Please change the way product activation works

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Here is my sob story.  I installed Norton Internet Security 2008 on a virtual machine.  There were constant issues and so I had to delete the VM a few times and each time I did I re-installed NIS.  Eventually I upgraded to NIS 2009 to try to fix the problem.  Another few activations later.  Eventually I realised that it was the version of Virtualbox that I was using that was causing the issues.  I currently run NIS 2009 on my laptop and 1 other VM.  When I tried to install it on a second laptop (the third PC that I am entitled to use it on) I got an error saying that it had been installed on the number of machines that it was allowed to and that I could not install it.  If I thought this was an error I had to fax a letter somewhere or something like that??

 

My point is that for the past month or so only 2 machines have been connecting to the servers to get virus definitions and so you can easily see that I am running it on only 2 machines.  

 

My changes to product activation would be:

 

 

  • There should be a timeout after which a PC is no longer considered active i.e. you can assume NIS 2009 is no longer running on the machine after it has not updated or connected to your servers for an amount of time.  2 months would be reasonable.  After this time you should decrement the count of machines that you think are running the product.
  • I would also like to be able to log in to my Norton account and have a list of the machines that are using a product key.  Then I want to be able to remove a machine from there.  That should revoke access and stop NIS from running on the machine like it does when there is a subscription problem.  After doing that I should be able to install it onto a new PC.
 
Give me some control over things.  I have paid for your product and want to use it easily and without being hassled by product activation. 
 

 

I love NIS and have recommended it to 8 people who now run it but the product activation sucks.  I also have Mcafee Total Internet Protection that I have taken to running on my VMs because it is more flexible with licensing.  So as long as I make sure it runs on only x machines (the limit I am entitled to) it has no problems.  I love that.  Your activation is too strict.