How to make nero oem work with 2 different drives?

[M17]

I got a buslink 48x cdrw and a iomagic 48x cdrw drive, both came with nero oem, each nero will work only with one drive.
How to install only one version of nero and make it work with both drives.
Thank you
M17

[cfitz]

It can't be done. Ahead wants to stick you for another $20 for a retail upgrade - for the privilege of using both of the two copies of Nero you already paid for, you get to buy a third copy! The best you can do is swap the serial numbers in and out to use each drive one at a time (but not both simulataneously):

Dear Customer,

Upgrading to a retail version of Nero is the only way.

Best regards,

Darrick
Tech Support
Ahead Software, Inc.


-----Original Message-----
>From: cfitz
>Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 6:38 PM
>To: techsupport7@nero.com
>Subject: RE: [Web Support Form] Nero v5.5.9.17
>
>But I already paid for _two_ legal copies of Nero - one for each drive. Why
>should I have to pay for yet another copy just so that I can use both
>drives at once? I understand the limitations and intent of OEM versions of
>software. And I'm not asking to use my OEM copies of Nero with drives
>for which I did not purchase a copy of Nero. I just want to be able to use
>the two drives for which I did purchase copies of Nero, and I want to use
>them together.
>
>cfitz
>
>
>>Dear Customer,
>>
>>You have an 'OEM Bundled' version of Nero that will only work with the
>>model recorder it came with. In this case it will only work with Lite-On
>>recorders. We do this with 'OEM Bundles' so that we can offer the
>>software to the large OEM's at a lower price. It's still full featured,
>>but since it is only for Lite-On Drives we can offer the lower price
>>without small OEM's becoming upset at not receiving a similar price. As
>>small OEM's will ship drives from 5 or more different Recorder
>>manufacturers and so they need the OEM version that supports all model
>>recorders. And so their prices are slightly higher. You can purchase an
>>upgrade from us to go from OEM to Retail version of Nero for $19 US
>>dollars, using the below link, and this will allow you to support all
>>model recorders with Nero.
>>https://secure.nero.com/en/Wizard.asp?Item=230
>>
>>
>>= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>>Thank you for Contacting Nero Technical Support. Please include all
>>previous history (e-mails, logs, etc..), when
>>you reply, because we do not save old e-mails.
>>
>>Thank you,
>>
>>Darrick
>>Technical Support
>>Ahead Software, Inc.
>>
>>Nero - The drivemaker's choice - visit us at: www.nero.com
>><http://www.nero.com/>
>>= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: cfitz
>>>
>>>Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 11:44 PM
>>>To: retail-support@nero.com
>>>Subject: [Web Support Form] Nero v5.5.9.17
>>>
>>>------------------
>>>I have a legal OEM version of Nero for my Memorex 48x24x48
>>>CD-RW and another legal OEM version for my Yamaha CRW-3200EZ,
>>>with a separate serial number for each. How can I enter both serial
>>>numbers so that I can choose either drive
>>>for burning?

[CCampbell]

Now, let's be fair. The Nero software came bundled with the drive. Your purchase was really for the Recorder. The amount of money paid by the OEM for the software is very minimal, very. And it's up to the OEM if they wish to purchase a Full OEM which will work with any model recorder, or the Nero OEM Bundle, which is less expensive for them to cut cost, and of course is limited to their recorder. Which may help intice the customer to continue to purchase their model recorder and not the competitors.

So Ahead is not trying to 'Stick It' to anyone. This is how software has been done from the begining. Of course I am tech support and not sales, so my opinion of how it should be done is different.
But business is business.

And a $19 US dollar cost for upgrade is very fair when you compare it with others upgrade policies.


If you do not wish to make the purchase, it would be wise to create two registry patches. One for each serial. This way you can simply click on the REG file with the proper serail key to make the change. No reboot needed and done in seconds. Very easy to do, and very cost effective.

Regards,

Craig

[cfitz]

Now, let's be fair. The Nero software came bundled with the drive. Your purchase was really for the Recorder. The amount of money paid by the OEM for the software is very minimal, very.

Well, I will concede that characterizing Ahead as "sticking" its customers may be a tad harsh. In truth, it is probably a mixture of not caring to support this configuration and hoping to get a few upgrades out of it. But I certainly hope you aren't trying to say that I didn't pay for two legal copies of Nero. I most certainly did, and at full, fair market value.

