Hi all. I have finally found time to work on Dress Shop but in the last 4 months I have needed to run activate products each month. Is this the way it is supposed to be? I was surprised I needed to do this so often.
Thanks for your insight.
EMonette

The program is designed to stay activated however various system issues can arise depending on your Windows version, anti virus and firewalls.
You may need to activate with downloads, updates and always with upgrades or purchases.

Kaaren

quote:

Hi all. I have finally found time to work on Dress Shop but in the last 4 months I have needed to run activate products each month. Is this the way it is supposed to be? I was surprised I needed to do this so often.

There are several possible reasons this might occur. One method it could occur would only happen if you have only ever used manually entered activation codes. Have you ever done an auto-activation or do you enter manual activation codes? If you never have done the auto-activation and if that would be possible, try that. It might clear up the problem completely.

There are different problems that can occur if you have activation codes that are not from the same customer account. This has happened in several cases when a customer purchased a product using one email and password, then years later bought some other product using a different email and password. Those two products are considered to be from different customer accounts even though they might be the same person at the same street address. When the program detects you have products from different customer accounts, it disables them. Again, this can happen even in completely legitimate cases where all we need to do is combine your two accounts into a single one.

It would be best if you just send in a problem report so we can see just how you have activated and what is or is not right about it all.

Thanks for your prompt answer. I have done both put in the codes manually and most recently used the auto-activation. I may indeed have more than one password. I will try to send a problem report but the problem report form and the form to activate products do not stay on the screen at the same time.
Elizabeth

Hi- we dont need both on screen- just send a problem report- it will show which activations were applied.

regards,
Kaaren

quote:

Thanks for your prompt answer. I have done both put in the codes manually and most recently used the auto-activation. I may indeed have more than one password. I will try to send a problem report but the problem report form and the form to activate products do not stay on the screen at the same time.

The form and the activation dialog box not being on the screen at the same time will not matter. There is a general mis-understanding about the problem report that I would like to explain a bit so people know what it can and cannot help with. The problem report does not send us an image of your screen. It sends a text only report that includes 5 things:

1. What you write about the problem. The more you can tell us about what you did and what you saw happen, the more that might help.

2. A copy of the activation codes you have entered. We can then see which ones were entered correctly or which were mis-typed or out of date or incompatible.

3. A copy of the measurement chart you are using at that moment. We can put that chart into our own copy of MPD or Dress Shop and draft patterns with it, seeing which problems may be caused by bad measurements or some unexpected combination of measurements that the program does not handle well. In the early days, we had cases of rounded backs and tilted waistlines that our drafting engine did not draft good patterns for. We have not seen cases like that in years, though. We do often find charts with typos, a measurement in the wrong slot, or a chart that just cannot be correct. Not long ago, I had one where Floor To Hip was greater than Floor To Waist Side. That cannot be right and it does draft bad pants patterns.

4. The problem report also attaches a copy of the pattern file you are viewing. Not the image of that pattern, but the 396 numbers that define a pattern. One of those numbers is the neckline type. Another is the seam allowance width. There are 396 in all. If we save that data as a saved pattern file, we can load it in the program and see what you drafted, learning that it may have been the added length adjustment coupled with the curved hemline that caused the particular pattern draft error you were seeing.

5. The reports also include some information about your system and settings. What type of Windows, which version of Internet Explorer, your printer paper size and margin settings. Sometimes those are useful.

The point of my note is that the problem report does not tell us anything about some problems, such as:

1. The sequence of things you have done. We have had some bugs that occur only after a different pattern was drafted first. Some pattern setting that is not cleared properly before the next pattern is drafted. We can't see those.

2. Internet connectivity issues. Things like firewalls and virus protection software may interfere with your program contacting the Internet successfully.

3. Files and folders on your hard drive being hard to locate. Windows 7 on a 64 bit computer will move or hide files from you and from Dress Shop or MPD. Vista security settings do not allow certain files to be stored in certain locations on your hard drive unless you are an administrator and have some security settings disabled.

4. Intermittent problems. Any issue with flaky hard drives, viruses, files that get over-written - our problem reports do not help at all with those.

5. Installation issues and system registry issues. If your program just will not run at all, a problem report is no help.

6. Improving your fit. We can offer advice, but since we cannot actually see your body, nor the wrinkles in the clothing you made, we cannot really tell you exactly what to do. You are welcome to our guesses, but there are certainly no guarantees there.

I'm sure there is more, but I just wanted to offer an overview of what the problem report can and cannot help with.