Ted B wrote:"...Up-grade within 45-days or your software will stop working FOREVER...Bwahhahahahah."
The "stop working" thing sort of reminds me of the reasons why even I hated the idea of the dongle when it was first introduced. I understand the reasons for DataCAD needing some sort of protection against the people that buy one license then load it for an office full of users ... and for protection against pirating. I'm a version behind right now, but have typically bought all of the upgrades since the mid 90's ... aside from learning it in college in the late 80's. I also added a second seat for the extra dongle for my laptop. However, that was version 11 ... my desktop at home is still old enough that I can't use 12 or X3 on it. Depending on how this softlock thing pans out, when I do upgrade that machine, I would probably again upgrade the second seat for it.
MY CONCERN: What if I get to a point where I just don't feel like I need to upgrade ... the software does all that I need or want it to do? Will that mean that at some point, that version ... where I stopped at ... will cease to work, either because the dongle goes bad and it can no longer be replaced, or in the case of a softlock, the version has become old enough that it is no longer supported? That being the case, would I indeed be forced to upgrade, just to continue using it ... even though what I had WAS a legal copy/seat?
Hopefully, I'll continue to see the need to keep relatively current, which would mean that this would never be an issue ... but what if it is?