When should I deactivate a serial number ?

Activations are linked to one computer, one hard drive and one system. You can not boot from a clone, nor erase your hard drive without deactivating first and reactivating once it is done. Failing to do so may incur in a loss of your license, so pay extra attention to the deactivation process, and if you do not want to have to worry about this, you can always opt for the dongle license.

You must deactivate your license BEFORE doing any of the following

Your application won't be activated anymore and it will run in DEMO mode if:

• you move your disk from one computer to another
• you have made a clone of your hard drive and you want to start from the cloned hard drive
• you reformat your drive and reinstall it
• you upgrade your system OS (for example from 10.11.x to 10.12.x)
• you delete or modify any of the preferences for Softron applications.
• you have to send your computer out for repair. As the technician may have to replace and reformat your hard drive to repair your computer, make sure to deactivate your serial before sending your Mac to your repair service.

You do NOT need to deactivate when doing any of the following

• When updating your Softron application. Simply download the latest software, unzip it and start it instead of the old software, nothing else to do. Just make sure that your license is for the current version (our paid upgrades are only between major versions, for example between MovieRecorder 3 and MovieRecorder 4)
• When updating your macOS, you should not have to deactivate. At least for minor macOS upgrades. For major upgrades, it might be a good idea to deactivate first. As we do not have control of what exact Apple will do in the future when upgrading macOS, you'll always be safer to deactivate prior to a macOS update.

If you forgot to deactivate before doing some of the above, can we deactivate it for you?

Unfortunately not. The deactivation code can only be generated from your computer when the application is still activated. You will not be able to generate a deactivation code with an application that is in DEMO mode and we can NOT deactivate it for you afterwards. 

If you do not deactivate it before doing any of these, the activation will be lost and there is not way for us to deactivate your serial number for you. If this has happened to you, contact our support desk to see what exceptional measures can be taken, but if you still have the original hard drive, try to recover the application with the activation still valid.

Do not forget that when manually deactivating your application, as soon as you click on “Confirm Deactivation” your application will work in demo mode. But for the deactivation to be effective, you MUST communicate us the Deactivation Challenge on the deactivation web page, so that we have proof that your application has been deactivated. It will NOT be possible to activate your license on another computer (or the same computer) unless you communicate us the activation and deactivation codes on this deactivation web page. If you forgot to write down the deactivation codes, you can still find them.

You don't want to have to remember to deactivate before doing any of the above, what can I do?

If you are moving a lot your serial number or are scared that you might forget to deactivate, you can purchase a dongle. We can put your current serial number on a dongle which don't need to be activated or deactivated.