PSP4 claims my copy is PIRATED and will be DEACTIVATED!

[Ken Berry]

I am now able to again go back to using the software I purchased and registered.

Hopefully, though, you might be able to post exactly what you did to get it working properly again. That might be helpful to other users who find themselves in a similar situation.

[LarrySH]

Sure Ken,

I actually followed the step by step instructions on the link I provided to remove Protexsis installed by Corel. I will repeat the steps here but strongly suggest reading the link I found, which seems seems very crisp and, for my own problem, worked as promised.



1.Open Services (services.msc) in Control Panel’s Administrators Tools.
2.Locate ProtexisLicensing or Protexis Licensing service. If you are seeing Protexis Licensing V2 service, use the next guide. Stop the service and then set the Startup Type to Disabled.
3.Bowse to %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32 folder.
4.Copy original PSIKey.dll to program folder of application that relies on Protexis, e.g. %SystemDrive%\Program Files\Corel\Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI\.
5.Rename PsiClient.dll to PsiClient.bak, or simply delete it.
6.Rename PSIKey.dll to PsiClient.dll
7.Rename PSIService.exe to PSIService.bak, or simply delete it.

If the Protexis DRM softare installed on your system is of version 2, follow these steps instead:

1.Open Services (services.msc) in Control Panel’s Administrators Tools.
2.Locate Protexis Licensing V2 service. Stop the service and then set the Startup Type to Disabled.
3.Bowse to %SystemDrive%\Program Files\Common Files\Protexis\License Service folder.
4.Copy original PSIKey_2.dll to program folder of application that relies on Protexis, e.g. %SystemDrive%\Program Files\Corel\Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2\.
5.Rename PsiClient.dll to PsiClient.bak, or simply delete it.
6.Rename PSIKey_2.dll to PsiClient.dll
7.Rename PSIService_2.exe to PSIService_2.bak, or simply delete it.

Now, Protexis Licensing Service is tamed and disabled properly so that PSIService no longer run in background, without affecting functionality of installed application.

Now when I launch PSP4 the warnings no longer show up and the program starts up exactly as it used to start before this aggravating mess began.

Let me end this by saying that I have no other knowledge or understanding of any of this, and originally did NOT post the steps since the likely result would be other people asking for my interpretation of why to do this, why not that, and all the rest. It is bad enough that I have spent far too much time trying to fix a problem which Corel apparently has no interest in dealing with, but I find it especially outrageous that they provide a user forum with no representation from their own programming staff. I am absolutely disgusted and outraged that the person or people who do show up here with a corporate connection from Corel are as silent and disinterested here as the rest of the Corel crew in really helping their customers. Far be it for me to start trying to do their "F-ing" jobs....... The signature on the Corel employee Simon in the UK who attends these forums tells the true story....He is not here to answer specific support questions unless he feels like it.

Sorry to be brusque. This entire experience just leaves me totally unhappy as a Corel customer. I would gladly uninstall and entirely forget about this software if I could 1). Uninstall it and 2). Find something else I prefer to use. I have done exactly that for all of the Corel video software I purchased, and I will also do so now for the once excellent Bibble software which Corel has now turned into a useless piece of junk with their worthless RAW converter. I also gave up a long time ago on their drawing program Corel Draw (now using Canvas), and have no interest in Word Perfect since I used it heavily 20 years ago. My plan is to entirely disengage from Corel and never pay them one more dime, and hopefully others will do the same. Maybe the management will eventually get the message. I hope so.

Adios.

Larry

[AireXaris]

I'm going to do anything about it. I've purchased this software. I've registered this software and have been doing so since its inception. They're not getting a MINUTE of my time in their ridiculous Faq runaround *!*!* pages. If the company decides to wipe it off my computer I'm going to go on a web rampage and visit every single digital Art Forum, Blog, social media page and 3d Content creator's forum/pages with my copy of documentation and snippets of this Forum.



