[kabdib]

About a decade ago I bought some OCR software. I used it for a few years, then flattened my OS and had to reinstall it.

No dice. It was not supported any more; I even had the license, but the company's activation servers no longer worked. I could pay $400 or so to buy a new version or do without.

I did without. I refuse to buy that company's products.

[aethertron]

Why don't you name and shame the company?

[kabdib]

Honestly, I couldn't remember the name of the company, I'd buried it.

Let's see . . . oh yeah, Omnipage.

The activation was painful, too, involving a key server and a few cut-and-paste operations that were easy to get wrong.

I haven't needed to do any OCR in the last couple of years, but I'm sure I'll investigate other options than Omnipage before I'll use their products again.

I'm happy to buy software. But I have to be able to use it indefinitely, without activations (which depend on companies still being around) or time-limited licenses that are just designed to fuel an upgrade pump. I don't insist on source code or freedom, just quality. I'm not on a holy mission, I just won't buy software on bad terms.

[ta_tatata]

Is this OCR software called microsoft windows ?