Several years ago, I wanted to get into autocad again but not pay for the latest and greatest. It was just for my own personal use of playing around and designing things so I had no worries of format compatibilities with other companies, etc. I had gotten a stack of autocad lt 2002 books for free from a professor at the college I worked at, so I set out on ebay to find a copy. Got one complete in box!
When it arrived, I fired up the installer, used the serial, and everything installed without a hitch. I ran the program and it asks to activate online. "No problem," I think, I used a legit serial from a legit copy, I should be fine. What I didn't consider was that the activation server was taken offline (I'm sure the official reason was "cost savings" but "force people to upgrade" fits in there pretty well in my opinion).
So now I had a perfectly good box of software and a stack of manuals for a product I couldn't use for no technical reason other than the company didn't want me to use it.
When it arrived, I fired up the installer, used the serial, and everything installed without a hitch. I ran the program and it asks to activate online. "No problem," I think, I used a legit serial from a legit copy, I should be fine. What I didn't consider was that the activation server was taken offline (I'm sure the official reason was "cost savings" but "force people to upgrade" fits in there pretty well in my opinion).
So now I had a perfectly good box of software and a stack of manuals for a product I couldn't use for no technical reason other than the company didn't want me to use it.