure you have a copy of the installer stashed in a folder somewhere just incase of worst case scenario ( OS reinstall, ect) This is the situation as I understand it. get on the damn train before it leaves the station. ect, ect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T Boog Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 48 minutes ago, John Vere said: find it odd that people are not understanding all this?? Wow John, sory if I upset u but in my defense, I never asked that question before or read any post about it. I can def tell ur tired of answering it though which I totally get. I guess my main question was just what happens if I miss the reactivate deadline. From what I'm reading online it says u can "try" to go to Bandlab Assistant and hit "refresh activation". The word "try" is not very comforting though. Btw John. If this is still a question that bugs u, u don't have to answer back my friend. I know dealing with all us green horns must get aggravating. If nothing else, I'll just try to make sure I never miss the reactivation deadline and if I ever do, I'll just go to the Assistant and "try"(😄) to refresh my activation. Cheers bud! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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