Do the OEM's raid the Nero workshop every evening and steal copies of Nero? No, Ahead sells those copies. Does Ahead allow the OEM's to dictate, extortion-like, the price at which it sells OEM copies of Nero? No, it negotiates a mutually agreeable price. Does that price cause Ahead to take a loss with every one of those copies it sells? No, it allows Ahead to make a profit and, thus, remain in business. Do Ahead executives scowl and curse and and grumpily stomp down the hallways every time they close a new contract to supply Nero to an OEM? No, they smile because they made a sale that will increase their revenues. So, what is the conclusion? Does Ahead give away Nero to OEM's as part of its charitable activities? Of course not, it sells Nero at fair market value, by definition.

Now how about those OEM's? Are they charities? Again, no. They sell to distributors who in turn sell to retailers, neither of whom are charities either and all of whom also pass along their expenses (e.g. the cost of purchasing Nero) to the next buyer in the chain until it finally stops at, yes, you guessed it: the consumer - me.

Of course, I'm not arguing that the profit margins on OEM sales (on a unit basis) are as high as those on direct sales to the consumer - but that is the bargain Ahead chooses when it decides to trade lower margin for higher volume in OEM deals. Therefore, you can not possibly argue that OEM copies aren't sold at fair market value and that I, as a consumer, didn't pay for my copies of Nero in addition to my CD-RW drives.

So the truth, the fair truth, is that I have paid fair market value for two licenses of OEM Nero, but I can only use one at a time and Ahead wants me to rectify the problem by purchasing a third license.

Okay, enough ranting. You're suggestion for creating two .reg files spells out in more detail that which I suggested to M17, and is welcome. Hopefully it will prove useful to M17. But what I would like to see is the ability to enter "Serial5a", "Serial5b", "Serial5c", etc. into the registry one time and have Nero scan all entered serial numbers and let me use any of the corresponding drives (one at a time, of course).

cfitz

[KCK]

cfitz:

You put it perfectly! But your writing style may be too sophisticated: even if CCampbell decided to transfer your observations to Ahead's executives (BTW, I think he should), a German translation might be difficult to read. Ahead already has communication problems between branches/divisions, and you are exacerbating them.

[M17]

This sucks, I should just download, nero demo and a key gen to fix my problem. I own yamaha 3200, iomagic 48x and buslink 48x burners, all three came with nero.
thanks for good info
M17

[CCampbell]

I can see you point of view, but that does not take in all the facts.

I never said you had an Illegal copy, or that you did not pay for Nero. All I said was that you payed for a bundle, and the OEM who put the bundle together made the decision on the type of OEM product he wanted. OEM's like Yamaha, TDK, Lite-On, Memorex, etc wish to cut cost as well. We provide different models for them, and they can choose which they want. We do not force it on them. They wish to purchase an OEM bundle that only works for their model recorders for two reasons.

1) To cut cost, as we offer this at a slightly lower price than the Full OEM bundle.
2) This is their way of creating an insentive for the customer to purchase their model recorders only. This is at their request, we did not come up with this idea originally, the drive makers did. But we can not deny it works in our favor as well.

We do indeed make money off OEM sales, but not as much as you seem to think. And the cost of drives as well as software drops dramaticaly on a monthly basis, not once a year. And yet, all the cost for Engineering and other overhead does not drop. Not monthly, not yearly. It goes up no matter what. As well as other overhead costs.

What we are doing is not something unique either. Every software developer makes an OEM product and a Retail product. And they all work on ways to create insentives for the customers who have OEM products to upgrade to the Full Retail version. I do not know of a single software developer that does not practice this. At least not any who is still in business. Do you?


You paid for a fair market value for software that works as the OEM desired it to work.

Other OEM's such as Cendyne, Hi-Val, etc have to compete with Drive MFG OEMs, and so they go with the OEM bundle that supports all model recorders.(though still limited as compared to the Retail version) And since they do not use only one model recorder, they have no need for an insentive for an OEM bundle limited to one recorder. (Though Cendyne did have this at one time as well, and recently changed)

Bottom line. If you want this to change, you need to pressure the OEM you purchase the product from to make the change. To keep them as a direct customer, we must do as they request, and we do.


Regards,

Craig

[KCK]

CCampbell:

Most software developers state clearly how their OEM product differs from their retail product, and one doesn't need to install a time-limited demo of a retail version to haunt for these differences. It would help potential buyers of OEM bundles if relevant information were available on Ahead's website. OEMs won't feel any pressure until customers can compare bundles from competing OEMs.

