Total activation/registration mess

[rj]

Hi,

while I can understand a software companys needs to protect it's software, I certainly cannot understand why the company has to do SUCH A TERRIBLE MESS of it for the customer.

Downloaded Revit 2014, tested, after 30 days test license ran out. For a complete newbie/hobby/future own-house tinkerer way too short, but ok.

I bought the Revit LT Suite 2014.

After the buy (some 24h later) came some emails containing "Product-SKU" numbers for the suite and the subscription. These come in a  123A5-ABC45-1234 alphanumeric format.

When trying to activate Revit, it wants a serial number and a product key.

???

The serial number is expected in format 123-12345678

And the product key - who knows?

Needles to say that any attempt to forge the SKU into the required things failed. Oh yes and the very helpful "help" question marks tat say "You find these on the product package". Great if you did an online download.

Same mess when I try an online registration.

So I thought: Well, perhaps I have to deinstall Revit and start anew. Ok it is a shame to again shove 6GB through the internet, but what the heck.

So I tried to deinstall Revit - and failed. Because it stood there saying "Deinstalling..." and did nothing for 10 minutes.

I have an SSD and it should have done a little bit - no?

Tried to cancel. Didn't react. Tried to close window. Didn't react. So I killed it from the task manager. Yeah that did it.

Now I can start Revit - of course bouncing into the "activate" mode. But I cannot deinstall it "Could not be deinstalled" I cannot repair it "could not be repaired".

I'm totally lost here.

The person(s) responsible for this <censored> process at autodesk deserve a day to come and visit me...

Richard

[TravisNave]

First of all, welcome to the community.

You probably should have started here before getting caught up in the mess that you did. 

Your serial number and product key should have been emailed to you, or you can find it in your Autodesk account, likely in the Subscription Center. 

All the 2014 product keys are listed here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=21481916&linkID=12305695

Now, cancelling the uninstall probably hosed you pretty good. 

To Diagnose and Fix installation problems automatically, please see the new Microsoft tool for this here:

http://support.microsoft.com/mats/Program_Install_and_Uninstall

For more information on the Autodesk KB Support article concerning the clean uninstall of Autodesk products, see this link:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=2887771&linkID=9240617

Good luck!

[philip.s]

My sincere apologies for the inconvenience and confusion Richard.

I was able to look up your recent purchase and confirm that the Revit LT Suite 2014 serial number and product key were sent out in a separate email. Did you receive this info / would you like me to resend?

Here to help if you have any additional questions or concerns as well! 

[dgorsman]

In addition to the other suggestions, I would advise downloading the installer once, then backing it up.  That way if you need to re-install (e.g. program problems, new computer, catastrophic fire, etc.) it can be done without needing to download all over again.

[rj]

First thank you all for for your responses to my first (and probably not overly positive) posting here.

It is true, an Email with the serial number arrived about 6 hours after purchase confirmation (which itself arrived 24 hours after the purchase).

It is these 6 hours, that I will probably remember for a long time. 😉

Meanwhile I found out, that if you buy the product online, you will get a SKU from digital river the first 5 characters in that SKU is the product key. The rest of the SKU code ... I have not yet been able to find out what that is. So if I may provide any feedback of value: Sending that SKU is like sending the user into the desert. Especially if no serial number arrives for some time.

The next problem - and I agree with the formulation "pretty hosed" - was the failure of deinstalling the trial version of Revit. As I wrote, I had to abort, then the installer was sort of broken and could not do anything.

By that time I wrote my first posting. The serial number was still not in my mail.

I then manually deleted all Revit Folders (saving my trial projects). And see there - now the "Software deinstallation" was possible.

Then I downloaded the software anew from my subscription account (which seems to be different than the website account here, despite when logging in here it sais "unified account ..." something shortly in a popup).

Nevertheless while downloading, I realised there is a tab called "serial numbers". Clicking on that revealed - voila! - the 3-8 serial number format. 

After download and install was complete I entered that serial and the product key and yes - have a running Revit.

Hallelujah.

I mean I know all this comes from me being an unexperienced/1st time  Autodesk User. But isn't there someone supposed to work for Autodesk to alleviate deployment. Improve user experience? Etc. yadda yadda?

* send serial number FASTER

* check your management program: Not being able to DEINSTALL is a no go

Richard

[camilo.lemos]

Hi Richard,

Apologies again for the trouble.

Thank you for the feedback, we'll certainly forward it to the appropriate team.

Best regards,