I will call the better business bureau and Internet Fraud department.
The company needs to issue a statement explaining The who what when where and why of it. They release their software in Beta they shouldn't have a problem issuing a statement to its customers as to why this Could be happening
If this is a marketing ploy to get people to purchase "Priority Support" for $19.95, it's probably one of the STUPIDEST moves I've ever seen by a software company
I purchased your software, I've registered every copy and upgrade, I'm not spending a second on trying to fix your frigging mess

[AireXaris]

I too have logged into my account and purchase history. I had to go a hunting for my code that would supposedly lead me to the secret decoder code that I could use to get to that support and yaknow what?
~Not doing it.
If they take the software off my computer, I have copies of all my purchased software, both in hard copy, on three of my computers and on my credit cards. Why should I have to prove to them that I purchased this software AFTER I"VE REGISTERED it, from original to the latest version, in order to get them to stop trying to extort money out of me for their "Priority support" via a griefing message

THIS IS WHAT A SUPPORT PAGE SHOULD LOOK LIKE

https://www.smartpcadvisor.com/adobe-su ... 4AodYjEArA

[BrianCee]

just to clarify AireXaris - it is not OUR software or OUR mess - you are not talking to Corel here - this is a User to User forum - moderated by unpaid volunteer users with posts answered by unpaid users around the world.

it is very unusual for any one from Corel to visit here, let alone provide official answers of any kind.

but you are welcome to express your views good or bad of the company, but remember we are all just trying to help each other when Corel doesn't seem to want to.

[hartpaul]

Loved that link to the Adobe page and the Customer testimonials, the Free this , Free that etc. Much more friendly than the Corel site. But then I guess you are paying 3-6 times the price for Photoshop. But at least Elements users pay an equivalent price.
I guess the question could be asked is Corel shooting themselves in the foot or preparing to drop Paintshop Pro to force people over to Corel Draw.
But then the suport does not seem to be different for them either.
Perhaps the money spent in taking over Pinnacle and those other companies would have been better spent in their own backyard tidying it up first.
In my own case I have not had any real problems ... yet?
But it does worry me seeing all these other complaints.

[BrianCee]

I just had a look in at the Corel Draw forums - and guess what - Draw users are having their programmes de-activated as well - BUT -there is a Corel employee on there answering and offering to help Draw users sort out the problem.

If he can do it for CorelDraw maybe he can do it for PSP - anyway it will do no harm for you to go have a read and maybe contact him.

You can find the relevant post here :-

http://coreldraw.com/forums/t/38222.aspx?PageIndex=1

although you may find this post from him a bit annoying :-

I wanted to follow-up to my previous message and provide a few extra details. From the different people who have contacted Corel (including those who contacted me directly), I can confirm that there has been no mistake in the detection about the serial number being illegitimate so far. Everyone who has contacted me so far is what I would all a victim of software piracy and did actually purchase a product in good faith from unauthorized software resellers.

Yes, with versions before X6, it was possible to register the product even if the serial number was not legitimate. This is something that has changed with X6. You can only get a free Standard Membership (this is replacing the traditional registration process) if you have a valid serial number that hasn't been used before, e.g. we do check with X6. If that check fails, you will get the message that we were unable to verify your status.

Software piracy is a persistent issue that affects all of us. At the same time, we understand that some of you might have been the victim of software pirates and have inadvertently purchased an unauthorized copy of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. We have therefore started this amnesty campaign in the Americas (expanding in other countries in the coming months) providing users an opportunity to purchase an authorized version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite through the in-product message.

On behalf of the entire CorelDRAW team, I am very sorry for those who have been victims of software pirates. As posted in the forum earlier and as a general reminder, Corel and our authorized partners do not sell products at 50 to 90% discount, and amazing deals on auction or marketplace sites are rarely legitimate. If you find a price that seems too good to be true compared to the one listed on Corel.com or an authorized Corel reseller, please feel free to contact me directly so that we can take appropriate action.

Combating piracy is an ongoing process. We will continue to work with all of you and with our internal teams & systems to ensure we do everything possible to promote fairness and the legitimate use of Corel software. For more information about how software piracy hurts everyone, you can visit http://www.corel.com/piracy.

...........

[LarrySH]

As the original poster of this thread, I feel it is important to make 2 points here in reply to the defense of Corel stated above:

The first point is that legititimate customers like me bought their software directly from Corel and not some bogus source yet still triggered their false alarm. I have posted by actual bill of sale immediately below from Corel in Ottawa Canada, and only removed my serial numbers and actual name, billing information, and email address for privacy purposes:

Subject:
Order Confirmation
From:
corel-orders@corel.com
Date:
Mon, 3 Oct 2011 09:52:29 -0400 (EDT)

Trouble viewing this email properly? View this email as a web page.
Order Receipt/Invoice
Thank you for your order. This is your official order confirmation and invoice/receipt.

