License verification system

[michal]

Please, reconsider the license verification system. I've already asked for new key once as my hardware ID changed (probably because of the portable HDD drive), and now I'll have to do it once more, I've just bought new video card, and Paintstorm Studio refuses to run again.

I change some of my hardware quite often, and because of this I haven't used Paintstorm Studio for a while. I don't want to bother you over and over with my requests...

Mike.

[support]

Send your new hardware id to our email, we'' give you another key.

I can say that MAC os version will have another defence engine...

[michal]

Email sent. Hopefully this new system will be also available on Windows, as it's my OS of choice.

Thanks very much!

Mike.

[support]

Also if we will start to sell Paintstorm in Steam - we can change defence too. But I can't say exactly date of Steam release. For today we just plan it.

[michal]

Steam is pretty good solution, I have both Substance Designer and Painter there. Could you think about Steam keys for current customers once Paintstorm Studio is released over there?

[Keppo]

I like the steam idea too. Blender is in steam already also
And yeah, like the last post said, it would be lovely if current customers would be provided steam keys if this transition happens

[cgmodeler]

No steam please.

[michal]

No steam please.

Why, considering it would be an option, not the requirement?

[shapelymetal]

Worst thing about steam is than you have steam running all the time.
But you also have a couple other things:

#2
It's not good for professional environments to have steam (a gaming platform) on your workstation.

#3
It's also not great for shared workstations. Right now it's setup for a PC seat not a person whereas anything on steam is for a person not a PC seat (unless you setup a bunch of special accounts which I'm pretty sure isn't allowed by the steam EULA, but I haven't actually read the thing in many years and it's changed a lot.)

Really if they were going to change anything truly useful it would be how they get their machine ID.
Really all you need is to hash the Motherboard+CPU+on-board Ethernet MAC address and it would make the ID vastly more stable and still keep it unique per system.
Since lets face it Disk Drives, Optical Drives, GPUs, RAM, card readers...etc are all pretty frequent swap outs for a lot of people.

[michal]

It's still an option. You don't have to install it.

Beside, I work in games industry, and Steam installation is almost essential on my end.

Really if they were going to change anything truly useful it would be how they get their machine ID.
Really all you need is to hash the Motherboard+CPU+on-board Ethernet MAC address and it would make the ID vastly more stable and still keep it unique per system.
Since lets face it Disk Drives, Optical Drives, GPUs, RAM, card readers...etc are all pretty frequent swap outs for a lot of people.

I agree with you here.