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rock15478
04-20-2011, 07:51 PM
Been using SD! for years... never had many problems...

So I cloned a Tiger HD to a new Tiger partition on a new SATA drive in my G5.

After booting from my new clone, none of my licenses are remembered. Some software I use requires an ilok, and the ilok is completely registered correctly and showing the license information, but software is still not accepting it. (All works fine on the original HD)

I thought Super Duper did an identical clone? I've never had a problem with software license information before... Seems odd that ALL software is now doing this (even older software that I know for a fact this never happened with on older SD! clones)

What could be the problem?

Thanks

dnanian
04-20-2011, 09:55 PM
Copy protected programs are, well, copy protected. So, this is kind of expected...

rock15478
04-21-2011, 12:22 AM
I don't understand why it would be doing this to programs that I've never had a problem with before. This is only recent. The only thing I can recall changing was updating to the newest version of SD about a month or two ago.

I thought a clone was an exact clone? Shouldn't that keep all licensing intact?

It used to.... (for these specific programs)

dnanian
04-21-2011, 07:24 AM
We haven't changed anything about the way we copy files, which has always happened file-by-file. We don't call ourselves a "clone", and use the term Backup: the files are all copied, along with all the metadata and attributes, but copy protected programs are copy protected specifically to prevent licensing-after-copy, and can use various methods to do that.

If you're having licensing problems, you should definitely contact the vendor of those programs and ask them why they're doing what they're doing...

jwhitley
04-21-2011, 05:19 PM
I don't understand why it would be doing this to programs that I've never had a problem with before. This is only recent. The only thing I can recall changing was updating to the newest version of SD about a month or two ago.

I thought a clone was an exact clone? Shouldn't that keep all licensing intact?

It used to.... (for these specific programs)

As a rule, never depend on activated licenses to be preserved across any backup or clone strategy. On OS X, Keychain's secure notes and 1Password both work well for this purpose. These repositories will be correctly backed up by SuperDuper!

A bit of exposition on licensing systems:

As Dave indicates, many licensing systems deliberately incorporate strategies to defeat copying as an inherent aspect of their role in preventing software piracy. Even a perfect copy of the data on the disk isn't sufficient to ensure that a license will work. Frequently the secure license metadata store will contain various serial number and signature information about the original system, disks, etc. Thus a perfect copy of the license data may not work in a new or restored system because that system is "new." Most vendors attempt to accommodate scenarios such as part upgrades, but the software still may fail activation if the overall system is not deemed the same as the original based on the licensing system's heuristics. Similarly, some software may attempt an automatic re-activation, e.g. upon a restore to a new system. However, reactivations usually have limits (a fixed number, a rate over time, etc.). Thus a restore of licensed software working once is no guarantee that a restore will work a second or third or tenth time.

sjk
04-21-2011, 07:12 PM
A bit of exposition on licensing systems: …
Very well expositioned (sic). :)