28 Replies Latest reply on Oct 16, 2018 8:19 AM by Robert Pliskat

    Is there really no home license option anymore?

    Garet Holcomb
    Garet Holcomb Feb 26, 2018 7:36 AM

      I work weekends regularly.  I used to have the ability to run SW at my office when I'm here, or on my laptop at home, an hour away.  I have never even tried to break the EULA by using both at once, and yet functionality I used to have is stripped away.

       

      Here I am, an hour away from my laptop, with a meeting in less than an hour and I cannot run the software that is the core of my job here.  I have to wait for a VAR to get around to reading my emails and so I sit on my thumbs in the meantime, making no progress at all..  Yes, I forgot to release my license at home, but I never had to do that in the past.

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        • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
          Jeff Holliday
          Jeff Holliday Feb 26, 2018 4:59 PM (in response to Garet Holcomb)

          To be technically correct, there was no "Home License" for a standalone seat of SW. It was intended to be more of a backup situation (80% min of use required on primary seat and not to be used at the same time as the primary). There actually is a "Home User License" available with networked seats. That said, I do not like the change that was made especially with the resulting headaches as you have found with the new activation requirements. The fact that it was put into place without much advance warning was ill-advised.

           

          To the credit of SW Corp, there is an on-line activation procedure that is being phased-in which will help greatly in the hand-off between a primary and secondary seat use. This is taking too long to implement but it is a step in the right direction.

            • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
              Garet Holcomb
              Garet Holcomb Feb 26, 2018 6:28 PM (in response to Jeff Holliday)

              I've read that "justification" since all of this nonsense started.  From a customer perspective, it's much simpler:  I purchased software based on functionality that was touted to me by my reseller, and that functionality has been taken away with no warning and no recourse, though no action of mine.  That said, I have been an "80/20" this whole time, doing the bulk of my work at my primary computer and filling in on night and weekends at home.  I'm that user that policy was supposedly set for, what did I do to deserve to have my workflow trashed in this way?  The software I left to come to SW had that ability, and my reseller assured me it would be the same here.

               

              As for the online licensing, it only works for 2018, and my reseller says there are no plans to make it work with older versions.  So much for phasing in.  What's more, there's no ability to "split up" the licensing scheme between versions.  So here I am.  I have no option to handle my own licensing remotely after this ridiculousness, and if I want to use the online "option" I have to forever give up my ability to support my customers who use older versions of SW.

               

              Speaking of which, I had to leave the office in a hurry for an appointment and forgot to release my license.  My reseller is closed so it looks like I'm dead in the water again.

              • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                Robert Pliskat
                Robert Pliskat Oct 11, 2018 12:03 PM (in response to Jeff Holliday)

                Online activation/deactivation is great IF you have internet access! NOT! This new policy is BS. SW knows within seconds if you have 2 computers running the same serial number and they remind you in light speed that you forgot to close up a session when you grabbed to laptop for a meeting. SERIOUSLY was that really that big of a deal that they had to do this ridiculous policy change?

                • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                  Shawn Stugard
                  Shawn Stugard Oct 11, 2018 12:21 PM (in response to Jeff Holliday)

                  I'd bet part of the logic in not giving warning was that many folks might put up a firewall around their home copy to prevent the activation from being rescinded by the mothership. On top of that, a warning would require a press release or similar and who wants to publicize when they are taking away very popular functionality that customers rely on.

                   

                  I'm sure this was a big selling point for a long time and boy would I be angry if I'd just shelled out big bucks for a copy with the promise of 2 activations and suddenly lose that ability.

                • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                  Paul Risley
                  Paul Risley Feb 27, 2018 12:58 PM (in response to Garet Holcomb)

                  I have ran into this once since going to 2018.

                   

                  My only question on this is why with all of the other gadgets can't they have in place an automatic dis able of a license feature.

                   

                  In this case if your desktop is actively licensed, but no one is working on it. Why can't you pop on your laptop it runs a quick check to validate the desktop is not actively running a license and boom off to the races? I am no coding expert but considering my phone can tell me a million things I have no need for this seems like a legitimately easy way to transfer the license quickly and effectively.

                   

                  My 2 pennies on this one. I do feel for you though.

                  • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                    Garet Holcomb
                    Garet Holcomb Mar 1, 2018 8:12 AM (in response to Garet Holcomb)

                    This is just fantastic.  First they yank away my ability to have activations on my machines, then I come to work and find this:

                     

                    eRROR.png

                      • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                        Jeff Mowry
                        Jeff Mowry Mar 26, 2018 3:20 PM (in response to Garet Holcomb)

                        That same nonsense also happened to me about that same time.  The SW license-check server was apparently down, so no SW for you.

                         

                        The irony is the epic push nearly a decade ago for SW to drive everyone to the cloud.  How do you think that might have ended up?  No SW license activation, no files, no nothing.

