Question re: "activation"

GaryGraziano

Newbie Joined: Aug 25, 2018 13:21 Messages: 4 Offline

Solved by

Dec 07, 2022 19:51

I recently reinstalled Power Director 9 on a laptop for which I had to install a new hard drive and O/S. The install (from a CD) went fine, and I entered my CD-key to activate the program. Again, no problem. I recorded a program off the Web that included commercials, which I subsequently edited out using multi-trim. The original file was a .wmv. Upon finishing the edits I told the program to produce the project as an mpeg-4 file, and it responded by offering to "activate" this function. I said OK, and got the error that the program could not connect to Cyberlink's site. I selected somethiing like "try anyway" and it produced the requested file. My question is: is this something I should just ignore, or will this eventually stop working until the issue is resolved?

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Dec 07, 2022 20:37

PD9 was released in 2010, back when Win 7 was brand new and many people were still on WinXP or Vista. The last patch for that program came out 11 years ago, and in all honesty the program is woefully out of date as it doesn't support any new nVidia GPUs and is lacking many modern features.

If you've installed it on a new Win10 or 11 system you can try reaching out to CL tech support to see if they can help you resolve the issue. However if you've installed it on a system with an older OS, they will likely not be willing to help as described here.

Overall I think you'll have a much better editing experience if you got the latest version (PD21/lifetime license or PD365/subscription).

tomasc

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline

Dec 08, 2022 01:20

At one time, most consumer video editors did the same thing. You have 30 days to activate the video codecs needed for your needs including that in PD9. That way the company saves money on not paying royalties on codecs that most users will not use. You probably won’t get any support for this as win 7 is no longer supported..

GaryGraziano

Newbie Joined: Aug 25, 2018 13:21 Messages: 4 Offline

Dec 08, 2022 09:23

Quote PD9 was released in 2010, back when Win 7 was brand new and many people were still on WinXP or Vista. The last patch for that program came out 11 years ago, and in all honesty the program is woefully out of date as it doesn't support any new nVidia GPUs and is lacking many modern features.

If you've installed it on a new Win10 or 11 system you can try reaching out to CL tech support to see if they can help you resolve the issue. However if you've installed it on a system with an older OS, they will likely not be willing to help as described here.

Overall I think you'll have a much better editing experience if you got the latest version (PD21/lifetime license or PD365/subscription).

Thanks for your reply! Now that you mention it, I believe I was running XP when I purchased the program (2011 sounds about right). I used it without any issues through Win 7, and into Win 10 before the laptop I mentioned above required major intervention. It was only after reinstalling PD9 from the disk that I encountered this issue. Otherwise, it works as well as ever. The message I got was that the produce mpeg-4 feature would only work for 30 days. I guess I'll wait until that deadline to decide what I'm going to do. (Frankly, I'm old, cheap, and I dislike the subscription model!)

Fenman

Senior Contributor Location: Cambridge, UK Joined: Nov 24, 2011 04:44 Messages: 731 Offline

Dec 09, 2022 05:35

Quote Frankly, I'm old, cheap, and I dislike the subscription model!

I'm 100% with you there.