Activation Codes & number of activations.

Thanks in advance to whomever that can answer.

I currently own FC3, DCS A-10C and Ka-50 Blackshark.

I purchased FC3 and DCS A-10C directly from the site; while Blackshark was purchased through Steam.

I have safely kept all three activation codes for the three modules.

I'm about to put my computer through a thorough reformat.

My question is:

Will my activation codes still be valid ? Is there anything I should do before I commence reformat ? (i.e. deactivate the current activations). If so, can one be so kind as to direct me as to how to do it ?

Thanks again

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=116761&highlight=deactivation

See this thread it tells all. A simple search was all you needed.

The Quick Start Guide in the A-10 doc folder contains the information on deactivating and activating. This info can also be found here.

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/faq/activate/

Scroll down for the deactivate part.

Hey there,

I have meanwhile bought all modules and every module but FC3 got purchased on Steam although I only play the non-Steam way which works great and also FC3 has meanwhile been fused to Steam so I could also play it all on Steam if I wanted to.

My question regards the number of activations left for my modules.

I do know that they auto-renew activations but I don't seem to completely understand how this works.

For example, the Ka-50 was my first module which is no down to 5 activations left. I ruined 3 installations due to 2 x NTFS failures that made it impossible to deactivate and one 1 x due to a BootCamp crash on my Mac's NTFS partition which I wasn't able to boot again. My fault I know, hardware crashes are ones own fault.

I have all modules installed on 2 machines ( see my signature ) and I use both DCSW installations to play.

How can I deactivate the 3 ACTIVE listings that I cannot deactivate anymore myself ?

I can't see how ED could add an activation every 30 days so I one day are back to 8 activations left ?

Since the Mac's Win7 installation solely depends upon my OS-X's integrity and ability to see that NTFS-partition I can foresee another loss of Win7 along with DCSW in the future and the Asus's G73 2nd HD also started to produce errors ( which I could fix by taking the drive out and insert it back in ) there is another potential loss of a DCSW installation on the horizon :(

Can I retrieve the HW-Code of the 2 working and used DCSW Installations and ask ED to delete ALL others that show up in the listing ? Maybe with filling them in 1 by 1 in a 30 day interval ?

I just want to take preparations before I end up with no activations left due to crashes of NTFS, defect HD's etc.. Murphy is always around the corner lurking.

It is not really urgent, I got 4 or 5 activations left, depending on the modules and that should carry me over the next 2 glitches but it doesn't seem to replenish my activations since the lost DCSW installations seem to keep listed ACTIVE despite they are no more.

I cannot see that I ever got an activation added after a 30 day time period.

Either I misunderstand something or something else prohibits the system to delete my 3 non-active ( aka LOST ) installations and thus won't grant them back to me.

Any info welcome on how to avoid running out of activations.

FYI: When I initially bought the Ka-50 and P-51 I played them through Steam. I backed up the game with the Steam function, saved the folder on a USB drive, reinstalled Win7 just to find out that Steam did not restore the game properly and prompted me with a backup-file error. That was how I lost my 1st activation. So don't trust Steam with it's Backup function. De-install the game and make sure on ED website that it recognized the deactivation which I didn't know of back then.

When using Steam, does Steam auto-deactivate the game when one deinstalls it ? Or do you have to do the deactivation manually in the mods folders and then deinstall the Steam version ?

Bit

How can I deactivate the 3 ACTIVE listings that I cannot deactivate anymore myself ?

You cannot, unfortunately. To deactivate, that activation must be active; that is, you must do it from a machine that has the hardware code relevant to that activation. If this has been lost through hardware or OS failures, that's no longer possible.

Giving margin for hardware failures and similar is precisely why you get more than 1 activation to begin with. :)

I can't see how ED could add an activation every 30 days so I one day are back to 8 activations left ?

Your last activation, when spent, is reissued to the license key 30 days after expenditure.

If/when this reissued activation is then spent, that one also gets reissued 30 days later.

And so on and so forth ad infinitum.

Can I retrieve the HW-Code of the 2 working and used DCSW Installations and ask ED to delete ALL others that show up in the listing ? Maybe with filling them in 1 by 1 in a 30 day interval ?

Unfortunately, no.

I just want to take preparations before I end up with no activations left due to crashes of NTFS, defect HD's etc.. Murphy is always around the corner lurking.

As long as it doesn't happen within the 30 days after the last activation is spent, you'll always have a new activation waiting for you, for eternity.

I cannot see that I ever got an activation added after a 30 day time period.

Either I misunderstand something

See above. :)

FYI: When I initially bought the Ka-50 and P-51 I played them through Steam. I backed up the game with the Steam function, saved the folder on a USB drive, reinstalled Win7 just to find out that Steam did not restore the game properly and prompted me with a backup-file error. That was how I lost my 1st activation. So don't trust Steam with it's Backup function. De-install the game and make sure on ED website that it recognized the deactivation which I didn't know of back then.

You would have lost your activation even if Steam handled it right, since a new windows install is indistinguishable from a new computer to the system. Making such distinctions would require that the system use drivers with very high level access to the system, sometimes known as a "rootkit". For obvious reasons, the decision was made not to use that option.

When using Steam, does Steam auto-deactivate the game when one deinstalls it ? Or do you have to do the deactivation manually in the mods folders and then deinstall the Steam version ?

Steam has no power over the activation system.

Also, not automatically deactivating is part of the good features here: it means that if you install the product, then uninstall it - and then want to reinstall it later; you won't have to activate again. The system may ask for a key (or may not, depends on details in registry, version discrepancy and so on), but after that it will simply say "already activated" because the activation server will have the hardware code stored as activated.

That is an important aspect to remember: you are not activating the install. You are activating the "computer". However, as mentioned, only so much hardware change is allowed to still be called the same "computer", and OS reinstalls will always look as a new computer.

Thank You for your answers :)

I will then trust the auto-replenish feature and try not to ruin my Computers in a weekly interval haha

Again, thanks very much

Bit