This is a rant. It is software related, but not specifically to gaming.

Recently my installation of CorelDraw started popping up a dialog when starting saying that my key was no longer valid. This after two years of running the program without any trouble. And yes, this is a purchased commercial copy of it, box and manuals and discs and all. In spite of all this, it eventually shut itself down into "Viewer" mode, and now wants to extort another $150 from me to get a "legitimate" key.

So basically, due to overzealous and poorly written anti-pirate coding by Corel, the $500 program I purchased now will not function. I don't even have the desire to sit in their Support Desk wait queue to get it straightened out. They have taken 15 years of product loyalty from me and thrown it out the window for the sake of stopping pirates that they'll never stopped. But they sure stopped me from using what I paid for.

Once again, you're punished by a software company for doing the right thing. Guess they're following the lead of the movie and music industries.

F@#$ Corel. I'm installing the GNU Image Manipulation Program and saying goodbye to one of the last non-Open Source programs I still used.

[edit] oh nevermind just read you dont have the patience for support.

Sometimes the activation thingies get a bit hyper i think, had that with my windows 7 copy once (Microsoft said i should be with HP and HP said i should be with Microsoft, in the end i solved it myself).
Don't think you have to pay again if you just tell them about it.

I feel with you. I don't know what those people think they are doing. I know several people who had tremendous problems with their perfectly legit licenses of the Adobe products and AutoCAD. Professional who depend on their software working when they need it. I've had problems with MSDN recognising my company's Visual Studio license as well, but at least it could be solved easily.

Of those people that were put through these troubles quite a few resorted to a certain haven for eye-patched peg-legged shouldered-parrot carriers out of sheer desparation (when the deadline is "tomorrow morning on my desk" you don't ask many questions). And some of them stayed with this solution.

Sinistar, are you sure that your license has not an expiration date?

Because sometimes, even when you buy a software, it will work only for n. years, then you must purchase it again.

Have you contacted them directly? I'm not talking about putting in a ticket with the support desk, I mean going straight to the big wigs and telling them how you feel. Write directly to Tom Berquist the CEO, Susan Stein and Derek Tucker in Marketing and maybe Mark Fernandes who is the VP of IT and can better explain the technical side so that you don't have to. Your message should be very similar to what you have here, not overly technical or full of jargon, just a straight forward "I've been a loyal customer but am leaving, not due to quality, pricing or competition but because of your management decisions."

I wish you good luck using GIMP. If it's enough for you, that's great.

Can't say I feel too sympathetic though, if you don't even give people a chance to fix their mistakes.

Nope, I calmed down and decided to contact their support bot-human, and got just what I expected. I'm f'd because their machine says I'm f'd, and cough up the extra dosh if you want to keep playing Sammy. It's tempting as Hell. Just imagine if car manufacturers ran this way. "Sorry, we're shutting down your vehicle until you can get in touch with us, and maybe pay a little more." The utter indifference to what you are doing in your life at the time is what is so galling, combined with the corporate arrogance that their convenience is more valuable than yours.

I don't like to endorse piracy, but treating your customers this way makes it attractive as all get-out. No, it was a perpetual license. But clearly the program phones the mothership on a regular basis and apparently decides to flag licenses at random. They just released a new update, so I bet part of it was a chunk of code that used a "wide broom" approach and my number just happened to get swept in with the real dirt.

I've uninstalled the product. They'll never get another purchase from me, and who knows, maybe I'll end up liking GIMP better anyway.

Oh, crapy thing then :(

I did. Bupkis. What now?

This stuff is making me angry as well. Especially the big graphics software companies are all the same. Their software is really expensive compared to usual programs and if you buy it, you're harassed by stupid DRM junk. It's technically only two clicks to get an illegal copy that works stress free. As if they're trying to push people toward this. If you don't open every file from the Internet with it (as it contains some possibilities be exploited), I can recommend Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator. They're old but still professional, Adobe released it for free in 2013 and thereby all the DRM trouble is gone. Anyway, GIMP is a good solution as well.

I did contact their marketing and customer feedback people, plus did a site survey, all of which should hopefully communicate my dissatisfaction. But honestly I've dealt with this bubble mentality that companies get into before, and their doomed crusade against pirates is likely to continue to make things worse, not better. They're too busy watching for people sneaking in through the back door that they don't see all the patrons leaving through the front.

No, they didn't.

Gimp might not be what your looking for. Instead look and Inkscape. That is the replacement for CorelDraw. GIMP is ok for raster images, but Inkscape is very good for vectorial graphics.

Thank God, I've got an old license for the complete CS2 suite. I'm sure everybody has one who's downloading it from all the software platforms out there ;-)

Ach, thanks for the warning! Not a fan of Adobe to begin with, so this doesn't surprise me. It sounded far too generous. :)

Yes, I am installing Inkscape again as well. I should have been more clear, GIMP is to replace PhotoPaint, which I use a lot more than Draw. But I do need to replace both. It's been a while since I used Inkscape, but I bet it's improved a ton since then. Thanks for bringing Inkscape up, I'm sure others haven't heard of it and hopefully will check it out now!