[@Peter Blaise]
To be clear, I did not get two installations out of one SoS receipt. I knew someone that wanted to install Perfect PDF 9, so I asked them to allow me to be there so that we could try the e-mail method; different computer, and system. I wanted to save the dialogs displayed, and now I have them as a reference to show that both activation methods work.
Since you had trouble identifying the e-mail response from Soft Xpansion, I will pass on a tip that can help resolve these types of issues:
If you have your e-mail accounts set up to keep “conversations” together, the response from Soft Xpansion would be directly tied to the e-mail sent, which of course had the License key and Hardware key sent to Soft Xpansion. Try it, it is very helpful. If you have trouble setting it up, contact a computer tech to help you out.
Soft Xpansion has been in business for over 25 years, with a great reputation in Europe. The Perfect PDF 9 software has a copyright of 2002-2014, so the current version we have been offered already has at least a six-year track record itself, and with its previous versions, even more back to 2002. If there was a problem with their activation process, I am pretty sure they would have found out about it over the last six years for the version 9.x we get. Somehow you never acknowledged this program has been around for a long time but presumed you had identified a legitimate problem with their activation process. That is why I have been hoping you can take the initiative to do what they ask so you can register the software, then you can finally withdraw your claim that Soft Xpansion is the reason the program cannot be activated.
Now that you also have registered the program, you will have to concede that your statements telling users “it just won’t work” was in error. I think you owe an apology to Soft Xpansion, Ashraf, and others, and clarify that the registration part does work as long as you follow the directions. In that apology, there is no need to bring up your perspective of the software itself; that will be a separate issue. Just clear yourself regarding the activation. You are now part of the proof that the software can be activated even if the Internet method fails. Be a man about it.
Your Exported Text from Perfect PDF 9
You said that the output has “tabs” in it. What you are interpreting as Tabs is more likely your judgment of what you are seeing through some software, but not actually what is in the file. It would depend on what you use to view the output.
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Perfect PDF 9 exports text in Unicode format
, so to someone that does not recognize it, they may think it has tabs or extra spaces in it. If you import that file into some program or view it with a program that is not expecting the contents to be Unicode, it may mess up the display of that text.
Myself, I was glad to have a PDF program that could export in Unicode; most others do not, so in the past, I had to take another step to convert the text to Unicode.
Free Ashampoo PDF Pro v1.11
You mentioned that you installed the “free Ashampoo PDF Pro v1.11.” From what I can tell, it is possible to get that version for free but not legally free. Take off the “Pro” part. The “Pro” edition is not free as far as I can tell. The only way to get it “free” is with a “crack” from pirated software sites. If you try downloading from Ashampoo, you will actually download the version 2.0 trial, or the 1.0 trial, not the 1.11 Pro edition for free. So my question is, did you get it free and legal? If so, where can anyone else get it for free (and legal)?
In response to some of your comments:
>”writing NOT about the functioning of the Soft-Xpansion Perfect PDF 9 Editor program itself.”
>”More importantly … nothing to say about the Soft-Xpansion Perfect PDF 9 Editor, I see.”
That is correct because I really don’t know very much about it at this point. It’s like day one for me. I have known about Soft Xpansion’s products for a long time. When this opportunity was placed before me by SoS, I was glad to take a look. So far, I have just installed the program. I haven’t had time to check out all of the program’s features. After I have a chance to use it more, I will learn if it is a program I like or would recommend. Each day I discover something else about it that I like, so I am glad to have the opportunity to check it out.
It is not uncommon for SoS users to have a successful install/activation, but not leave a detailed analysis of the program, so your judgment that no comments about the program’s functionality suggest there wasn’t anything good to say about it was out-of-line. There is no way I am going to install a PDF editor and within the next few hours have very much to say about it; that takes time.
There had been two reviews of the program in the Featured Reviews section from way early on. Both were favorable, albeit not extremely detailed, so some folks had made an effort to convey their thoughts on the program long before you ever mentioned not seeing any details of the program itself.
>”I haven’t seen hardware licensing since, I dunno, IBM mainframes?”
I totally believe you because I think you miss a lot.
You mentioned Hard Disk Sentinel in one of your comments, and you also posted comments on the SOS offer for Abstract Curves. That is two programs you know about for sure. Both are licensed per computer. I know because I have purchased both of them; it is in their terms. In many cases, the PC software “licensed per computer” agreement allows installation on a desktop and laptop, so that alone can eliminate many of the complaints users have with a “license per computer” agreement.
Just to show you that “license per computer” for PC programs is way more common than you thought, I did a quick check of some of my software purchases for the computer I am using (I didn’t bother checking from all sources because I wanted it to be easy for you to verify). I was going to post the list but it was too long. I had a list of 97 PC programs purchased in the last few years. If you want to see the list to convince you, I will locate a place where I can post the list.
From your comments to Bill:
>”the only reason to reboot is to have Soft-Xpansion Perfect PDF 9 Editor become the default previewer and opener for Windws File Manager and PDF files, both of which are totally unnecessary to the functioning of the program itself”
That isn’t the reason. Soft-Xpansion Perfect PDF 9 Editor becomes the default previewer and opener for Windows File Manager and PDF files whether you reboot or not.
There are several reasons why a reboot may affect the operation of the installed software. One reason is if any files were in use during the install, the system will not be using the new ones until after a reboot. It happens often when Microsoft components are installed as part of the overall install. Installing C++ runtime libraries is a good possibility for why the reboot shows up for this program. Most users will likely have a later version already installed, so this step is very short for Perfect PDF 9. Another reason is if the registry is changed, and the developer wants those changes to be read into memory. To ensure the new registry changes are read by the OS, the reboot ensures everything is in sync. Microsoft has improved on these reboots for newer operating systems, so the reboot suggestion may have been set in force back when XP users were the ones installing this software.
Conclusion
>”thank you for exploring this and sharing how Soft-Xpansion has completely and totally missed who the SOS customer is”
Your perspective … maybe, more importantly, you are not the definition of the “SoS customer.”
>”what can the programmers do?”
>”I dunno.”
>”And they won’t let me find out.”
I think you are right; they probably are not going to let you find out.