Note: Please don't recommend I uninstall / reinstall
Right now I have NIS 2011 installed with 4 days remaining. I purchased a new 2013 product because it is cheaper than renewing. When I try to enter my product key in my existing software, the activation process fails:
"We were unable to proceed with the current task"
Error code: 8505,100
Naturally the One-Click support is of no help and it redirects me to a page that suggests I unintsall and reinstall my product. I should note that on another machine where I installed NIS 2013 the key was accepted which leaves me with 2 remaining.
Right now I don't want to uninstall 2011 from the machine in question because I haven't got the time to record the custom program control rules. Since NIS doesn't preserve these, I want to renew the 2011 product with the 2013 key like you could in the past (use a new key on older product) until I have time to sit down and rebuild all my custom rules.
I've been using NIS since 2000 and I think of all the software I use it has the most infuriating update / renewal process.