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registration benefits

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Ralf Maximus:
There can be penalties if you FAIL to register.  I'm thinking about Windows here...

Other than that, software registration usually falls into the "so we may serve you better" happy marketing talk for "give us your data so we can build a database for marketing purposes".

HP's printer software is getting VERY agressive about staying in your face, registration or not.  Used to be you could choose to install just the driver, but lately I haven't seen that option.  The last inkjet printer I bought "helpfully" installed an applet in my system tray that nags me about when to buy more ink and "helpfully" tries to steer me to the HP website to spend more money. When I disable the applet, the printer doesn't work right.

It's like getting married, I suppose.  In this case I married the printer but am now also involved with the entire HP marketing division, and there's not a lot I can do about it.

Carol Haynes:
Got a number of freebies from Adobe when I registered including free video tutorials, a few fonts and a short trial subscription to NAPP magazine. You were only supposed to get one benefit but since I moved software from one machine to another I was offered another freebie after each install (their DB was too stupid to notice previously issued freebies).

The other advantage is that if you register Adobe have a record of your serial numbers and therefore it is easy to get replacement media if you should have a damaged CD etc. without having to dig out receipts and post copies. This can be useful to have with such expensive products.

For general shareware software that you download there is usually little or no point.

Josh:
I registered with microsoft and as such was entitled to a free copy of Win2k3 SBS with 5 CAL's and office 2003. I've gotten several small tokens for registration on various products. Its paid off for me several times.

Renegade:
Some authors will send out update notices, which is worthwhile.

I only resend lost registration keys to the email address that someone purchased with unless I can verify that it's the same person. Not really registration, but I encourage people to let me know if their email address changes for that reason.

Often there isn't really a huge benefit. It's mostly marginal.

Lashiec:
It's like getting married, I suppose.  In this case I married the printer but am now also involved with the entire HP marketing division, and there's not a lot I can do about it.
-Ralf Maximus (October 06, 2007, 01:21 PM)
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