WE each see the world through a set of filters -- 1 experience, 1 learned, & 1 fashioned from the will to do better than the 1st two allow. How strong that last lens is varies, sometimes considerably from one person to the next. Those people with technical backgrounds sometimes seem to skip that 3rd filter altogether, are often terrible at empathizing, communicating with those not sharing their tech expertise -- that's why we feel a good bedside manner is so important for doctors, why well run companies & businesses add a buffer between their techs & the outside world, why IT people have such a hard time moving up & out of IT. IMHO this warning about Sony Creative software is a great example of why those sorts of buffers need to be in place -- not cut down or out in cost saving measures.
What the people writing the code for Sony Vegas apparently did, was IMO try to flip off anyone thinking of using Vegas (beyond the trial) without paying for it. Like so much other software, activation is keyed to your hardware, but in Sony's case rather than simply show the activation dialog when hardware changes are detected -- like every other app (including Windows) that I've come across -- their Vegas video editor & DVDA, DVD authoring app simply refuse to run... they appear completely inactive. As such there's no way to re-activate either. Not only does that penalize their customers, but it does nothing that I can see to stop unlicensed use -- if you're trying to hack or crack a program it's equally obvious when you're unsuccessful, whether the app shows a registration dialog or just refuses to start. Personally I consider it childish & even a bit silly, as nothing seems to have been done to make either app more difficult to crack in the 1st place, kinda like a young kid trying to act out & only winding up hurting themselves.
At any rate, Beware if you own a current version of Sony software -- if you don't own but are thinking of buying a version of Vegas, please take this into consideration. What turned my licensed copies off was switching my drives to AHCI from IDE as recommended after adding an SSD -- it triggered re-activation in all my Sony software. Interestingly, changing the motherboard & CPU from AMD to Intel seemed to have no effect -- like Windows it could of course be an accumulative sort of thing, but I've seen nothing indicating that's the case. As SSDs are becoming so much cheaper, & adding them becomes so much more common this year, it'll soon become apparent whether switching to AHCI alone triggers re-activation of not.
If you do encounter this problem with Sony software appearing dead, yesterday I found a 4 step procedure was necessary -- 1) search in Regedit to find the Vegas & DVDA kernel keys (1 each) in HKCU, bookmarking or otherwise noting the CLSID name of the key [sometimes the "kernel" text was deleted in step 2, making these Very difficult to find afterwards]. 2) uninstall Vegas & DVDA normally. 3) delete those kernel keys you noted in step 1. 4) reinstall Vegas & DVDA, going through the normal activation procedure.
Please note that there are other ways to get the registration notice to show up, & there are ways to skip the on-line authorization routine, but in my experience yesterday these all resulted in a Sony EULA popping up every time Vegas was started, along with a Register item appearing under the Help menu -- I did not do anything but start the app in those cases, so I've no idea if it was otherwise functional. I'm only mentioning this in case someone thinks of cutting out one of the above steps, or, in case your regular installation is screwed up & you get the EULA, which I have read can happen.