Order Information
Order Number : 8281XXXX
Date of Transaction : Oct 3, 2011 9:52:28 AM
Order amount (including taxes) : USD $35.99
Total Taxes : USD $0.00

Please keep this e-mail safe for your records.

Access this receipt/invoice online
Important Instructions
Read this before you download…
If you are unlocking a trial, there is no need to download the software again. Simply launch your trial and enter the serial number (SN) provided below. You will then have a fully functioning version!
If you do not have a trial version installed, please download the software by clicking the download link below.
Please Note: due to the wide variety of Corel software you might see the terms "Purchase Key" "Unlock Key" and "Serial Number" used in installation instructions for some products. They all mean the same thing and describe the same activation procedure.
Software Purchased by Download

Installation Instructions
Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4
Extras
Corel® KPT® Collection including 24 creative plug-in filters
Download

Download Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4
Serial Number: TS14R22-XXXX...
Download WinZip® 15 Pro
Serial Number: A8VE-XXXX...
Download Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4 - Manuals
Customer Info
Billing information
XXXXX
XXXXX

Shipping & Payment
Payment Method
Paypal

Order Details
Item Delivery Quantity Unit Price
Price
Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4
1
$79.99
$39.99

$79.99
$39.99
Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4
Full, English
Download
WinZip® 15 Pro
Full, English
Download
Corel® PaintShop™ Pro X4 - Manuals
Full, English
Download


Corel Corporation
1600 Carling Avenue
Ottawa ON
Canada K1Z 8R7
Subtotal

$39.99
$35.99
Total

USD $35.99
Total Savings

$44.00


Need Assistance?
If you need additional assistance please visit
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- View your receipt
- Access your product serial number
- Receive your eletronic products
- Check your order status
SAVE 10% ON YOUR NEXT ORDER
Thank-you for your business. As a token of appreciation, we want you to save 10% on your next purchase at the Corel online store. Use Coupon Code OCESAVE10. Offer excludes Wacom tablets. One use per customer.
Here's your chance to share your opinions about Corel and your eStore purchase.To participate please Click here


The purchase was directly from them and not from somebody else.



My second point, and the much more significant point, is that even if I had purchased a copy from a bogus source deliberately or in error, they have to give me some method to resolve this matter. And they have to do so without billing me for a support incident in the process. And they have to make it straightforward and direct, not requiring posting on some user to user forum, or usingsales people to mismanage and mishandle customer issues of this type.

Their mentality and approach is entirely wrong in how they handle this matter.

But their attitude of dismissing every claim as being legitimate piracy is absolutely wrong and their method of handling their claimed and errorneous accusations of piracy is totally lacking any respect or concern for their legitimate and paying and loyal customers.

Larry

[LarrySH]

I just had a look in at the Corel Draw forums - and guess what - Draw users are having their programmes de-activated as well - BUT -there is a Corel employee on there answering and offering to help Draw users sort out the problem.

If he can do it for CorelDraw maybe he can do it for PSP - anyway it will do no harm for you to go have a read and maybe contact him.

You can find the relevant post here :-

http://coreldraw.com/forums/t/38222.aspx?PageIndex=1

although you may find this post from him a bit annoying :-

I wanted to follow-up to my previous message and provide a few extra details. From the different people who have contacted Corel (including those who contacted me directly), I can confirm that there has been no mistake in the detection about the serial number being illegitimate so far. Everyone who has contacted me so far is what I would all a victim of software piracy and did actually purchase a product in good faith from unauthorized software resellers.

Yes, with versions before X6, it was possible to register the product even if the serial number was not legitimate. This is something that has changed with X6. You can only get a free Standard Membership (this is replacing the traditional registration process) if you have a valid serial number that hasn't been used before, e.g. we do check with X6. If that check fails, you will get the message that we were unable to verify your status.

Software piracy is a persistent issue that affects all of us. At the same time, we understand that some of you might have been the victim of software pirates and have inadvertently purchased an unauthorized copy of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. We have therefore started this amnesty campaign in the Americas (expanding in other countries in the coming months) providing users an opportunity to purchase an authorized version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite through the in-product message.