[cfitz]

So it is all the fault of the OEMs, and Ahead has nothing to do with it? Come now Craig, be reasonable. I don't know why you are toeing the (in my opinion) unsupportable company line so closely on this one - you have generally shown yourself to be a very reasonable person in other posts. If you want to say "Ahead has chosen this behavior by design in an effort to encourage users to upgrade to the full retail version and has no intention of changing it", then come right out and say it. As I said in an earlier post (one to which you agreed), honest, straightforward answers are best. We can then let the individual consumers decide for themselves whether or not Ahead is "sticking it" to them.

But please don't try to pass the buck on this. Ahead designed, coded and shipped Nero, not the OEMs, so don't shift the blame to them. You could easily satisfy both the consumers and the OEMs by having Nero read multiple serial numbers and allow any corresponding, validly licensed drive to be selected. That wouldn't change the locking of OEM serial numbers to that specific OEM's drives. You still wouldn't be able to, for example, use the copy of Nero that comes with a Memorex drive to burn with a Sony drive (which currently ship with B's Recorder Gold). And, unless Nero is designed badly, it would be a trivial change to implement.

I do appreciate your suggestion to make multiple registry files to ease switching the license numbers. I know you are honestly trying to help out with that suggestion. But I don't agree that it is fair to the consumer to sell a product that requires registry hacks to work when the consumer purchases multiple copies of that product. And, yes, I do know that new serial numbers can also be entered via the “Help” menu, but that is even less convenient.

In closing, let me point out the obvious. Your arguments in defense of Ahead's practices are not convincing the users, as evidenced by the opinions expressed in these forums. It seems like Ahead is punishing the users who play by the rules and try to use legally licensed copies of Nero rather than searching out key generators or cracked versions. So, whether or not your arguments are correct, whether or not Ahead is justified in its actions, and whether or not every other company does the same thing, Ahead's consumers aren't happy about this matter. Ahead might want to consider that factor when weighing the costs associated with making this minor change against the worth of the goodwill generated by doing so.

cfitz

[cfitz]

By the way, in regard to:

I never said you had an Illegal copy, or that you did not pay for Nero.

I refer you to your original post:

Your purchase was really for the Recorder.

Does that not imply that I did not purchase the copy of Nero? As if Nero came along for free? And as if I did not consider the software that came bundled with the burner? I specifically sought out a burner that came equipped with Nero in order to complement my existing Nero installation. I wanted to avoid the multiple instance incompatibility problems that I ended up with despite my efforts. Perhaps in the future I should not specifically seek out drives that come equipped with Nero.

cfitz

[M17]

$19 for upgrade to full version is not bad at all.
Ahead should do a better job of informing custumers of thier products features. I would like to know what do I get when I buy nero with a
1. buslink
2. cendyne
3. full version
From previous posts from craig there seem to be differences, I would like to know what they are? Is there also a difference between upgrading from oem to full version AND the full retail version?
Craig you have been very helpful, thank you, this doesn't mean I want you to shut up now, so dont take it the wrong way. Your perspective is interesting.
M17

[cfitz]

Craig can have the final say on this, but as far as I know, here is what you get when you buy the full retail version:

1. Ability to use Nero with any supported drive - takes care of your original problem and then some. It is a little overkill for your particular needs right now since you just want to be able to use one installation of Nero with all the drives for which you already have licenses, not run Nero on drives for which you haven't already paid for licenses.
2. Ability to burn to up to two drives simultaneously. In other words, you can burn the same compilation to two drives at the same time - may be useful to you if you are burning lots of copies of the same disc.
3. Integrated anti-virus scanner - of questionable utility, in my opinion, since I think everyone ought to run a system-wide anti-virus utility. I think Nero included this to help out in the old days when computers were slower and burners didn't have buffer underrun protection, since under those circumstances running a general purpose system-wide anti-virus scanner while burning could have caused underruns and spoiled your burns
4. Choice between any of the three interfaces: full, Wizard or Express - this may be useful if the version you have only supports the Express interface.

[M17]

Craig, final say please?

[dodecahedron]

cfitz, i would like to thank and compliment you on your posts in this thread.
i've ranted about this issue before, both on the forums and in private to you. you have expressed my thoughts about this quite clearly and eloquently. and then some.

thanks to you too, CCampbell, for your replies, and a behind-the-scenes glimpse. at least i understand Ahead's perspective a little better, even if i don't agree with all of your arguments.

i can only suggest and hope you take into consideration cfitz's suggestion of incorporating into Nero a mechanism which will allow the use of several drives each of which has a legal OEM license. even though you say this is counter to the drive manufacturers wishes, i think you should put the end-user first, on this issue at least (i can't imagine that a manufacturer would stop choosing Nero as the bundled software over this issue - i don't believe anyone chooses to buy a new drive from the same manufacturer just so they could continue using the OEM Nero).

