Subject:Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Posted by: dkistner

Date:7/12/2003 7:08:23 AM

Well, I did the complete uninstall of Acid 4.0b and reinstalled 4.0e. And it lead, again, to the confusion of how to re-register. It may be complete coincidence, but when I authorized registration online, our entire home network promptly crashed, and we had to spend hours getting it reconfigured. Then when I tried to reinstall and just enter my serial number and original activation code, it said the latter was invalid.

We aren't given the choice of not registering, and if we don't register, Acid stays in demo mode. So what is the best way to re-register when you do a complete fresh install of Acid? We don't have to call customer service and get a new activation code every time, do we?

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: MyST

Date:7/12/2003 8:09:42 AM

"It may be complete coincidence, but when I authorized registration online, our entire home network promptly crashed"

I would say it's coincidence. I've had to re-register many times and it never caused any headaches.
Is this the first time you re-register? If not, did it crash your network before also?
Did you try just entering your serial number, not the activation code?
I keep my S/N as a Wordpad document and just copy/paste it the first time the new version opens. Are you saying the network crashed after you entered the S/N and selected "register"?

Also, if you look at the upper right corner of this web page, you'll see REGISTER. Select that and you'll be able to enter the app you want to register along with your S/N.

M

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: drbam

Date:7/12/2003 8:50:06 AM

I've never had a problem with this either (reinstalling/registering many times). I recently had a system drive failure and and had to install and register EVERYTHING. ;-(

drbam

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:7/12/2003 10:48:34 AM

You're probably right that it was coincidence, but I wondered if there might be something in the 4.0e release that is a little hooey for people on a network. It was just strange that almost immediately after I clicked to register online with my serial number when I first loaded up the 4.0e installation, everything went to hell. We didn't have any storming going on here, and it was only me (just in Acid) and my son (just reading email) at the time. So I don't know what happened.

Oh, to answer your question, yes I've re-registered online before, and no the network did not crash. Not that I recall.

I restored an earlier drive image and went through the whole thing again, registering online this time from the initial Acid load. Although it seemed to work okay, I've had weirdnesses going on that I don't understand. Like my ICQ started making those infernally annoying sounds again, right in the middle of a chat session (just an hour ago), when my preferences were set to disable sounds.

Again, it probably has no connection to Acid; but if there's a chance it did, I hope the deep coders will look into it.

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: groovewerx

Date:7/12/2003 1:11:41 PM

Dr. K,

I'm sure you know this but some folks don't know that just using the internet on a music machine can introduce mysterious side effects. Using chat, ActiveX and othe external scripts can make your entire system vulnerable to attacks.

If you have to use the internet from your music workspace, setup another computer for that. You can use a switch that will allow you to use the same keyboard, mouse, and monitor without exposing your audio rig to the world.

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:7/12/2003 2:00:41 PM

Groovewerx, thanks for the tip. Yeah, I knew about that (at least sort of), but I'm pretty much stuck with having my browser and such on my music machine...but if I'm not doing the Internet thing when I'm actually making music, shouldn't I be all right? Or are you saying that, if no other programs are loaded, they can still wreak havoc?

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: drbam

Date:7/12/2003 3:56:48 PM

You are vulnerable to outside attacks/intrusions if you are online at all, especially with chat rooms and IM. I have a broadband cable network with various levels of firewalls and protection but I still don't trust this stuff. I unplug the cable from my DAW except when I need to register software and then immediately unplug it. I don't even download updates on my DAW (I use a different system for that). Some would say that this isn't even safe, but purely for the convenience, I'm willing to risk this extremely rare online activity.

drbam

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:7/12/2003 5:35:24 PM

Well, all I do in the way of chat is talk to a friend in Great Britain once a week via ICQ, and I've got everything turned off in that and restricted to just that contact. I pull email, then get out of Outlook. And we have a firewall, and my partner's pretty savvy about keeping things locked down, although we ARE permanently connected via broadband. I don't have a choice, though, about doing things differently.

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: drbam

Date:7/12/2003 8:59:37 PM

Diane: If you don't have a hardware router already, you might consider getting one - even for a single computer. The Lynksys models (and others) have a built-in firewall that works much better than the software apps. ;-)

drbam

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: teknik14

Date:7/12/2003 10:48:30 PM

A quick way to ensure your machine isn't being probed or whatever, simply 'disable' your NIC (device manager) while in 'DAW mode'. This way, NOTHING goes in OR out.

