This is a key point. Obviously, the DxO uninstallers just ignore this. But what does “uninstalling” actually mean ? Many uninstallers are quietly leaving a lot of leftovers behind them. A really clean uninstaller should leave the system as it was before installing the software. It’s rarely the case. Uninstaller should always give the option of keeping user generated data, automatically keep track of current activations and decrease the counter when uninstalling. DxO uninstallers do not. This is why the protection systems based on a connection (Topaz, Adobe, Macrium, etc.) are more comfortable (although it depends on how they behave when no connection is available).
This is why I always install and uninstall software using a specialized monitoring tool that is able to keep track of what is done during installation (and first launch) and that is therefore able to do a “deep uninstall”, making sure that everything related to the uninstalled software has ben cleaned up. I’m using Revo Uninstaller Pro to do that and I’m really happy with it. Even if you install directly, it is able to scan the system for possible leftovers which you’ll be able to remove or keep at the end of the un-installation process. However, with the DxO license management system, even this is not enough.
I agree om how poor DXO uninstalling is
Uninstalling with Revo gets an enormous amount of left behind stuff on disc and registrar. Publishers must know what they install and where so it must be bloody minded to not actually have an uninstaller that doesn’t remove whats installed and with the old database give the option to keep or remove it. Most programs have it to an extent but PL has always been the worst one for this with me
The DxO support has confirmed today that nothing special happens regarding the installation counter when uninstalling any DxO app. So, any hardware id change, any un-installation and re-installation on another system, any Windows reinstall or repair, etc. will irremediably lead to a dead lock once you’ve reached the maximum number of re-installations. This confirms what many of us had already guessed.
It’s surprising that DxO prefer overloading the support team with user requests that should not be necessary instead of definitively fixing the problem as other software vendors did.
On our DxO account page we can see which DxO products that we have a license to use - but I cannot see/find how many actuations have been made for each product …
Is this detail (installation counts) available anywhere ?
A few years ago, the shop account showed the number of registered activations for a short period of time, but this info has been removed.
I checked old license files and saw no information about the number of activations. Maybe it’s encoded and maybe it only exists in the license servers.
Because after I complained about the request being closed without any notification and solution, the support eventually reacted after I sent a new request and told me they had incremented my installation count for PureRAW, I could actually enter again the license key.
I could fix the problem for the other DxO products because they all have a maximum installation count of 3 (2 for PureRAW) and I had only installed each product twice.
Anyway, I guess the problem will re-appear one of these days. The current one appeared after repairing Windows 11 which in turn triggered an (unrequested) attempt to replace version 23H2 with version 24h2 (this regularly fails on my PC). So, the next time the hardware ID is modified, all my DxO products will be locked again and I’ll have to send 5 requests again to the support.
…I’m happy that DxO seems to use some hardware related ID with DPL on Mac. I have up- and downgraded macOS, added and removed volumes (for whatever the reasons were) and non of this asked for an activation. Occasionally, I had to enter the license when I created an additional user account. This got me a popup saying that the license had been re-activated - or whatever the wording was. The message makes me believe that no additional activations have been used.
DxO software on a Mac and DxO Software under Windows are 2 different things. And Windows users are used to the “Mac Only” warning often appearing in the documentation.