_____________________________________________

my 900th post!

[MikeTR]

Congrats on the 900th. Now try to cath elim. He's still a little ahead of you.

P.S. How the **ll does someone get in over 2000 posts without going by the name of Ian .

[cfitz]

Also check this thread:

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=8063

cfitz

[Inertia]

CCampbell,

The "OEM made us do it" argument regarding the single model licensing might have some credibility if Nero wasn't the only burning software that follows this practice.

It's a fact that Roxio's Easy CD Creator Basic package will work on any burner, and they have never packaged an OEM software package that would work with only one burner model. They are a traditional major OEM supplier.

What other OEM burning software supplier besides Nero follows this practice?

Why is this irresistible pressure from the OEM's to conform to single model capability applied only to Nero? Is it a plot to frustrate Nero customers? Or could it be because no one besides Nero offers this option in the first place, to the detriment of the user.

[ueberlein]

JFYI: Craig is on well deserved vacation and will not return until early
2003. 2002 was a very busy year for Ahead and Craig needs some serious rest. Craig will comment again when he's back in action.

Brgds
Ahead Software Inc.
Udo Eberlein

[Inertia]

Thanks for your reply, ueberlein. And a special thanks for monitoring this forum.

It really is an unexpected honor to have the head of a software company reply. This is especially so when we occasionally are critical about certain product features. This is infrequent, however, and we enjoy helping people to use Nero properly.

Season's greetings to you and Craig Campbell.

[seaegg]

I don't know if I'm lucky or not but I have been able to use the Nero OEM that came with my Pioneer DVR-104 on my Liteon 40125S without a problem. However, the Nero OEM that came with my Liteon won't work with my Pioneer so whenever I do a format and reinstall I always make sure to use the one that came with the Pioneer.

[CCampbell]

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the delay in my response. But it was an awesome vactation. Of course, any time away from work is a treat.

First to cfitz: I have reread my response to your previous Email, and I can see how I may have come off indicating you had not purchased Nero. But honestly, that is not what I had meant. I'll work on being more careful with my phrasing.

And I did not say it's the fault of the OEMs, but it is their choice. We of course would prefer the OEM's to use the OEM bundle only. As this will of course generate more sales for Ahead. I can not deny that. But we do not force it on them. And to be honest, they do not choose the OEM bundle to increase our sales. They do it for two reasons. It is slightly cheaper, and this is an encentive we create so part of the issue is our creation, but the more persuasive argument for them is that it will potentialy cause the customer to continue to purchase that model recorder, so they do not need to purchase another software or an upgrade to ours. So, if a fault need to be applied, it would be at both our feet.

Now, it could be said we are not considering our Users, but this is not entirely true. Others may not charge an upgrade for this particular issue, but not all devlopers offer free upgrades. Or those that do, do not offer them free for two major upgrades as we do. I know that many will not agree with our policy. But at this time, I am not aware of any intention to change this policy at Ahead, for the older OEM bundles. I'm truly sorry. But, if the customer with an old OEM bundle on their system upgrades to Nero 5.5x or later, which comes with Nero Express GUI, you can go to Nero Express and it will work with any model recorder.

Then to KCK: I agree that we need to be more clear on what the differences between our Retail, OEM, and OEM bundle software packages. And I will see this is done ASAP.


Now, as to what you get with OEM or OEM bundles it breaks down as follows:

OEM: You get all features of the Retail, except for
1) Anti-Virus protection
2) Crossfade
3) The ability to burn to two recorders

Old OEM Bundle: You get all the feature in the Retail except for...
1) Anti-Virus Protection
2) Crossfade
3) The Ability to burn to two recorders
4) Limited to the model recorder the Nero software was shipped with

New OEM Bundle: This bundle Comes with Nero Express only, and does not have the following features...
1) Anti-Virus Protection
2) Crossfade
3) The ability to burn to two recorders
4) HD Backup feature
5) WAV Editor
6) Mixed Mode
7) Hybrid CD creation
CDROM (UDF) format
9) CDROM (UDF/ISO) format
10) Conver audio files to other formats such as Wav to MP3, or MP3 to WAV, etc.
However, Nero Express will support all model recorders. It will not be limited to only the recorder it was shipped with.



Regards,

Craig

[cfitz]

Well, I guess I've at least had my say. I sure wish I could convince Ahead and the OEM's to change their collective minds on this matter, but evidently it won't be happening.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to explain all the details.

cfitz