Purchased but undelivered X8 product - help

[Ken Berry]

Surely a friend -- or even your school system -- could allow her to use their computer to download the installation files to avoid all the hassle you outline...? The files could then be put on a USB drive or burned direct to disc and installed that way on her computer...

[Davidk]

Hi Ken,
I certainly hope so. I have suggested it, at least as far as friends/family goes. School is more of the party-line environment that one finds in libraries (how we actually connected and sorted the account bit, yesterday, and that's always slow because so many people use it) and city malls. Also, to check the performance numbers on the small phone/wifi converter she has before trying it out on this. Whether she can find a good enough connection - after Corel supplies a download link - remains to be seen.

Nothing further by email from Corel or Inga this morning.

Davidk

[lata]

- after Corel supplies a download link - remains to be seen.

Nothing further by email from Corel or Inga this morning. Davidk

Hi David

As you have access to her Corel account then the purchase details for X8 will show a download link, especially if download insurance has been paid for.

So why are you waiting for Corel to provide another.
If you wish send me Inga’s login details via private e-mail and I will have a look at her account.

[Davidk]

Ken,

If it comes to it, I will do it for her myself. But the hours long downloads are a continuing reality and as an ex-pat you should be only too familiar with that. Many times during downloads of X7 last year and X8 this year I have felt strongly inclined (stamping and screaming in frustration would be a better description) to just give it up. As in everything, timing and convenience of getting it is everything: Microsoft became world beaters with DOS/Windows because they made getting and using it easy (old memories there).

Trevor,

I made appoint of not observing Inga's password so I don't have access to her account. I will talk to her on the phone about that.

I've also had a response from Austin (responding to Yvonne's referral) and I've replied to it, bcc to you. He makes remarks that indicate he has not read significant parts of the thread. Like, the access link is in her key email, apparently did not note that this whole thing started because those emails did not arrive, a condition that was in the first post.

Simplified, he says there is no CD for Ultimate, implying there should be one for Pro - wrong. I checked the website this morning to verify that. He also said the files were too big to put on a CD - but that's been the case for years. I have X5 ultimate on 2 backup option CD's, and I bought them because of the slow link speed I've been talking about. Both X6 and X7 offered backup CD options. More, after I downloaded the files for X8 ultimate (5+ hours each for 32bit and 64bit versions, basically a day for each one when the computer was just un-usable for anything else, but needing regular almost constant observation in case the link broke down, and if one of my other computers also used the internet <same physical connection>, the download just took longer) the files for each version all fitted/burned on one 4.7gb DVD disk, with 600Mb to spare.

At the moment, for reasons of difficulty in getting it rather than the intrinsic characteristics of the software, X8 is looking like a disaster I don't want my other students to experience.

really really frustrated,

Davidk

[canuck]

Of course the downloaded files are too big to put on a CD but there is no problem burning them to a DVD.

[Davidk]

Hi Canuck,

That was part of my point. Another part is that even the X5 ultimate files took more space than a standard CD (well over 1.2Gb on disk 1, which was the Pro version, and then there was disk 2 - the ultimate bonus files). Inga (this thread) got her X6 via backup CD, and another of my students (mentioned briefly in the thread) got X7 Pro via backup CD last November) and both of those must have been DVD's because of the file sizes (X6 Pro - 1.5Gb self-extracting compressed file, and X7 32bit Pro 2Gb self-extracting compressed file). Thus, Corel has done it before, using one or more DVD's, many times.

So why Corel chose to go green and inflict this "no CD option" on their user base beggars the imagination. I know of no sales person who would be willing to sacrifice their present sales for a possible fuzzy world future advantage. Correction, there's at least one company full of them . . .

Davidk

[lata]

I think the problem, Trevor, is that the student never received the serial number...:

The normal purchase emails with invoices and license keys are similarly apparently not received, gone missing en-route. What she has just received is an email from Corel on 26 Mar saying she has 5 more days of software warranty still to go.

Yes I am aware that the e-mail from Corel have gone missing.

Our Corel accounts contain details of purchases, for recent purchases will include download links and serial numbers.
The recent reply from Corel Support (Austin) confirms this.
For Inga downloads periods will have been extended with the purchase of the insurance option.

If Inga or David cannot find those details then I offered to take a look, I am sure you would do the same.

To do that we need the log-in details.

I am quite willing to download and save to disc, post to AU, if that's what it takes.

