I had an disappointing experience with Corel today. CorelDRAW/Photo Paint started displaying an "Illegal Software" message offering me amnesty and such.
Since I don't steal software and was offended at the implication, I contacted Corel by chat.
They asked for my serial number, which I gave them, but accidentally gave my X7 number from which I had upgraded. The rep then went on to tell me how my serial number was not for the version I was using. I was offended at the implication.
Now, bearing in mind that I bought X7 and the upgrade to 2017 from Corel, and should be in their system, I dug into my records to find my copy of the receipt to prove my innocence. That didn't sit well with me, either.
So, then, the customer service guy tells me to do this:
<quote>Delete Corel message folder to correct the issue.
1. Press Windows key + R.2. Type %appdata% and hit enter.3. Go to Corel folder4. Delete the "Messages" folder </quote>
That worked. The accusational message box no longer appeared. So I asked, why didn't the service guy suggest that first instead of making me jump through all those other hoops to prove my innocence and what the ^ happened in the first place to provoke the software-theft-accusation dialog box.
None of this was cool or professional from Corel. None of it.
Anyway, rant aside, there's the fix if you get accused of stealing your software by Corel.
Sean
I've had my X5 version for God knows how many years, and I've registered it online plenty times as I've upgraded PCs, got updates too.
Very strange how suddenly after all these years, it's suddenly an illegal copy.
I've paid the amnesty deal fee and upgraded to 2017, but now that I see Corel are sending this message to users with genuine installs, I'm guessing that mine would have been genuine too, and all Corel are doing is tricking people into parting with their money.
Now I find 2017 has a bug in it (X5 does not have this bug) where you cannot stop a non printable/exportable layer from exporting to DXF. This bug has been there since X7. I'm in contact with support who kept trying to get me to do various stuff on my PC. After contacting a bunch of other users, who have X7, X8 and 2017 it's became obvious this is not an issue with my PC because ALL those users have exactly the same issue. So first I get conned (????) into upgrading then the bigger and better version has a bug which affects me a lot.
With tactics like that, they'll get a bad reputation real fast. Even if they were not deliberately scamming their own customers, it really shows how pathetic their organisation is if they are sending these messages to users with legit installs. Or they try and fix a long standing bug by asking the user to do a whole bunch of meaningless stuff on their computer.
There are other software options out there that cost a fraction of the price and if Inkscape suffices, it's free.
Just so you know 2019 doen't work with my machine, after a month of tech help and them trying to tell me they had sent an email when they didn't they finally told me my machine was a win 7 machine and CoralDraw suite wouldn't work with it. I am running win 10, I have Adobe 6 and it runs great. I have been a user since it was called 8, no X. The only reason I updated was because of Win 10 and X5. The workaround was fine but I thought I would go ahead and get the 2019. I didn't do a trial first so didn't know it was the program that was messed up. I got a new HD and more ram before I started calling Support. Big mistake.