You should NEVER run a DAW let alone a PC connected directly to broadband! No matter how safe you think you are, you aren't. A firewall is only as good as the operator behind it... if you open the door, the bad guys can come in. A Linksys BEFSR41 or similar model Router uses NAT to make your LAN invisible behind it, but if the user initiates a session from a DAW or PC 'protected' by a firewall to a rogue site or whatever, this will not prevent from being infected with viruses or from being hacked.

teknik 14 - MCSE, A+, CCNA

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: ATP

Date:7/13/2003 12:16:17 PM

umm guys, plz ...you people make it sound that if there is even a network card in the machine that it will be hacked. if you know what you're doing and what to look out for, your system can be hooked up to the internet without any drama at all.

of course, i don't have an MSCE certificate, so obviously i'm full of crap....anyhow, my point is, if you want to be 100% safe then simply don't hook the daw up to any network whatsoever. if you wanna be 99% safe you can get a long way by installing a good firewall and using (slightly paranoid) common sense.

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: teknik14

Date:7/13/2003 4:25:30 PM

"umm guys, plz ...you people make it sound that if there is even a network card in the machine that it will be hacked"

No, not really.... but ATP, your're totally right. Common sense usually dictates what happens next in any given situation. In fact, if you spent every day of your workweek fixing other people's PCs due to 'errors in judgement' or just their inability to make the 'right' choices... all the while praticing common sense... you'd be pretty quick to agree that if something CAN happen it eventually will, unless you are taking EVERY possible step to avoid stuff from happening. You might, but most people don't. Try running Lavasoft on your DAW sometime and see how many incidents of spyware you've silently incurred 'while practicing common sense' just for starters.

I dunno, but I value the content stored on my DAW to the extent that I don't take any chances at all.

Just my opinion :-)
teknik14

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:7/14/2003 4:10:15 AM

Hardware router, we have. General risks of being connected to the Internet, I already know. Turning off antivirus software and running as few programs as possible, etc., I already do.

What I need clarification on is if I would have actual improved DAW performance if I either disabled my NIC in Device Manager or--and this would be a lot simpler for me to do--just unplug the cable to my NIC when I'm working in my DAW. Would this likely cut down on sound glitches and the like?

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: ATP

Date:7/14/2003 5:05:00 AM

teknik14, basically what you're saying is that there is always a chance something can go wrong. to me that's so obvious there is no question of agreeing or not, it's a fact, plain and simple. my point is, once again, that the performance of your DAW does not have to be compromised just because it's hooked up to the net. this is totally dependant on the person using the daw.

note, if you've got a "professional" studio, then i would agree, no network activity on the daw whatsoever. but if you're a semi-professional like me who only has 1 pc, then it's really just a matter of knowing what you're doing.


Diane, it doesn't matter if you disable your NIC or if you unplug the network cable. in both instances nothing will be able to enter your pc from the outside. if you really feel it will help i'd opt for unplugging the cable, since that's less work. however, i'm of the opinion that an internet connection on a properly configured machine does not neccesarily(sp?) mean that the performance will degrade. that will only happen if you've got viruses/spyware/trojans on your machine. having an internet connection does not equal the presence of the latter tho.

i think the point many people were trying to get accross is that by merely having your daw hooked up to the net (even if only sometimes) you risk exposure to hacks and viruses. so, if you're using your daw for internet purposes when you are not composing music, it really doesn't matter if you unplug/disable the nic when you do compose, since your system might already be infected.

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:7/14/2003 5:14:47 AM

I'm running Norton Antivirus and am pretty rigorous about keeping my system clean, although I know this doesn't ensure up-to-the-minute protection. And Web Tools/Clean Sweep will get rid of some kinds of nefarious things...although I would not be at all surprised if some spyware has not snuck on.

What is the best spyware protection out there? I installed a few different spyware-killing type programs on my system at one point, but they seemed to introduce more problems than they solved. I've been reluctant to try another one.

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: groovewerx

Date:7/14/2003 7:21:46 AM

For Spyware: I use both SpyBot and Ad-Aware together (simultaneously) once each day because what one misses, the other catches. I only my scan the WINNT folder and registry because scanning anything else is a watse of time (for my setup).

For Antivirus: I scan only the C:\ drive once every week with NAV immediately upon reboot after I've updated the definitions.

That routine has worked without flaw on my web-enabled rig for more than a year.

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: teknik14

Date:7/14/2003 10:26:01 AM

The advantage of disabling your NIC in Device Manager over unplugging the cable is that you would be taking a positive step in preventing your NIC from interrupting the CPU during critical audio processes, which usually result in pops and clicks... especially if your DAW OS is running in ACPI mode and sharing IRQ's between several cards in it.

Here's a good link to optimizing XP for DAW operation:
http://www.musicxp.net

teknik14

Subject:RE: Proper way to reinstall/reregister Acid? SoFo?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:7/14/2003 12:17:16 PM

That's a great link to the musicxp.net material...I've already done a lot of that. Some stuff I didn't do, but a lot of it I did.

This morning I set up a separate Hardware Profile in XP that basically isolates my DAW, and it was very easy to do. I just copied the existing profile and disabled the NIC and such in the second profile. Anyone who has been avoiding setting up different hardware profiles because they think it will be too hard, it's not hard at all! I don't know if you have to reboot into the profile you want to disable stuff in or not, but I did just to be on the safe side.