DeskScapes 10 won' stay activated

from Stardock Forums

Hello all. I recently purchased Cursor FX and Object Desktop. I have CFX and Dreamscapes 10 installed on latest update of win 10 pro. PC is always on. Both programs ran fine for about 3 weeks, then starting with DS10 desktop was black and it was asking for me to enter a product key which I did and it said activation was successful. This happens overnite and each morning it is the same routine. To add to my frustration, Cursor FX started doing the exact same thing. Now both apps forget they are registered every morning. I have gone through everything that I can think of to find what has changed or causing the problem. I just reinstalled DS10 and don't know if it helped, and CFX is now telling me I have reached my activation limit and won't work at all. I have not not tried reinstalling it yet. I'm on my last nerve so I am reaching out to see if anyone can give me some help. Thanks in advance-KD

deskscapes
14,202 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Please refer to this FAQ https://forums.stardock.com/486311/accounts-and-activation-support-faq#keepsaskingactivation

and for reaching max activation https://forums.stardock.com/486311/accounts-and-activation-support-faq#deactivateproduct

Please let us know if you still need our assistance.

Thank you,

Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Basj, Thank you for the quick response. I went to the program data folder and the PRODUCTNAME folder was not there. I will update post tomorrow if it continues to act up.

As far as CFX is concerned, I had cursorFX on my win 7 PC and bought CFX Plus as a guest and had it installed on it. I have built a new win 10 machine and I installed it on it thinking once I owned it I could put it on whatever I wanted. The Win 7 machine really no longer exists to deactivate.

Any Ideas.

For the price I'll probably uninstall it from the win 10 PC and by a new key.

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,

1. "PRODUCTNAME" should be replace with the product you having problem with. In your case its should be "DeskScape"

2. On CFX did you follow the steps mentioned on the link I gave above? Did you see the "Manage" link beside the CFX Product key? If you do not have that "Manage" link appear on it. Please let us know so we can ask Support Team to deactivate it for you.

Thank you,

Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

 

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

DUH, that was pretty dumb of me! I'll delete that. Yes I went to my acct and CFX does not have manage option. the PC it was on was named Insanity7. Thank you for your help and patience.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
I have forwarded your questions/problems to the Stardock Support team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate you feedback and patience.

Please note : Stardock already on weekend, so Support might comeback on Monday. on the CFX resetting issue.

Thank You,
Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Update, I have followed your suggestion for deleting deskscapes in program data and registering several times with and with out reboot after deletion.  It says registration was successful, runs all day unless rebooted or sits idle over-nite and then goes to black background. If I open deskscapes it asks for product key, I put it in and it says it was successful. If I enter my stardock login credentials that also is accepted. That is the pattern.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
I have forwarded your questions/problems to the Stardock Support team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate you feedback and patience.

Thank You,
Basj
Stardock Community Assistant.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,

Would you Please do this PURGE: https://forums.stardock.com/485954/deskscapes-support-faq#reinstalling

Reboot and Re Install the latest version from your account https://store.stardock.com/myaccount/products/

Reboot , test and report back .

 

AzDude
Stardock Community Assistant

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

AzDude, I appreciate you jumping in to help me out. I like your work very much. I have done as you asked and will report back after letting it run for awhile. Thanks again.

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Duecekd, reply 6

Update, I have followed your suggestion for deleting deskscapes in program data and registering several times with and with out reboot after deletion.  It says registration was successful, runs all day unless rebooted or sits idle over-nite and then goes to black background. If I open deskscapes it asks for product key, I put it in and it says it was successful. If I enter my stardock login credentials that also is accepted. That is the pattern.
End of Duecekd's quote

When it asks, go to:

C:\ProgramData\Stardock\DeskScapes

If license.sig it not there, that is why its asking.  Please make sure your AV product is not quarantining the sig file. 

Activating again should replace the License.sig file.

I have reset your CursorFX activations. 

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Thank you all for the help. CursorFX is back up and running. I have excluded all Stardock folders, especially the Program data Stardock folder from Defender, Malwarebytes and Boostspeed. I will report back tomorrow with the results. I think you've got it though.

Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Duecekd, reply 11

. I have excluded all Stardock folders, especially the Program data Stardock folder from Defender, Malwarebytes and Boostspeed. I will report back tomorrow with the results. I think you've got it though.
End of Duecekd's quote

Does that mean you did see the License.sig in a quarantine?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

No. I looked in history of all 3 programs I mentioned. I was looking for anything StarDock related, not specifically the License.sig file, but didn't find anything, sorry. The exclusions did fix the problem though. You were right, 1 of the 3 were definitely causing the issue. It has ran clean for 2 days now. If you'd like I could remove the exclusions 1 at a time to find out which program blows it up.

I do appreciate you and the others that helped me out on this. 

Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Duecekd, reply 13

If you'd like I could remove the exclusions 1 at a time to find out which program blows it up.
End of Duecekd's quote

That would be helpful - for us to know directly and anyone finding this post on their own.

Quoting Duecekd, reply 13

I do appreciate you and the others that helped me out on this. 
End of Duecekd's quote

You are most welcome and thank you for the help finding out what indeed caused the issue.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top

Well Sean, I found the smoking gun! Auslogics Boostspeed 11, Protect Tool, Privacy Cleanup report, Traces in Applications header:

C:\ProgramData\STARDOCK\DeskScapes\License.sig Application Usage History and Recent Document History item. Removing this item is recommended. removed

This was being removed every night when the program ran cleanup processes, and stopped when I excluded all StarDock folders I could find. There were many other SD files but they were cache files, log files, avi files etc. It basically wiped Deskscapes off the map! If you are interested, and I can figure out how to do it, I could send you the report and you can see what it did to you in total. What I don't understand is that I had both running for a while before this problem popped up. It must've been added recently in an update to BoostSpeed or something.

So, I guess the moral of the story is, to anyone out there with these 2 programs, exclude any StarDock Folders from being scanned by Boostspeed 11.

And I have my Awesome Background Back!!