Reinstall G5 With Spectrasonics/QLSO/etc

[Eric Doggett]

Hey guys -

I am looking at reformatting and reinstalling my internal drive on my g5. Currently, I've installed plugins including all the spectrasonics ones, kontakt, qlso platinum, stormdrum, etc (although the content/data for those (i.e. the .dat and .nki's)) are all on my second internal SATA drive.

I have all of my access keys in emails which I will print out for backup - are there any concerns with doing this? Will the same keys entered before work again after reformatting/reinstalling OSX??

Thanks!

Eric

[Veron]

For me , when I reinstalled OSX (10.2.8) and QLSO Gold,
my System ID changed so I needed to reauthorize it .
BTW, I`m using a G4 Mac.
(I haven`t updated my OS or add a new hardware to my computer)

But I heard that it doesn`t change sometimes.
So it would maybe be good to backup the Keys .
And give it a try when you reinstall it .

[Ken-P]

Whenever you reformat the drive which your software's current ID is based on, the ID change. But simple reinstalling should not change ID.

[Eric Doggett]

Really? For Windows? Mac? Both?

So if I want to reformat my boot drive to 'start fresh' - I have to go through the deactivate process on the ni servers?

[FV]

Hi Eric,

No, I don't believe that is 100% accurate. I believe that the system ID that is generated is based on various factors. I believe the date that it is installed on has an effect on the system ID that is generated by the registration program as well as your hardware config. Your actual hardware authorization I believe will remain the same (unless you've also changed a considerable amount of your hardware).

I had a major hard drive crash on my Powerbook. I had to reinstall the O/S completely. When it came time to reauthorize my NI-based instruments, the System ID was different than my earlier one (as I had saved all of those as well). Thus, my authorization code that needed to be pasted into the registration program also changed. I did not have to deauthorize the computer though. I simply authorized again and it recognized that the hardware was still the same but I needed a new authorization code because of the newly generated System ID.

If you're very concerned, it is best to get it straight from NI or EW. However, this is my experience. I have never needed to deauthorize a hardware config.

HTH,
FV

[Eric Doggett]

Thanks FV - but I would ask then if you basically just ended up using your second authorization without knowing it? If you reformatted and reinstalled the OS, and NI's s/w had to create a new key, which required you to go to the NI Site and re-register it to get a compatible key, that makes me think that you just used your second authorization.

Would that be the case?

[FV]

Hi Eric,

I just checked my registrations online now. I have not used more than one authorization for each of the instruments that I own. This was a little while ago and I remember being nervous about the whole deauthorize thing. I remember thinking to myself that I didn't want to lock myself out from a hardware config (had nightmares of being in a position where NI said - sorry you deauthorized it - we can't reauthorize it). Since I only had one authorization, I figured that I would try the first instrument this way and, if I ended up with 2, I would deauthorize the original one. I don't think that I ever did that.

Now, I'm starting to second-guess myself as to what I actually did. I am pretty sure that all I did was authorized as if it were a new one and it recognized that it was an install on the original authorization (but a newly generated system ID).

Perhaps it's best if you contact NI directly. They know their authorization process better than I do. I'd hate to be responsible for messing up your system. Sorry if I caused any confusion.

FV

[Will Loconto]

When I have changed hard drives in a PC and reinstalled NI products, I had to get a new authorization. However, deactivating the old one only involved clicking deactivate on the web site. This did not use up both available authorizations for me. My account now shows 3 authorizations for a product and one says "deactivated".

EDIT: I just remembered I did this on my G5 as well. I had to reformat the boot drive and reinstall OSX. The deactivation worked fine and I was able to re-authorize everything without using up another authorization.

[spectrum]

No problem to do this with your Spectrasonics instruments.

spectrum