Transfer of an Activation Key?

rhythmaster · Post by **rhythmaster** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 6:38 am

Is it possible to transfer an activation key (e.g. for a plugin) from one card to another?
I have the SB404 registered to my LunaII. Can I re-register it to my PulsarII?

If I want to sell my LunaII but not the plugin, what can I do?

thanks

Harry

borg · Post by **borg** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 6:50 am

yes you can...
just email creamware.

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 7:55 am

On 2003-10-07 07:50, borg wrote:
yes you can...
just email creamware.

You make it sound so easy

Sorry - a bit of sarcasm. Actually, borg is right. You'll have to deal with CW/Germany to get this resolved. Explain what you want to do in an email and send it to CW support in Germany. They are the only ones who can help you.

I've done a considerable amount of this in the past few years. The experiences ranged from simply annoying to downright hellish. One defining factor seems to be the time of year that you request a transfer. CW has a bad habit of shutting down operations for up to a month at a time. If you were to make a request such as this at the beginning of a vacation break, you'd likely find yourself waiting for up to 4 weeks or more for a response.

At best you'll get a response in a few days and then be forced to go through a rather convoluted series of steps in order to get the whole thing resolved. Any way you look at it, it's an annoying process.

Still, I understand the need for security. I applaud CW for the measures they took to protect their technology. Just wish it wasn't so freaking complicated. Good luck! Let us know how long it took you to resolve this.

borg · Post by **borg** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 8:20 am

ahum, sorry

and sorry to hear kriz... never had such bad experiences, although i never got a reply to an email i sent once on behalf of abre (luna repair).
must indeed be 'period dependant' ... no pun intended.

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 8:48 am

hm, they solved a key transfer in two days for me... be very specific and detail your email as much as possible

petal · Post by **petal** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 10:05 am

Or call them - When I bought my used XTC-card, the seller called them and solved the transaction of codes to my account in a matter of minutes.

Thomas

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 1:32 pm

Glad to hear not everyone has had the same experiences. Perhaps part of the problem can be attributed to the time difference between y'all there in Europe vs. us here in the U.S. (?)

Still, if memory serves me right, a transfer involved CW emailing me some special executable file(s) which needed to be er.. ah.. executed. This special software sucked some data out of the old/new cards and that had to be emailed back to CW before they could effect the transfer and generate new keys. At least that's how I remember it.

Anyway, good luck with all this. Hope it's actually as simple as some suggest.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 3:07 pm

the procedure is basically a replacement of the content of an eeprom containing the identification code.
It's a 2 stage encrypted process to prevent hackers from trying it at home

This would be fairly easy if they provide you with all that's necessary and you just watch the complete procedure with some technical experience.
At least that's my interpretion of the story, so don't take it for granted, though.

And as already mentioned: it's a serious action which renders the card useless until the 2nd part by Creamware arrives.

cheers, Tom

petal · Post by **petal** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 3:47 pm

Hmm, seems like it's a bit more complicated than I thought..... but nice to know never the less, I've been thinking about "upgrading" my Luna as well.

Thomas

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 4:31 pm

On 2003-10-07 16:47, petal wrote:
Hmm, seems like it's a bit more complicated than I thought.....
Thomas

It's not really all that complicated in the scheme of things. It's mostly just frustrating. The frustration factor kicks in right away when you send off your original email message and then wait... and wait... and wait for a response. I've been through this a handful of times and I distinctly remember one time waiting for a month to get a response from Germany. I remember being royally pissed off by the end of the 4th week. I guess they came back from vacation.

The last time I had anything to do with any of this was about six months ago when I had to request a transfer for a 3rd-party plug-in that I owned (the original Pro One synth). Even that wasn't without incident.

rhythmaster · Post by **rhythmaster** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 4:32 pm

Got a reply.
I have to read it carefully!

siberiansun · Post by **siberiansun** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 5:59 pm

i just sold my pulsar2 to a friend who already has a pulsar2, hence he wouldn't need my mixerpack, synthpack, modular2 etc. i'm still gonna keep my luna2 but according to CW i will not be able to use pulsars' plugs on my luna2.

that means a whole pulsar2 software package has gone to waste.
anyone had any experience in this?

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 6:15 pm

Siberiansun, possibly CW has assumed that you sold your card and now don't have access to it anymore.
Since your friend bought it you might find a time to arrange for the same procedure mentioned above to register that stuff to your Luna.
It's a significant amount of software value so I'd expect them to be helpful.

good luck, tom

siberiansun · Post by **siberiansun** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 6:37 pm

well Tom, is says quite the opposite in the mail i got from them. i don't wanna publish it here but is it ok if i forward it to you?

it puzzles me a bit since it should be possible right? i mean it's "just" a bunch of codes that has to be reassigned to another piece of hardware. (?)

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 7:11 pm

yes, of course you can - and if it helps I might do some phonecalls for you as well.

zezappa · Post by **zezappa** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 6:04 am

I've asked to CW to change keys (SB404,Pro-One/+solo, EDS16,Arp2) from lunaII to Pulsar and everything went fine, though I'm not an expert. (now waiting to upgrade to an SRB)

I must say I've found very kind and fast service from Creamware support and I thank them very much.

It seems some people, either ask for solutions on problems, they feel better talking bad about everything, even before trying to get help.

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 9:46 am

On 2003-10-09 07:04, zezappa wrote:
I must say I've found very kind and fast service from Creamware support and I thank them very much.

It seems some people, either ask for solutions on problems, they feel better talking bad about everything, even before trying to get help.

That's certainly true. Frustration can kick in quickly and it's too easy to dump on these forums (check out the CW forum for more proof). It's usually better to take a deep breath and wait a bit before jumping to conclusions. I've gotten a fair amount of help directly from Germany and also from CW's tech support guru up in Canada over the years. I also think people don't take the time to read the friggin' instructions. There's a wealth of information in the user manuals. Of course, it's human nature to bypass the books and dive headfirst into the pool

If you're not afraid to pick up the phone and make the call, you'll usually get the help you need quick enough. The email route though is hit or miss.

So if you're doing this (or planning on doing this) my suggestion is to send the email, wait 24 hours for a response and then call Germany if you don't get an answer.

I still maintain, however, that transfering key ownership from one product to another is at best an annoying experience. I consider myself a patient man. I don't think I'm doing anything out of the ordinary. If my experiences were that bad then I'm sure it must be happening to a lot of others as well. It would be interesting to know what the average cycle time is for transfers. Having to wait a month must skew the results to a certain degree.

Frankly, I hope to never have to go through that again. I don't quite understand why that process can't be automated via our CW web accounts. That would make it so simple. oh well.

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Thu Oct 09, 2003 11:51 pm

I've had this done too. For me it took about a week to get done. For a while there I thought I'd buggered it up but thankfully they seemed to have a catch all when things don't go quite as you expect. Anyway adding in the time difference thing (I'm awake when they're asleep), it all turned out ok. It would be nice if it was easier, but then I don't plan on doing this often at all.