On behalf of the entire CorelDRAW team, I am very sorry for those who have been victims of software pirates. As posted in the forum earlier and as a general reminder, Corel and our authorized partners do not sell products at 50 to 90% discount, and amazing deals on auction or marketplace sites are rarely legitimate. If you find a price that seems too good to be true compared to the one listed on Corel.com or an authorized Corel reseller, please feel free to contact me directly so that we can take appropriate action.

Combating piracy is an ongoing process. We will continue to work with all of you and with our internal teams & systems to ensure we do everything possible to promote fairness and the legitimate use of Corel software. For more information about how software piracy hurts everyone, you can visit http://www.corel.com/piracy.

...........

Brian,

I am totally infuriated by the Corel attitude that this issue is somehow the customer's fault. It reflects their continuing hubris, lack of understanding, and unwillingness to be reasonable. This was already reflected in their support philosophy, leaving many stranded users with non working software for a lot of reasons, not just supposed acts of theft and piracy.

I went to the link you provided and entered a direct reply to Gerard, the Corel employee who states he has never seen a case of false alarm. Well, now he has seen one.........

These folks have been drinking their own bathwater / KoolAid for so long, they don't know fact from fiction.

Thanks for posting this link from another forum confirming my ugly experience with this friggin company.

Larry

[Simone Corel UK]

Hi to all who are affected from the PSP message

We have escalated it and we were informed that the message has been disabled currently. They are looking into this issue why customers who bought a download version are receiving this.

Please note that the Draw message has nothing to do with that what happened with PSP. These are two different message.
I can confirm that the Draw message is working correctly and there is no original purchased Draw version receiving this message.

Thanks
Simone

[LarrySH]

This specific problem is the small tip of a huge iceberg. The important message is that Corel support is entirely inadequate, particularly for reveanded software so often failing to work after patches, updates, and other problems including false piracy alarms.

The support must be strengthen.

[Rick Champagne]

Hi Larry & AireXaris,

My name is Rick Champagne and I am the Senior Product Manager for Corel PaintShop Pro.

I want to start by offering my sincerest apologies for the trouble you have experienced with the piracy protection program - I know it must be frustrating to say the least. This program was actually put in place to protect honest customers like yourselves and I can't tell you enough how upsetting it is to me and to the entire team that you were negatively impacted.

The latest information I have is that up to 20 people have received a notice who should not have. Again, my sincerest apologies for this. The error is unique to a small batch of legitimate PaintShop Pro serial numbers - which has in no way affected other Corel products. I can assure you that the team is working hard to completely resolve the issue. The good news in all of this is that the problem was caught very fast and only a small number of people were affected as I mentioned. I know that doesn't help with your current situation, which is why I wanted to offer you this direct connection to Corel to work with you to resolve your particular case.

If you want to get in touch with me, please send me an email with the subject header "PIRACY PROTECTION PROGRAM" and I will get back to you with my full contact information including my direct phone number. I'm at firstname.lastname at company domain.

Kindest Regards,

Rick Champagne
Sr. Product Manager, Corel PaintShop Pro

[LarrySH]

Rick,

Thank you for posting a reply.

Since your job title at Corel and your LinkedIn profile describe your career and background as an MBA graduate with marketing and sales responsibilities, I will reply first from the perspective of another graduate MBA.

Marketing and sales folks need to look at their product from the customer's viewpoint. When a customer buys a drill, it is not because they really want a drill. What they really want is the benefit of a drill, namely "holes". The drill itself is secondary. The benefit of the purchase is the key element, the ability to make holes.

Same thing with paint shop pro. The antipiracy software which it contains does not offer me even the slightest form of "protection" as you describe it. It offers complexity, an impediment to getting my job done, in this case, an utter train wreck. I am buying the benefit of having a new method to edit my photographs, but instead have a non-functioning program which cannot be removed or reinstalled due to yet other issues in the software.

To consider that somehow adding this Protexis software provides me any benefit whatsoever is the absolute wrong conclusion. It is there to protect Corel and its revenue stream, plain and simple. Claiming otherwise, in my opinion, disrespects the customer.

Similarly, offering rebranded products from Ulead, Jasc, Avid, Roxio, and the other companies which Corel has acquired to create virtually Corel's entire base of products is not the wrong thing to do, but somehow expecting that the "agile world class software developers" of Corel, as you describe them at LinkedIn, can take the intellectual capital and code base of these diverse companies and somehow preserve and enhance their work with upgrades and improvements is yet another fictional story. I am here to tell you as a graduate computer and electrical engineer and someone who managed 150+ software engineers and millions of lines of software development over several decades that your software QA just absolutely stinks. And I especially recognize and appreciate the difficulty of taking other people's work, especially teams of other people's works, rfrom other companies, and then trying to modify and update them. It is a true nightmare from a software engineering point of view.

