owner

[RJL]

general question... i have a licensed personal copy of autocad 2009 that i have been using for many years.  as a former design professional, i used my autocad to generate construction documents.  as a retiree, i have continued to use my autocad to help friends who needed documents.  my autocad 2009 was the last version that did not require a subscription, which was fine with me.  i was under the impression that i owned the software and could continue to use it without support.  occasionally, the software would need a re-verification and autodesk would verify my license and send a verification code.  that suddenly stopped the other day.  does anyone know what happened?  is my software now useless?  thank you for any information anyone can provide. RJ 

[steven-g]

Basically yes it is useless. As of August 29th 2019, any version of AutoCAD products 2010 or older are no longer supported and can no longer be authorised. However I had understood this to mean that older versions would still work unhindered so long as you don't try and re-install on a new computer. Should your computer die you would no longer be able to re-install the older versions on another computer (it won't work on Windows 10 anyway). So even though you own it ??? you can't re-install on a different computer.

 

But why would you need reverification? That sounds odd. Autodesk have created a new forum on their site for issues relating to this so it would be worth asking there about your particular situation

[rkmcswain]

16 hours ago, steven-g said:

 

But why would you need reverification? That sounds odd. Autodesk have created a new forum on their site for issues relating to this so it would be worth asking there about your particular situation

 

I'm very, very interested in this too. As you said Steven, why would it need verification for the same user/host combo? It's a perpetual license, right?

I've seen multiple reports like this since the end of August.

An Autodesk employee has said since this time, that there is no way that Autodesk is remotely killing these old versions (and forcing them to try and re-activate, which fails of course...), but it sure is interesting how many people I've heard of in this same boat.

 

I suppose it's possible, that this "phone home/verify every few months" has been in these old versions forever and it was just not noticed by many users, but you have to wonder, given Autodesk's recent boldness, are they technically able to remotely kill an activation? And if so, would they do this?

 

@RJL - Autodesk's new business model is to get all customers on rental, paying them an annual fee to use the software. I would think they would let old versions like yours die off due to hardware and O/S upgrades, but it's looking more and more like the grand plan to get *everyone* on rental is moving forward with no road blocks and damn the torpedoes. 

[RJL]

my autocad is on my laptop and i have used it in hotel rooms and remote offices when travelling. that would usually kick a reverification, and then when i returned home to my home network.  it never seemed like a problem and i guess i felt reassured that they were keeping track of my license.  i noticed sometimes a note flash across the screen at bootup saying something like "thank you for registering your autodesk product" but it didn't hesitate, just started the program.  if it is really dead to me, then i'd like to know so i can explore options.  my needs are pretty simple now.  i'd like to be able to access my dwg files.  i like the way autocad allows text and images to be manipulated.  i don't need 3D capabilities.  i was thinking about checking out LibreCAD.  i'm open to suggestions.  thanks.  

[rkmcswain]

Check out BricsCAD. It's the closest thing to ACAD, much less $$ and still offers what we have to presume to be true perpetual licenses.

 

https://www.bricsys.com/en-us/ 

 

@RJL

[steven-g]

I would still find it interesting to see a response from Autodesk, what you are describing is a completely legitimate use of Autocad, you don't appear to be doing anything that hasn't been covered by the EULA, indeed there are some arguments about what LT stands for, one being 'LapTop' and that it was designed specifically for this use scenario so people could use the program on site and whilst on the move (yes I know you use the full version, the argument is about the fair use of the old version). If Autodesk are now 'incapable' (due to server issues) of supporting your version then they should at the very least release a patch for all older versions disabling the "phone home" features of the program, if it is this that is causing the problem, verification is not a renewed activation.

 

And +1 on rkmcswain's suggestion for BricsCAD in some some ways it isn't even close to AutoCAD it surpasses it, and just for viewing and editing dwg files the free 'BricsCAD Shape' is great (and it also does 3D).

[SLW210]

I think it may be something recent with whatever method they use to automatically reset/verify a license. I have received a license renewal request every time I have restarted my computer the past few weeks, but a second try to open AutoCAD has worked with no request. Of coarse, with how incompetent our IT department is, it could be our servers.

[BIGAL]

There is a thing called consumer affairs and one thing is that goods meet what they were designed for, so if there is no contract to turn off Autocad because its old could Autodesk be forced to reset a license even on a new platform ? 32 bit v;s 64 would creep in.

 

The software area though is a minefield about user rights.

[shift1313]

Are you using the Autodesk Desktop App?  I am not on a perpetual license but with Fusion, Inventor, Acad and other it is all connected into AnyCAD and the desktop app.  Wondering if that was installed in the system tray and causing these "check in" prompts you guys are seeing.