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Act! Licensing Software Statement – Act! version 18
This is the official statement regarding the third-party licensing software used in Act! and is addressing current users of Act! v18.
In accordance with the Act! Support Obsolescence Policy, support for your version of Act! – Act! v18 – ends on November 30, 2018. After this date, no further Service Packs, Hotfixes, or compatibility updates will be delivered for Act! v18.x products, and you will no longer be eligible to receive support for any issues encountered with your product.
Important Notice: We have recently been informed that an embedded third-party software component of Act! that facilitates licensing services is being discontinued by the manufacturer at the end of this year. As of January 1, 2019, certain common actions you may take that interact with the current licensing component will cause Act! to fail and you will no longer be able to access your database. Examples of these common actions include but are not limited to attempting to install Act! on new hardware, modifying existing hardware, and modifying your user count.
To ensure uninterrupted access to Act! in 2019, we strongly recommend that you upgrade to the current version of Act! (v21) by December 31, 2018.
Should you elect not to upgrade to Act! v21 we have decided to make available a one-time update for v18.x products that seeks to address this specific issue in January, 2019. We cannot and do not make any representations as to how long this one-time update will provide the functionality of Act! that you expect. Please note that this decision to provide you with the update in this instance shall not be precedent, or require us to provide, neither now or in the future, any fixes for additional issues that may or will arise after the date of obsolescence as specified in the Act! Support Obsolescence Policy.
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Act! Licensing Software Statement – Act! v19 and v20
This is the official statement regarding the third-party licensing software used in Act! and is addressing current users of versions 19 and 20.
We have recently been informed that an embedded third-party software component of Act! that facilitates licensing services is being discontinued by the manufacturer at the end of this year. Because our records show that you are using a supported version of Act!, a new licensing component will be introduced for your version. View the Act! Support Obsolescence Policy.
To ensure uninterrupted access to Act!, you will be required to update your instance of Act! version 19.2 or 20.1 by December 31, 2018. This update will be emailed to you in the coming weeks.
If this update is not installed by December 31, 2018, certain common actions you may take that interact with the current licensing component will cause Act! to fail and you will no longer be able to access your database. Examples of these common actions include but are not limited to attempting to install Act! on new hardware, modifying existing hardware, and modifying your user count.
Please note, this update will be made available to you at no charge.
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Act! Licensing Software Statement – Act! 2005 through Act! v17
This is the official statement regarding the third-party licensing software used in Act! and is addressing current users of versions Act! 2005 to and including v17.
Our records show that you are running an unsupported version of Act!. In accordance with the Act! Support Obsolescence Policy, you are no longer eligible to receive critical updates and enhancements that ensure your product continues to run optimally.
Important Notice: We have recently been informed that an embedded third-party software component of Act! that facilitates licensing services is being discontinued by the manufacturer at the end of this year. As of January 1, 2019, certain common actions you may take that interact with the current licensing component will cause Act! to fail and you will no longer be able to access your database. Examples of these common actions include but are not limited to attempting to install Act! on new hardware, modifying existing hardware, and modifying your user count.
To ensure uninterrupted access to Act! in 2019, you must upgrade to the current version of Act! (v21) by December 31, 2018.
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Microsoft’s October 2018 update for Windows 10 – Be cautious
Last week Microsoft started deploying its October 2018 update (called version 1809) for its Windows 10 operating system. Since then there have been reports of people losing some or all their personal files during the upgrade process. Here is a good summary of the issue from Engadget:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/05/windows-10-october-update-1809-delete-data-wipe-user-profile/
That article describes a tool and a setting normally not used or needed except in large corporations or universities. I don’t recommend messing with it unless you really know what you are doing.
Since the initial publication of the error it appears that Microsoft has stopped further distribution of the update until they can resolve the issue. Here is a summary from Bleeping Computer about the pulling of the update:
I had successfully updated several Patricia Egen Consulting computers before the update was pulled. I will postpone any further updates until Microsoft resolves the issue. In the meantime here are my current conclusions and recommendations:
- If you have already successfully updated to version 1809 I see no good reason to fall back.
- If you have not installed the update, sit tight and let Microsoft resolve the issue and publish their corrected update or other workaround.
- If you are running Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise you can enable a setting to defer the update for some period of time as described in this ZDNet article. https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-spring-creators-update-act-fast-to-delay-this-big-upgrade/ This may save you a surprise when Microsoft chooses to reenable distribution of the update. Unfortunately there is no corresponding setting for Windows 10 Home.
- In any case your best protection is a good backup of all your files that you care about, somewhere off the machine in question. This could be an external hard drive, a space on a file server, or one of any Cloud backup solutions, as long as it is something you use consistently.
Hope this helps.
It’s our 20 Year Anniversary
20 years ago, I went out on a limb, cut the cord with corporate America and started our company. It’s been fun, and at times, pretty much an up hill journey with some years being better than others. But we are still here thanks to a really wonderful staff of people holding us up alive and well.
It’s our customers that have made us successful. And our vendors and products. We have written products people love. We support products people love. One product in particular is Act!. Today, the President and CEO of Swiftpage, the owners of Act! gave us a really nice “shout out” in a tweet. The qualify of the product and the people running the business is why we are still loyal supporters, implementors and users of Act! to this day. In our own world, we use it every single day and can not run our business without it.
Here’s a big thank you to John Oechsle for remembering us and also for helping to keep a really “awesome” product alive and well in the marketplace.
This is a link to John’s Twitter post. https://twitter.com/hjoech/status/1037348387073544194