                         

                        Would it truly be a magnificent feat of software engineering to put a user-activated switch on a secure server?  Nope.  Why hasn't that been done already?  Because this whole thing is not a bug---it's a feature!

                      • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                        Garet Holcomb
                        Garet Holcomb Mar 5, 2018 8:25 AM (in response to Garet Holcomb)

                        And ONCE AGAIN I am hamstrung by this ridiculous licensing policy and the incompetence by which it is administered.  This morning, like a good little drone, I tried to deactivate my license on my laptop at home.  I received an error message saying that I cannot deactivate this "temporary courtesy license", whatever the heck that means, and it would go no further.  So, I come to my office and, what a shock, I CANNOT ACTIVATE A LICENSE AGAIN!

                         

                        This is simply unbelievable and I cannot express how utterly frustrated and angry I am about this.  I have paid rather a lot of money to use this software, and it was sold to me under the agreement that using two computers would be no problem.  Here I am once again, losing money and productivity because of this asinine, unilateral policy change.  The day is burning away and I cannot get anything done.

                        • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                          Timothy Taby
                          Timothy Taby Mar 5, 2018 10:45 AM (in response to Garet Holcomb)

                          To all of those that do this regularly I would suggest getting a laptop and just taking it home with you, no deactivation needed.

                            • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                              Garet Holcomb
                              Garet Holcomb Mar 5, 2018 10:56 AM (in response to Timothy Taby)

                              Not everyone has the logistical setup to "just" do that, although I see where you're coming from.  Honestly, I prefer to work on my office workstation and I don't care to travel with a $2,600 laptop for three hours every day.  I like it safe at my home office where it belongs.  From my perspective, why should I have to go through such contortions just because they can't get their licensing problems sorted?  I didn't ask for this change; I was perfectly happy before Dassault decided to trash my workflow.

                            • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                              Garet Holcomb
                              Garet Holcomb Mar 12, 2018 7:22 PM (in response to Garet Holcomb)

                              And I'm dead in the water again.  This time I'm working from home because of the incoming weather, and it's very likely that my reseller won't be around, either, for the same reason.

                               

                              This is fantastic, and a prime example of why this policy is inexcusably stupid.  I'm tired of not being able to do what I was promised I would be able to do when I paid (and continue to pay) thousands of dollars this software.  I'm seriously considering going back to my old software where they treat customers as though they are important.

                              • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                                M. B.
                                M. B. Mar 24, 2018 3:11 PM (in response to Garet Holcomb)

                                This is a clause from our Home Usage Agreement of 2007.

                                 

                                  • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                                    Douglas Johnson
                                    Douglas Johnson Oct 7, 2018 8:51 PM (in response to M. B.)

                                    First the Blue Smurf color scheme, now no away seat. Let it be heard here that the Dassault Systemes management team is succeeding in their attempts to lose market share. I have five seats at my company, I am the only one who uses the away seat, so SW is not suffering on account of me. We have been so busy at work I have not had the luxury of some design time at home. I did get into a bind and needed to respond to a client on a  ate Sunday night. No problem. Pop open Solidworks. Nope. Cant open. 2018. Left the house with a snarl and drove back to work. VAR that week tells me the story. Blah blah blah - and I am not satisfied at all. This brings to front the question of alternative software. Since I can do anything I want, I can sweep out the SolidWorks licenses and buy a new set of something else. I am that pissed off. So what do we buy?

                                      • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                                        Stefan Bokma
                                        Stefan Bokma Oct 8, 2018 4:54 PM (in response to Douglas Johnson)

                                        I'm having the exact same issue, was learned to work with Solidworks at school , at the first company I worked for and now I have my own company and own a license. Yet there are all these issues with the machine license that sometimes work and sometimes don't when activate and deactivate. So now I switched to online license and guess what the servers go down every few days for 2 hours making it impossible to work. All that VAR says is that they will check at Solidworks HQ on what is going on. In response ''they were working on changing servers to 2019 pre release'' ok okay understandable. Yet I log in this morning and it say I don't have any licenses for online activation. So now a total of 2 days wasted doing nothing but trying to figure out how I should get working on my projects. I now had to switch to Fusion360 for the last 2 days because the VAR is closed in night time. So far no issues with Fusion 360 except the user interface which is very limited. Yet I hope Solidworks fixes their issues because it was quite a lot of money for me starting my company with spending all my savings on Solidworks and every year still have to pay 1500 euros to get a little bit of support when things like this happend.

                                      • Re: Is there really no home license option anymore?
                                        Neville Williams
                                        Neville Williams Oct 8, 2018 10:37 PM (in response to M. B.)

                                        EULA's the great legal catch all -  or a very unsubtle way of telling you, that it's their software, not yours and they can do what they like anytime, even though you paid a kings ransom to purchase a license to use it - that's all you are buying when you plunk down your bar of gold .. current corporate modus operandi worldwide...

                                        I think it's called capitalism -

                                        though I think the Wikipedia definition is far to polite