I just discovered that the MPD website has been shut down so I'm assuming there were no longer be any support or updates to that software.

On coming to this website, I see most of the posts are very old with the most recent one being in June of 2017 for this category without a lot of activity.

Before investing in this software, I want to make sure this company is viable and will not shut down. I had invested a lot of money in patterns and so forth with MPD and I'm wondering if people have migrated to Dress Shop as a result of MPD shutting down. I'm also disappointed that MPD could not notify its software owners that it was shutting down.

Looking for some insight to this before purchasing.

Thanks all!

Susan,

We're still here, alive and kickin'!

Dress Shop is still in business, under new ownership. I took over ownership of the company recently. I posted my introduction on the Dress Shop forums, in case if you'd like to know more about me:
http://livingsoftnw.groupee.ne...07915/m/472003060101

You can be sure that you will continue to get the most timely and useful customer support available. Dress Shop has a feature to send problem reports directly to us. We always respond ASAP, usually within a few hours.

We are in the process of first revamping the Web site and then sprucing up the app a bit, and then onto the fun work of designing new pattern collections!

Thank you Anna! Is there any way to integrate the two, MPD and Dress Shop patterns, that I have purchased or are they now two completely separate programs? Any consideration for prior MPD owners?

It does look like MPD is a goner. Can still use software just no more updates etc. I also own dress shop and I think I read that a new owner purchased it. The driving force behind both was Kaaren Hoback? who passed away and it seemed to lose steam with her passing. The main programmer Bob Clardy mentioned retiring so I am not sure of the longevity of Dress Shop either? Dress Shop was the brain child of Annette (can't remember her last name) I remember she hired a much better programmer but in doing that also lost her own company and was forced out long ago. I wasn't wild about that but had been with the program from its beginning. Annette had a wonderful enthusiasam about her invention but I guess wasn't as good in the business aspect. Still felt sad about it because it was HER concept that started Dress Shop.

My apologies to Anna. I hope you can revitalize the enthusiasm that Dress Shop once had. I have often wondered if MPD and Dress Shop can be combined. I have both but one had some patterns and the other had others. But both were led by Karen Hoback, Bob Clardy and the others so why not?

quote:

Originally posted by Rachel:
My apologies to Anna. I hope you can revitalize the enthusiasm that Dress Shop once had. I have often wondered if MPD and Dress Shop can be combined. I have both but one had some patterns and the other had others. But both were led by Karen Hoback, Bob Clardy and the others so why not?

No worries. The real history of Dress Shop, and of my predecessors, is more complicated than you stated. Suffice it to say that I don't know of all sides of the story, and even so, I am certainly glad I wasn't involved in any of it!

But, we're on to a new chapter now. I feel Dress Shop is a great application and is extremely useful to sewists of all levels. I hope to revitalize all aspects of Dress Shop: the application (fix bugs, improve UX (User Experience), add new features, etc.), the Web site (have you seen the Web site? Enough said ), new patterns collections, more vibrant and engaged user community, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by Susan Clapp:
Thank you Anna! Is there any way to integrate the two, MPD and Dress Shop patterns, that I have purchased or are they now two completely separate programs? Any consideration for prior MPD owners?

I did a quick test of opening a pattern, that was saved in Dress Shop, in My Pattern Designer and things seem to work OK, in that I was able to modify the pattern in MPD and print it.

However, if I save the pattern (still in MPD) then when I open it in either DS or MPD, I was not able to print it because both applications think I don't own the saved pattern. It's because of differences in the licensing mechanism in DS an MPD.

That's just a example to illustrate that while it may appear that the two applications interoperate, that's not really the case. Indeed there is no expressed or implied guarantee of such interoperability.

The MPD software was an excellent program as I am sure Dress Shop is as well. They appear to be so similar that it's a shame the two can't merge as one so no patterns are lost and money not wasted. I bought most of the collections and the pants fitting and many other items with MPD as I am sure many people did. I was aware of Kaaren's passing and of some of the history. Kaaren had helped me many times with little issues I had and was always willing to answer a question. So now it's up to me to decide what route to take I guess. I do love having clothes fit properly as they do with this software. Thanks for everyone's input!

As a member of the beta test team, I worked more on MPD as it was developed. Later DS migrated so that it was more like MPD, and we did some DS testing. The fit, I believe, is now equal for both. The way you choose a pattern and its options is different. I believe there are more options in MPD (if you own enough of it). I thought I had the best of both worlds, but with the shutdown of the MPD website and the need to get a new pc, I will lose MPD. Maybe there is the possibility of adding some of these options to DS in the future.

Hi, Carolyn,

Years ago before I bought the whole woman's MPD line, I asked Bob on the message board what would happen if the website was no longer available for activation.

I remember his response as saying that if you backup a copy of the activation file on your local PC, it can be copied to the new installation and everything will be activated as before. The activation file ends in .cfg. So try that first.

Then it's a little harder to get to now but you can supposedly manually enter your activation codes if you still have them from your purchase emails or prevously printed them from your account online.

Go to settings, activate products and patterns, then choose option at top of the screen that says you have no internet connection. You enter your activation codes one at a time. It also has a restore your codes from an existing code configuration file option.

I'm not going to uninstall my copies to test that these options still work. :-) But I think there is a way to keep your MPD running. It just takes some info saving while MPD is running on your current PC.

Vicki

quote:

Originally posted by Carolyn:
As a member of the beta test team, I worked more on MPD as it was developed. [...] but with the shutdown of the MPD website and the need to get a new pc, I will lose MPD. Maybe there is the possibility of adding some of these options to DS in the future.

I believe the customer support for MPD, including (re-)activation of MPD, is still in place. I would recommend that before you junk our old PC and its MPD install, install MPD on the new PC and activate it ("File -> Settings", "Activate Product and Patterns"). If that succeeds and the new MPD functions normally, then you can do away with the old MPD.

UPDATE: Sorry, I was wrong. The My Pattern Designer Web site is gone. Ditto the activation server, such that one would get an error of "Unable to retrieve codes." on trying to activate an MPD install.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Anna Nguyen, Dress Shop App,

This is helpful, Vicki. Thank you. I recall something about that, and may have it somewhere. What I need to do is see if I have a saved copy of the MPD installation file on my pc. Without that, only the data will transfer to the new pc. I can also look into a way to transfer programs as well as data. All that is going to have to wait, though, because I am going on vacation in a few days.

Carolyn

Carolyn if you happen to find that installation file could we possibly get a copy? I've had two laptops crash in the last few months and was able to download the program again before the website closed but next time... These laptops are old! Thanks you.

Debbie O'Connor
MPD Pro
DS Pro

Carolyn,
Do you have the MPD 4.00b file in the Download folder of your present computer? If so, copy it to a flash drive or other drive. Then wouldn't you be able to move it on to a new computer? I did not know the website was gone. Have not been paying attention to the list. Sad.
June Cappola (fellow beta tester)

Ladies, I was searching around the internet for alternate download sights for MPD and I found one. Not wanting to mess up my computer I dug out my son's old college laptop and used it to download and save the mpd4_00b master.exe. By clicking save and not run, like I usual do, I have the master on my computer and I also saved that file to an external hard drive and used it to put the program on my husband's laptop. And best of all it worked. I found the .cfg file on my computer and placed it in the Mypatterndesigner file in documents on the other computer and all my patterns were activated! The sight for the download is: downloads.informer.com/my-pattern-designer-download-master/download/ It worked for me, hope this is helpful for you. And I had my anti-virus running during the download, no problems.

Debbie O'Connor
MPD Pro
DS Pro