24 February 2011

No, Nuance, I am not a software pirate

Software companies have every right to protect their wares. It costs millions to develop a new program and to keep it at the ‘bleeding edge’. But I don't see why unsuspecting users should have to put up with their incompetent attempts to stop piracy.

One company in particular seems to be so sloppy in its defence mechanism that you have to wonder about its software writing skills. That company is Nuance, the crew behind some reasonably heavyweight software tools.

Over the years Nuance has brought together: OmniPage, which does optical character recognition; PaperPort, which does file management and document scanning; PDF Converter Professional, which some might describe as a budget conscious alternative to Adobe’s Acrobat; and Dragon Naturally Speaking, probably the most widely used speech recognition package you will find.

I have the misfortune to own all of these, a bundle that costs more than $600 at Amazon prices, more if bought direct from Nuance, or in other countries, where the usual software trend prevails with predatory pricing of the $1 = £1 variety. Each software package fulfils its intended task pretty well. What they don't do is to work together harmoniously when it comes to piracy control.

Activation aggravation
Nuance uses a familiar approach to software protection, something called activation: its software “phones home” when you install the software, checks your serial number against its database and then, it if it is satisfied that you are a legitimate customer, does something magical with your computer to tell it that you are not a criminal.

Microsoft and Adobe both use a similar strategy. They do, though, implement it in a way that is usually unobtrusive and that does not throw a hissy fit whenever you do something to your computer.
Microsoft, for example, uses activation for its Windows operating system and for its Office suite. After the initial installation, most people will see the process again only if they rebuild a computer and want to reuse the same serial number.
Soft on hardware
Microsoft’s official line on hardware changes is “When you make a significant hardware change to your computer, such as upgrading the hard disk and memory at the same time, you might be required to activate Windows again.”

Do anything less drastic and you won’t be bothered. Add a new hard drive? No problem. Plug in an external drive? Fine by us. Upgrade the ‘BIOS’, the core code that tells it what it can do, on your motherboard? We don't need to know about it.

Nuance, on the other hand, throws a wobbly if you try any of these things. Like Microsoft, Nuance takes a ‘fingerprint’ of your computer’s hardware. As the support person put it “The BIOS update changes the machine fingerprint and our Nuance application activation is based on the machine fingerprint.” Other small changes will also alter your machine’s fingerprint to such an extent that Nuance treats these modifications as suspicious. So the software scurries off to check out its database.

Why Nuance needs to take a more complete and sensitive fingerprint of your hardwarethan Microsoft or Adobe is anybody’s guess. But that is only the half of it. If you have a mixture of the packages listed above, adding them in the wrong order can lead you into a perpetual cycle of activation.

You are running PaperPort? Fine, now add PDF Converter Professional and PaperPort thinks you have rebuilt your computer. Now add OmniPage and the whole pack of cards comes tumbling down around your head. Do just about anything and PDF 7 Pro will protest.

The workaround advice that you will receive from support is “Please uninstall the application in the following sequence: 1.Paperport; 2.Pdf Pro; 3.Omnipage; 4.Reinstall Omnipage first then PDF 7 Pro and Paperport”? Isn't it an admission of failure to have to offer such nonsense?
Support collapses
The problem with this is that, after a while, the computer back at base decides that you are a criminal and locks you out. You can no longer use the software that you have paid good money to install on your computer.

Yes, there is an on-line support system, but activation issues aren’t a part of it: in any case you get only 90 days of “free” support. Even if you do manage to get support to take pity on you and answer, they don't seem to see the point. The response is along the lines of “that’s how it works, get used to it”.

Something similar happened a few years ago when Adobe unleashed Acrobat 7 on the world. It too got locked into an endless loop of activation. Raising this with their support team evoked a very different response. They saw the point, understood the issue and put in train a repair mechanism. Adobe event sent a new CD that was supposed to deal with the issue, which turned out to have something to do with motherboards that included RAID, a fancy feature for people who want to do clever security things with several hard disks. The disk didn't work, but by the time it arrived Adobe had tracked down the source of the problem and put out an update the squelched the activation messages.

By contrast, even though Nuance received reports about the problem near on a year ago, during the beta tests of the latest version of PDF Converter Professional, the company remains in denial.

What can a customer do about this? Nagging them obviously doesn't work. So I have reviewed the product on places like Amazon, praising the software but warning potential customers of these activation concerns. The responses suggest that the review has hit a nerve. It has also smoked out others hit by this diseased software.
Not just me
Just in case anyone thinks that this is a one off, brought about by my own constant tinkering with a computer that I built myself, look no further than the places where people, some of them fans of Nuance’s software, get together to compare notes. Activation and the problems it provokes come up regularly. Other users have also copied me in on email exchanges with Nuance’s support team showing that they have also tried to get to the bottom of this insane behaviour, with little luck.

