Heard from Mike in Support this morning so at his suggestion tried this ..




But still get this ...



It's the battle of the activations!   


Wrote back to Mike in Support tonight ... will report back when I hear back from him!   

Hey, good luck with that bro.

Travis from SS instructed me to go into Impulse and click the "?" in the upper right corner, select "Open XML's Folder" (Public), then delete everything inside that folder. After that, uninstall Icon Packager from Impulse then reinstall from Impulse.

Impulse failed to uninstall IP for me, so I uninstalled from SDC, then used Impulse to reinstall.

If Mike hasn't instructed you to do so, then you may want to try this just for giggles. My IP and IPE works now after taking these steps, without the activation woes!

Lemme know how it goes dude...

  

@Cplair, did you manage to get all THREE IP apps to work with that procedure (I have some doubts)?

I've managed to get IP and IPE working with some assistance from travis, but the last item on the list still has the activation issue as mentioned before.

IP consists of three (not two) applications, Icon Packager, Icon Explorer AND the shell extension providing the "Icon" tab on every file.

Indeed I did haerdalis, the three elements of Icon Packager are working fine including the shell extension Icon Tabs for the respective file properties, since taking those steps. The thing is, once you get a good solid install, you shouldn't be prompted for activation.

At least this is how it worked for me.

  

@Cplair, you're correct about that.. Unless the activation itself is bad, as this one apparently is.

No doubt this application has been activation hell until now at least (IP4, and it isn't possible to install the properly working 3.99 though Impulse)..

I'll give this procedure yet another shot, however I'm doubtful it has any effect.

I've just gone through the procedure yet again..

When preparing I disabled (as I usually do when installing Stardock apps, but shouldn't be necessary) Outpost Firewall Pro and NOD32.
Not only that, I stopped everything related to them, disabled all services related,
and finally used msconfig to disable their gui part to start (i.e it is as disabled it is possible to achieve without uninstalling the applications themselves).

The result?
No dice, not even remotely possible.

IP and IPE works as earlier, but the shell extension wants to execute the same file I mentioned earlier with the intent to activate itself..

Activation hell indeed.. :/

If you haven't tried this yet, give it a go!

  Here's hoping that this works for you like it did for me!  

@Cplair, as I mentioned in #36 I just did this (I've done this a number of times since installing Impulse, not to mention I did a similar thing when running SDC) yet again.

I'm seriously frustrated with this..

Damn! Sorry to hear that friend.

Cplair, I'm just happy somebody manages to activate this program fully, although I can't see how.
Apparently it isn't intended to do so on my computer..

I run a standard WXP Pro SP3 slipstreamed + IE7 install (not even nlited)

Until IP4 came along I've never ever had any issues with activation, and I still don't, except with IP4.

It's back... Had this problem fixed a few days ago. But when I installed a new 'icon pack' (the only change on the system I can think of that would affect this) I'm back to the same prob again. Have tried all the suggested fixes as before. Clearing XML, uninstall/reinstall after shutting down anti-virus and firewall, etc. These fixes don't seem to work now. WinXP Pro, IconPackager 4.00.165. Help!!   

@hallv5, perhaps you didn't really have it solved in the first place. I don't know, I've struggled with this issue for a long long time.

To be able to say you don't have the activation issue at all you should be able to do all points below in sequence TWICE (or more).
It should NOT show any activation/error screen for any of the applications.

1. Run IconPackager, then exit
2. Run Icon Explorer, then exit
3. In windows explorer, rightclick a file, select properties, go to the "Icon" tab, change the icon, then click apply. Close windows explorer.
4. Repeat

If you succeed in running the test above, make sure to backup the D&S\All users\Application data\Stardock\IconPackager\sig.bin just in case.

Oh, and while you're in IconPackager, try to change package.

All the points above will trigger a activationcheck, and if it doesn't pass it shows the activate screen (or a error referring to not being able to run activate).
If this happens then you are the proud owner of the activation issue.

I guess I'm the 'proud owner' of at least part of the activation issue.. Everything except changing an 'individual' icon works. Can run both IconPackager and IconExplorer with no problem. Also can change IconPackages with no problem. Just get the 'Windows can not find...Activate.exe' in the windows explorer part of the equation.Did have it fixed, or so it seemed, for a few days anyways. Changed individual icons on more than one occasion on more than one day after doing the Impulse un/reinstall with anti-virus/firewall shut down after the reboot during the reinstall. Also, tried clearing the XML, etc..Oh well, at least I'm the 'proud owner' of something...

I have been trying to replicate this on the latest IP4 update. I have now done it on more than 5 machines and still can't get this to happen.

Now I CAN get this to happen when I change the individual settings on the Optical Drive. Help me break my stuff....


EDIT: Nevermind we can replicate it and it is part of the bug the developers were already working on. So we have a head start on this one. Please stand by for an update once we get a fix running and tested.