This also would not be a horrendous problem if you provided some sort of support for your products, particularly after the world class programmers have had a chance to inject their outrageous problems into these products. But regrettably, here is where Corel is at its absolute worst, since there is literally no service option for people stuck with suddenly malfunctioning software, which regrettably shows up often after updates and sometimes even shows up (as in this case) for no apparent reason whatsoever.

I would be delighted to hear how Corel will take steps to improve their support paradigm. This would be true evidence of an interest in making things better.

Thank you,

Larry

[Rick Champagne]

Hi Larry,

Thank you for the great feedback - it's much appreciated. I couldn't agree with you more that the piracy protection program caused a serious user experience problem in this case. You purchased from a legitimate source so you should have never received the piracy message, plain and simple. This was a glitch in our system and we are taking it very seriously. As a result, new processes are being put in place to ensure this sort of thing never happens again. While I'm grateful the issue was contained as fast as it was, I can't apologize enough to you and to the other people it affected.

The way Piracy Protection works is that it alerts people who unintentionally purchased pirated software from an unauthorized dealer, and we help them get legitimate serial numbers. This is the right thing to do and the feedback from the people we've helped has been very positive. Is there also a business angle? Yes. Software piracy is a problem that affects everyone and the business goal here is to ask pirates to get legitimate software licenses which in turn helps us invest more into PaintShop Pro. These are the same business economics that drive any company that is passionate about what they do. We all want to be able to serve our customers as best we can and more resources certainly enhances that. This is very much aligned with the interests of our loyal customers.

Each of the members of the PaintShop Pro team shares a common passion for the work our customers do with the product. In fact, many of us are avid photographers or artists ourselves. For "fun days" the team typically has photo excursions to go out and shoot together. There's probably as much camera gear on the team as there is on the show floor of WPPI right now! Ok, that might be slight exaggeration, but there are some serious gearheads on the team. We are very much invested at a personal level and everyone puts all they have into the product because we love it too. As for me, it's true that I have a graduate degree in business, but it's also true that I graduated from a graphic arts program in college. I'm married to an art and photography teacher and I also taught photo editing at the post-secondary level. Many of my close friends are artists, designers, and photographers, so I have more than a passing interest. My software management experience has been with graphics software for over 15 years and the most rewarding part of my job has always been working with customers and ultimately delivering great products that are meaningful to them.

Anyhow, I have to thank you again for all of your great feedback and I will promise to deliver internally. Again, the invite to get in touch with me directly is open and I would love to ensure that this issue is resolved for you...

Kindest Regards,

Rick Champagne
Sr. Product Manager, Corel PaintShop Pro
http://www.500px.com/rickchampagne
http://www.twitter.com/Rick_Champagne

[LarrySH]

Rick,

Maybe my prior messages have not made this clear, but I have given up on Corel. Your last message never even remotely addresses any problems with customer support and service, the absolute crux of this and other user problems. I have switched to another product.

I personally will refuse to join you in a cheerleader's outfit since I personally have no remaining passion whatsoever for a company and products which betray my loyalty over and over again. And a company which so clearly and totally just does not adopt a customer focused opinion.

And please, stop trying to convince me that the customer enjoys some benefit from the Protexis antipiracy software. It has wasted a huge amount of my time, produced absolutely nothing of value for me, and is obviously there for the purpose of allowing Corel to deactivate users who, it believes, have no right to use it.

If there is any good to have come from all of this, it will be that others may be spared the same outrageous amount of inconvenience, wasted time, and loads of bullsh!t I have experienced here in trying to get my purchased software to work.

And the remote and most unlikely possibility that Corel might actually do something to improve their customer focus and most importantly their customer support.

For the time being, I will assume that future comments and complaints about how things are currently being done will be met the same way as my comments have been addressed above.........with no replies to the real issues, cheers of gushing enthusiasm as to how great the Corel team is, repeated reminders of how valuable the antipiracy software control is to the user, and a clear example of denial and lack of ownership which says to the customer that customer support is not likely to get any better.

And of course, Kindest Regards,
Larry