There is something wrong in DXO policy: once you upgrade from PL7 to 8 (example), you can’t use non utilised licence of PL7. It’s supposed to be “lifetime licences”…
This is normal. Each license is good for one commercial release. And you can still use your PL7 licenses to run PL7 and the Licenses for PL8 for PL8, even though you upgraded and didn’t buy new.
Licenses will be good as long as your products are supported on your OS and you haven’t exceeded the number of activations.
Many manufacturers have adopted this way. Sadly, DxO has not made this good move yet. I hope they will, but meanwhile, I have to make my own choices - oh, sorry, we all have to choose on our own with most everything we do. And if we cannot change things, we have to live with them and vote with our wallets.
What is the difference? Upgrading is buying with discount.
George
With other products, the upgraded license is deactivated and therefore, the old product cannot be used any more. Buying with discount is what we’ll be able to around Black Friday. Anyways, let’s not split hairs.
This is DxO:
Can you see “Enjoy a lifetime license with no limits…”?
- Lifetime? Life Of What? Brian?
- No limits? Number of activations?
All of this is just sales talk which is used to lure people into spending money. And while we can enjoy the products, “lifetime” and “no limits” etc. lose their shine…
The clue is in the word “upgrade” I guess. You’re purchasing a better version with more possibilities, more cameras supported to replace your old software. It doesn’t seem unlogical to me.
One problem is why some people who post here regularly keep old versions is DXO isnt very good at programming changes that alows exciting editing to be protested. If you want existing edits to be protecred the only way is us to use the version of progrsm originally used.
indeed, keeping an older version can save your bacon, specially if you need to issue e.g. a copy quickly. Of course, we could use a newer version, but then, sidecar files will (almost) completely block the way back.
(I put “almost” in brackets because there is a way to make older versions of PL understand (parts of) new .dop files. I’ve posted the method and you should be able to find the respective post(s)
1 Like
Now I’ve run into the max activations issues. Without performing any new activations, or changing any hardware. Only reason could be standard Windows 11 updates and driver updates. I can only hope for quick assistance from the support.
I’ve had one previous occasion of PL8 saying that it couldn’t check / verify the active license, on the installed version that had worked just fine for me in the past. And that was while running with a stable wired internet connection, no proxies, no VPNs. Fortunately that issue self-healed in a few days for unknown reasons. But now it’s this random “max activations reached” situation.
Pretty odd for behavior for that “lifetime license with no limits”. I don’t like Adobe’s business model, but I’m getting more and more tempted to move back to Adobe products + Topaz for denoise & sharpening.
And regarding changing hardware, even though I didn’t even do that in my case: it’s reasonable to assume that any person that uses photo- or video editing software on a workstation in 2025 for semi-professional or professional work may perform at least somewhat frequent hardware updates. Replacing hardrives, swapping out old HDDs to SSDs, replacing some SSDs with M2 drives is a common event for the type of user that doesn’t run with a plain MacBook. Updating to new GPUs when new generations drop is also a reasonable expectation given the increase in software that are capable of performing more AI-related workloads locally. In which case there might be considerable performance benefits from using recent hardware. Not to mention that self-management of software licenses of products that attempt to tie licenses to specific hardware is very common. Usually self service is offered, or the heuristics for identifying hardware is less strict and/or more transparent.
Agreed
I do hope that DxO will join soon, but am afraid they will come up with focused core-improvements instead a balance of improving tech AND usability (in all fields from UI/UX to reliability, license management etc.) in a real world that includes occasional hardware changes.
I have heard that DxO licenses have been cracked/stolen/hijacked (or whatever) but that does not automatically make every user a crook. Somehow, I’d not be astonished if DxO introduced hardware dongles 
And in relation to the original post’s topic: DxO has given me the support I needed, but I had no commercial issues so far. That’s the topic that seems to be complicated to handle and swallow.
With a very compact usb c only laptop the old dongles would not be good. Back in thr day many progrsms used then they were still cracked so they were abandoned by most firms.
And I’m happy with that. I simply wish that DxO adapted an easy to manage license management…soon.
You would have thought what they do at pressent is now both financially in terms of support and lost sales a disaster
But many of us say the same over phone suport but they just ignore such things.
In the niche that I work in (computer forensics) dongles are still not just common but prevalent. We even have a dongle server to centralise them lol.
FWIW, the last time I updated my hardware I ran into the max activations problem and - after an email to dxo - it was solved at their end.
Hope it worked out OK in the end for the OP!
1 Like
Investing sounds like a way of ensuring the process more than software protection where they used to be used
I had a program year’s ago that used a dingle and even then there were sites where you could buy a pirated usb. There were coded adverts in the many computer magazines as well.
When there is money to be made they will find a way to do it I fear and with people willing to get a program on the cheap they will get buyers especially if the software firm becomes difficult over keeping the use of its programs
For what it is worth, I had a pleasant, speedy, and successful interaction with DxO support over their inability to recognize my license.
I don’t mind efforts to secure digital products. The world has changed from pranksters on the early web to the current internet filled with scam artists and organized criminals.