[Davidk]

I've spoken to Inga. It became pretty clear that her internet access situation was unlikely to improve soon, so with her permission I accessed her account, got all the missing receipts, and via the order details the download links. And downloaded the X8 files for her. They are now burnt to a DVD and will be in the mail to her post office box tomorrow.

However . . . some observations.
1. The order details that led to the key data and download links are at the bottom of the "my account" page after login. Actually, off the screen as that page displays normally. Only the advice that the details were there somewhere kept me looking, and I eventually found that order history link, which opened new browser pages with the data required. Pretty misleading - it would be very easy for someone who did not know the link was there to not page or scroll down on the screen and miss the information.
2. Downloading the files using the links in that page - turned out to be from the cleverbridge server in Germany. Interesting, for several reasons: that it was the payment partner's site in Europe rather rather than Corel in the USA, AND the time zone. Since I started the download at my time just after 10am on Easter Friday morning - when most aussies are getting out of town for the 4-day easter weekend rather than working on a keyboard - the local connections were less congested than normal. Access to the server located in Germany (a little browser plug-in and the 'save file from' message box both told me that) would have been about 1am on Good Friday their time, so the download got the benefit of uncongested assets at both ends. I estimate that reduced the overall download time by about 20-25%, but it still took hours.

Davidk

[Davidk]

Inga has reported that the DVD I burnt for her with the downloaded files has been received, installed and it all seems to be working Ok so far.

I do have a follow up issue about the Corel policy about Back up CD's - according to the response by Austin from customer service when Yvonne referred this case to them, electronic download applies to the ultimate version because the files are too big (don't I know it!! after this little exercise). And the implication of that is that a Backup CD is available for the standard Pro version, which has a total file size of a bit more than half the Ultimate version.

But when purchasing Video studio on-line - and all the Corel sites in this frame seem to point to the main US site - the pro version is the object shown, and a choice of full version (which I would normally have taken to mean a new purchase of Pro or one upgrading to Pro outside the scope of allowed upgrade ie whose current version of VS is older than 2 versions prior to X8) or upgrade is available. But in either case (next page screen), the only access method offered is electronic download, and the full version choice got Inga the ultimate version (which her receipted details when I finally found them made very clear). So, it seems that the standard pro version - regardless of the box/guide label picture displayed in the same page - is just not available and effectively Corel is only offering the ultimate version in their on-line shop.

Given my class of returning and new students in the next school term (next week), clarifying this would be really helpful and I will be taking this up with Yvonne.

Davidk

[Davidk]

Update . . .

As I indicated, I emailed Yvonne requesting some policy advice on CD/DVD backups. It did not bounce, and a reply would not have been hard - a yes, a no or a no and a date - to 3 queries would have been informational. But so far (nearly 3 weeks), it's been a big black hole. It seems pretty clear that Corel has become more attuned to the sensibilities of environmentalists ("we've gone green" was their proud posting describing the electronic downloads facility and the removal of the CD backup for X8) in the USA than the realities of a wider world market.

I've been pretty pointed about the abysmally slow internet speeds available 18km from the centre of the 3rd largest city in Australia (Brisbane) in this thread and in other threads where download speed was a critical factor (and I have been surprised how many users in other parts of the world supported my comments with their own slow experiences). So try this article about even slower speeds from any carrier only 9Km from the centre of the 2nd largest city in Australia (Melbourne):
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-04/h ... -2/6437314
This article is by a well known journalist with the national broadcaster, and he's publishing for the world to see.

There isn't much I can advise students on about this now - except to say electronic download will literally take hours depending on their internet speed, and may require several attempts to get it all if the browsers break (by timeout, as they often can) in the doing thereof. Expect frustrations.

Davidk

[Terfyn]

As mentioned before, I live in an "internet hell", five miles of copper wire from the exchange. It took four hours to get the three files downloaded and, fortunately, there were no errors. (a problem I had on previous downloads) I took Brian's advice and copied the files directly to a DVD so now I have a backup. Your students could do the same.
I cannot see that Corel can be held responsible for internet speeds in Melbourne.

[Davidk]

No, I agree that Corel is not responsible for the internet in Melbourne. But my point is that slow internet is the norm is the real world, so removing the way to avoid download issues on slow links by deleting their previous policy of a backup CD or DVD is just illogical, and commercially damaging.

Davidk