Activation in Bricscad 14

Eric Fredrickson

Full disclosure.  I have disliked copy protection schemes since they put bad sectors on floppy disks to prevent copying. I am not a pirate and resent being inconvenienced because come people don't want to pay for their software.  I have always paid for what I run.  I understand Bricsys wants to protect its product.  But the copy protection system chosen is one of the worst as I recently found out.  Due to numerous errors, I decided that it was time to re-install Windows 7 on my laptop. For over 20 years, my procedure has been to buy a new hard drive, clone the old drive, and work on the copy, leaving the original as a failsafe.  Most software, including Microsoft products, will work without any additional effort when the copy is run.  Briscad didn't.  I put in a support request, they did help me get it running again, but unfortunately for me, within 30 days the new drive failed.  So now I am waiting for the RMA to be processed for the drive, running a backup drive, and do not want to re-activate Bricscad again just to have to do it a third time when my replacement drive arrives.  I am requesting that Bricsys choose an activation screen that is not that sensitive to what I consider to be a insignificant change in hardware.  I don't want to find out what other changes will prompt re-activation.  Memory change? Grahpics card? USB 3.0 card? Network card?  Over the life of my computers, I change components regularly, updating to larger hard drives, buying better graphics cards, etc. If you haven't noticed, Windows is not known for being stable forever.  I have never been able to keep the original installation, I have always had to re-install it to get it running properly again.  (I am doing this right now on my Windows 7 desktop system.) I am asking Bricsys to not be one of the companies that makes this process even more aggravating than it already is.

Morgan Leijström

Been there too, not yet with Bricscad.
Some years ago I was on a giant gas tanker in the middle of the atlantic ocean updating the (too) new engine controllers panel when Windows98 decided to break.  Very interesting to retrieve the copy protection key driver and key files from a half broken OS, into the spare laptop that a collegue had dropped so only half screen worked, while the capatin is hanging on your shoulder and we have 125.000 tonnes liquid methane to deliver... (that was when i finally decided to move as much as possible to Linux and free software)

For office applications like bricscad:
What if you have a design deadline and your hardware or OS decides not to work anymore?

Possibly it can run in demo mode on a collegues machine until the issue is fixed, but that may not have compatible graphics, or other shortcomings.

Richard Webb

I'm fully on board with regards to not being unreasonably constrained by the licensing scheme. Sometimes "stuff happens" in a field-service environment where any kind of connectivity is just not available.

However, AFAIK a trial installation of Bricscad gives you 30 days free of a Platinum-level license. Carry a flash drive (or two) with the installation file (and your drawings, natch) and when the IED blows up your working, licensed laptop then install it on whatever you can get your hands on and soldier on. That just doesn't seem like a show stopper.

My primary working machine is a Lenovo "portable workstation" with Quadro graphics and the lot. It's a laptop, so I anticipate that the hard drive will fail eventually. If restoring the Acronis image onto a new drive breaks the license key, that's a pretty small annoyance amongst getting all of the rest of the machine back up and running.