The Curse Of The Web

[cranioscopical]

The current situation
I have a clipboard manager that is a long-time favourite of mine.
For the past 15+ years I paid for upgrades to multiple licenses as it changed and improved.
It still works just fine.

The Problem
There is a lot of data filed away in that thing and it's difficult tedious to retrieve.
Without warning, the developer disappeared some time during the past year or two.
Activation over the web is the only way to make a new installation of this software work.
So, the next time I upgrade to a new machine…  guess what?


There's rather too much of this online activation stuff these days for me to feel comfortable.

It's one thing for a giant like Adobe to do this, there's a good chance that they'll be around in future in some form or other. It's quite a different proposition when a small company adopts the practice.

[edit to clarify "difficult"]

[timns]

I absolutely agree with this, and have been bitten by this very problem recently myself. The least the developer could do would be to Open Source the software and hopefully someone would take it over.

Chris - if you'd like a hand extracting the data, I'm willing to give it a go.

[cranioscopical]

if you'd like a hand extracting the data, I'm willing to give it a go

What a gentleman, thank you for the offer!

I'll write something to do the job, it's just so damned annoying!

[Renegade]

Which one is it?

[cranioscopical]

Which one is it?

X2Net SmartBoard

[lanux128]

they seem to have made non-online activation tools available at their website.

We regret to inform you that X2Net Limited has ceased trading.

The following license name/key pairs can be used to enable activation of existing products for which X2Net Limited held rights.
Product License Name License Key
   
WebCompiler V3.x WebCompiler 000015-8KJH5B-KDNHD5-8UNYGP-222VQZ-CTW0KJ-4MGHVH-BT96TE-GAZ3VP-JH9JKQ
WebCompiler V2.x WebCompiler 5139-332A-796C-13E1-38CC-EE40-F176-3E0A
X2Net Smart Address V5 SmartAddress 000MKE-N4B7GG-TZY5GE-QPBUUZ-2UXMEF-9PHHNE-Q5VQAX-WN6RXH-DZN7T9
Smart Address 2000 SmartAddress 26FB - 868D - D47C - 0B33 (Multi user code for 10 users is 31F6 - B6AC - 88A0 - ECA3)
X2Net SmartBoard SmartBoard 01C0HY-YEA8MH-BBKVW1-W7GEHX-UA8K4W-T5FWCK-EN5J4V-U5H72H-TW52R0-05Z6RM
X2Net Calendar Calendar 018E5F-38XVGA-H4PX2T-PE3T71-0JRF4X-BN5RAH-3UJ0BD-203MB1-04HVYK-H6E7QT
X2Net Contacts Contacts 0186KT-JRXB5R-5NPMEB-166CUU-VVF31E-EQGERU-GY0MYD-1FYVDG-HD3MUE-F43216

If the product you want is not listed then X2Net Limited no longer had rights to issue the keys.

Final installation files are available here.

If you are having difficulty entering keys there are small utilities to force the keys in available here. Simply stop the program in question, run the keyforcer and put the keys in, then start the program again.

http://www.x2net.com/

[cranioscopical]

they seem to have made non-online activation tools available at their website.

Well, don't I feel dumb? Of course, I'm used to that by now.
Whenever I tried any of the X2Net web addresses that I have they 404'd.

Some credits heading your way. Thank you very much indeed for that!

And I owe the X2Net crew an apology…

[rjbull]

There is a lot of data filed away in that thing and it's difficult tedious to retrieve.

I realise that the "free keys" will get you out of trouble for now, but if you decide to change, could you run another clipboard enhancer at the same time, and use a Macro Express macro to send all the clips from SmartBoard to the clipboard one by one in turn?  Then they'd be captured by the new program.  At least, as I don't have file translation expertise, that would be my own approach.

[cranioscopical]

Thanks for the thought rjbull, something like that is always a possibility.
The tedious part is getting output that is of the kind:


Name  Nickname 1    datum 1
                    ...
                    datum n
      ...
      Nickname n


Actually, the best bet probably is to give it to my secretary and ask her to type it all out 

When I posted the initial comment and titled one paragraph "problem" I was unclear. The problem for me was going to be the inability to install the software on another machine, and that one was nicely solved for me by lanux128.

Thanks again for your idea 

[lanux128]

Some credits heading your way. Thank you very much indeed for that!

And I owe the X2Net crew an apology…

thanks for the credits, i was just lucky.. but i feel the pain of committing data to a random software that later disappears/abandoned without any alternative.