Nuance’s response in these cases is dismal. Unlike Adobe, its first reaction is to say there’s nothing wrong, that’s how it is supposed to work. You get the same denial if you point out that these four software packages don't all behave in the same way, and did Nuance really set out to be inconsistent?

Nuance needs to address this issue properly, and not to fob off users with complicated and time consuming workarounds. My first question on this through the official support channels dates from 21st June last year, but as I said this issue also came up during beta testing of PDF Converter Professional. Does it really take that long to chase up whoever wrote that particular feature and to get them to do something about it?

8 comments:

Unknown said...

I agree completely, And to make matters worse, Nuance can turn off the activation requirement at will but will not do it very often.

My copy of PDF Converter Professional 6 had been activated over 15 times on one computer. Nuance finally sent me a file to replace the activation file. Works fine now with never a request for activation again.

The only problem is do you think I will ever upgrade that product again? Not a chance as long as Nuance keeps calling me a thief.

Anonymous said...

Very well said, MK. And, precisely why I still use PaperPort Pro 9, and refuse to upgrade to 12.1. Nuance will not see a penny from me until they drop the activation "feature".

Evelyn said...

Today I had to call Nuance because all of a sudden two of my Nuance Programs (Omnipage Pro 17 & PDF Converter) decided they needed to be activated again. I had installed both programs to work together with PaperPort several months ago without any problems.

It seems like at least once a year my Nuance programs start acting up and demanding to be activated. When I try to activate them I get a message that I'm over the activation number allowed and then I have to call Nuance to get their permission to reactivate my programs again. This is simply insane.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for your review and pointing out the activation issues. I actually detest hardware activations (I stopped using Nitro PDF Pro when they started doing this on version 6)

I was very tempted to get PDF Converter in light of it's feature list and the current deal at Newegg

Now, the only thing I have to say is:

FORGET ABOUT IT!

Unknown said...

The latest bizarre twist was when my installation of PDF Professional 7.0 decided to upgrade itself to version 7.2.

Towards the end of the process, this previously working version of PDF Pro decided that it has exceeded the number of allowed activations. It then locked me out.

In other words, the very act of upgrading PDF Pro is deemed to have changed the fingerprint.

The reason for installing the update was that I had hoped that it would fix this issue, not make it worse.

After some time with Nuance's support people – following half an hour on hold when the activation desk decided to pass me on to support – I ended up with a pair of files that claim to turn off this activation fiasco.

We'll see.

bsdubois said...

I too am stuck in the endless loop of software activation. I have pdf Converter 6.x Professional, Omnipage 17 Professional, Paperport Professional 12 and Dragon Naturally Speaking 11.0. Each software package has an update and I normally try to keep my software updated to the lastest version. I have been stuck in the reactivation nightmare for nearly seven months. All my serial numbers are listed on Nuance's website and it shows that I have purchased and registerd the software. Everytime I lauch one of the programs it asks to be activated. I first check the internet connection and it is working. I have tried automatic and manual activations and they both fail. The lastest suggestion from Nuance is to uninstall and resinstall the packages. I will not reinstall if I have to uninstall. There has to be a better solution. I am searching for an Open Source group of software packages to replace all from Nuance. Nuance has fine software. Their activation proecess SUCKS and I will not waste another penny on their software. You have been warned. Stay way for this crappy software until they decide to fix the activation issues.

BS Du Bois

Unknown said...

Oh dear, holdaper. You really do not get it do you?

The activation issues have nothing to do with going from version 7.0 to 7.2. I wrote my first piece before 7.2 existed. Sadly, 7.2 does not mend the defect.

If we are idiots, then so is Nuance. Several people there agree with me that the software is broken in this respect. Indeed, two senior people there have sent me messages to that effect.

More important, I finally got through to someone who was in a position to get me out of activation hell. He sent me two small files that replace those that check on my computer's fingerprint.

Of course, I cannot share those files with anyone. As I said at the beginning, I am not a software pirate. But if anyone else gets clobbered, find a way into the real support people, beyond the activation helpers, and ask them to send you a copy of PDF7-HookRouter.zip.

Now, holdaper, have you tried booting your PC with a different USB drive attached to it? That is one of the various scenarios that most people quote when reporting activation issues. I suggest that you look at the Amazon page for this product to see many similar tales of woe, many of them from people who are far from idiots.

How do you expect us to deal with the activation issues that we experience? Stop using the software in the way that we want, and that works with everything else we buy? Ring Nuance every day for an extension to the activation count?

By the way, calling people idiots is one sign that you have issues to deal with other than the software you use.

Thanks all the same for your "contribution" to this discussion. At least it prompted me to report back on how to get this thing sorted for good.