Activating A License After Site is Defunct

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hlewton
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Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by hlewton »

I have a program, Living Cookbook 2015, that I purchased 3 licenses for. I was supposed to be able to transfer a license to any new or future machine I purchased. This program came from a company called Radium Technologies which, without any warning, went out of business. Since their site no longer exists it cannot be reached to activate 1 of my licenses on my new computer. I can install the program because I have it saved on a hard drive but cannot activate it, so it does not work. Is there a way, since I do still have the license key, to bypass their site and activate this program? I do have it installed on another computer but cannot find anywhere I can recognize as a place to insert the license key or cause the program to become active.

Thanks
Regards,
hlewton

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HansV
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Re: Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by HansV »

Activating a license usually involves internet contact with the company that issued the license, so I fear that you're out of luck.
Best wishes,
Hans

JoeP
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Re: Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by JoeP »

See if unlock key LC 2015 helps.

Also, see
Living Cookbook Rescue
for a program which claims to be able to export the LC database to different formats. It is NOT free.
Joe

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hlewton
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Re: Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by hlewton »

HansV wrote:
15 Jul 2020, 14:08
Activating a license usually involves internet contact with the company that issued the license, so I fear that you're out of luck.
I was afraid of that.
Regards,
hlewton

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hlewton
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Re: Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by hlewton »

JoeP wrote:
15 Jul 2020, 14:23
See if unlock key LC 2015 helps.

Also, see
Living Cookbook Rescue
for a program which claims to be able to export the LC database to different formats. It is NOT free.
Thanks Joe but I have been able to, with the help of the support people at MasterCook, export all my recipes and then import them to that program so my recipes are safe, at least for now. Mastercook is different though in that it can be active at a local level of my computer so I should always be able to use it. Also, as long as I am not allowing anyone else to use my license for Mastercook I can install it on as many machines as I use. I like that about Mastercook. However, I have been keeping both programs going because of advantages I have found in each of them. I was hoping to somehow activate the program itself on my new computer since I did pay for the licenses. As Hans says, I guess I am out of luck.
Regards,
hlewton

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hlewton
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Re: Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by hlewton »

Just a thought, and from what I read on the NET, I think many of us would be willing to pay for a program that cracks Living Cookbook registration on the Internet and allows those with valid keys to activate it on their own machines. Again, I do not need to retrieve the recipes. I have them safely imported into another program but would like to activate the program itself. I searched the program in its folder in Program Files (x86) but saw nothing I could recognize as a file that could be altered to activate the program.

I am going to post this as a suggestion on the net where many are registering their complaints. Hopefully there is someone with great computer skills that can crack this case.

Does anyone know how I could make this suggestion to Microsoft so it possibly could become available at its store? I will search to see if I can find a way but if anyone knows I'd appreciate the help.
Regards,
hlewton

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Jay Freedman
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Re: Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by Jay Freedman »

hlewton wrote:
15 Jul 2020, 16:19
Just a thought, and from what I read on the NET, I think many of us would be willing to pay for a program that cracks Living Cookbook registration on the Internet and allows those with valid keys to activate it on their own machines...

Does anyone know how I could make this suggestion to Microsoft so it possibly could become available at its store? I will search to see if I can find a way but if anyone knows I'd appreciate the help.
There is absolutely no chance that Microsoft would put anything on its store that offers to "crack" the registration of any company's product. It doesn't matter whether you have a valid key, because Microsoft couldn't tell where you got it. MS is (rightfully) dead-set against anything that might smell even faintly of piracy.

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hlewton
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Re: Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by hlewton »

Jay Freedman wrote:
15 Jul 2020, 19:36
hlewton wrote:
15 Jul 2020, 16:19
Just a thought, and from what I read on the NET, I think many of us would be willing to pay for a program that cracks Living Cookbook registration on the Internet and allows those with valid keys to activate it on their own machines...

Does anyone know how I could make this suggestion to Microsoft so it possibly could become available at its store? I will search to see if I can find a way but if anyone knows I'd appreciate the help.
There is absolutely no chance that Microsoft would put anything on its store that offers to "crack" the registration of any company's product. It doesn't matter whether you have a valid key, because Microsoft couldn't tell where you got it. MS is (rightfully) dead-set against anything that might smell even faintly of piracy.
Thanks I never thought of that since it is offering a way to retrieve the recipes by following the link in a couple posts above I thought it may be worth the chance to ask them.

Maybe someone else can come up with it.
Regards,
hlewton

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BobH
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Re: Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by BobH »

Have you exhausted all avenues for contacting the defunct company? Of course, you probably have; but there might be some information somewhere in the interwebs that might lead to a point of contact who can tell you who currently owns the rights to the original software. If that person(s) could be contacted, perhaps some arrangement might be made to have the key validation service performed by a third party, as you proposed, maybe MS.
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hlewton
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Re: Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by hlewton »

BobH wrote:
15 Jul 2020, 23:47
Have you exhausted all avenues for contacting the defunct company? Of course, you probably have; but there might be some information somewhere in the interwebs that might lead to a point of contact who can tell you who currently owns the rights to the original software. If that person(s) could be contacted, perhaps some arrangement might be made to have the key validation service performed by a third party, as you proposed, maybe MS.
I have searched for months because another of my computers needed a reinstall. I have been directed to some foreign WEB page that, to me, it looks like hieroglyphics, but it has nothing to do with Radium Technologies or Living Cookbook. I have searched for two names of those who used to reply to questions when people needed support. Again, no luck.

I do still have working copies of this on 2 machines but I cannot figure out what part of it on my machine makes it active. Maybe it is in the Program (x86) folders or maybe in the Registry but I just have been unable to figure it out.
Regards,
hlewton

deble
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Re: Activating A License After Site is Defunct

Post by deble »

I had Living Cookbook. Sigh. There is a link available to 'recover' your files from LCB and import them into MasterCook. It works pretty well I must admit. However, be prepared as Living Cookbook was actually better than MasterCook in terms of user friendliness and features. While I use MasterCook now, I still pine for LCB.

I think LCB was almost a one-man-show. I once communicated with the developer wanting more features like a full featured Word Processor. He had no interest in doing so. I've written software. I've supported software. I've managed departments of people doing so. Support is an endless, thankless job that cashflow may not properly relieve the pain of. My experience is that, "Software is done, but never finished." MasterCook is better than the remaining competition. Recover your files and get used to the new Norm.
Last edited by deble on 22 Oct 2021, 13:13, edited 1 time in total.