The Problem(s) with Software Activation

One LiveJournal blogger went to install some movie editing software called Sony Movie Studio. And like many products sold these days, it required product activation. And that's where the trouble began...

If you aren't familiar with product activation, it's a simple idea that caught on when it was pioneered by Microsoft for Office 2000. You've probably installed products that required activation already: Windows XP, Office 2000 and later, Norton Antivirus 2004 and later, and many other products (including several games) require it or else they won't work. During installation, you type in your serial number, then the software connects via the internet to the mothership to make sure that serial number is a) valid and b) hasn't been used by someone else. (This has long been the weak point in serial number security: If someone posts a serial number on the internet, there's really nothing you can do stop everyone from using it on pirated copies of the software. Product activation prevents a serial number from being used more than once, and it can also be updated to prevent cracks and "key generators" from working properly.)

But product activation has several major downsides. The first, which affects almost everyone, is that you can't install the software on a separate machine after you uninstall it from the original PC you put it on. Well, frequently you can, but only after calling a phone number, spending a long time on hold, explaining yourself to an untrained phone rep, and reading and retyping lengthy hexadecimal codes over the phone. It's one of the most inconvenient and, frankly, insulting things in tech, and it comes with the assumption that you're trying to rip off the company.

But a bigger issue is now looming, as our friendly blogger discovered: The companies that sell this software or handle the product activation process are going out of business, taking servers offline, and making other changes that your software, once it's burned onto a CD, can't possibly know about. Such was the case with Movie Studio, which wouldn't activate online. No one answered the phones, either, and the user was unable to remedy the situation. He ended up microwaving the disc and posting an angry (yet instructional) rant about it.

Had the blogger not nuked his disc, he would have found the solution, a patch released to change the product activation server, which someone posted in the comments to his tale of woe. It's an important lesson: As loathsome as product activation is, so far companies have been able to keep older software working and installing properly. I wonder though what will happen to Office 2000 when support is discontinued for it. Will you still be able to install the software at all, or will Microsoft release an "activation-free" patch for it?

I'd love to tell you to boycott software that requires activation (and boycott it myself, as well), but frankly it's just not practical, considering how pervasive it's becoming. But I have begun to reconsider software that requires activation, considering alternatives (even free ones), when they're available. I encourage you to do so as well.