Will it still be possible to upgrade to 3.5 Pro from Elements after the release of 4?
My MacBook is maxed at High Sierra and replacement is out of the question at the moment.
There’s going to be a sale on black Friday. You could upgrade to 3.5 pro AND benefit from the grace period to get Dorico 4 for free. Useful when you will change your computer (because you will probably, in the future)
This page allows you to download older version of most of the Steinberg software:
https://o.steinberg.net/en/support/downloads.html
You can buy Dorico 4 and install an older version, though you will need a dongle so there is that to consider as well since Dorico 4 will be sold without one due to the new licensing system.
thanks for the info, that will depend on the discount!
yes I’m not sure how they will deal with that if the dongle is no longer supported. I already have an Elements license on it obviously, but if I upgraded from 3.5 to 4, I’d be buying into the subscription model and would need the dongle authorised to run 3.5 Pro, are they going to do that? I doubt it.
Just to be clear, the new licensing system is not a subscription model.
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Daniel has already announced that if you buy 3.5 now, you can upgrade to 4 when the time comes, so there’s no harm in purchasing 3.5 PRIOR to the release of 4. That will still get you in with the old system if you need it for your laptop, and give you access to the new system when the time comes.
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This may be a question for Daniel. I can imagine that Steinberg will want to revoke any dongle licence as part of an upgrade to V4 or else people would simply be able to sell their V3.5 after installing V4 dongle free.
It’s bound to be complicated…
I think the good Doctor’s reasons for wanting not to do so may be for convenience of budgeting.
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It is not a perpetual licence either. It may be a matter of semantics but seeing how quickly any threads referring to the new licence are shut down does suggest that opinion is very much divided. Ask a Tesla driver if they’re happy with the “licence” to drive their vehicles in the light of recent outages…!
indeed.
I bought 3.5 in August and have never had a dongle.
You can install Dorico using the “Soft-eLicenser” and that’s what you must be using.
Under 3.5, if you want to use Dorico on more than 1 computer (eg laptop and a desktop) you need the “USB e-Licenser”, also known as a Steinberg Key or simply a dongle. I was referring to those people with Dongles.
We don’t know exactly how this is going to work yet. There will be some people who want to install V4 but are still using V3.5 for current projects so need both for a while. No idea how Stenberg will support them. Perhaps they will allow V3.5 in perpetuity on a Dongle, in which case it could in theory be sold on.
I’m in danger of telling you more than I know… 
But one will need a dongle (if they have not sold out by then) to move Dorico 3.5 to a new computer when the old one needs replacing or else will have to forego 3.5 at that point.
Those threads went on for literal days and got to the point of rehashing. The team acknowledged concerns multiple times. Hardly an authoritarian crack down on dissent. But yes, some people are concerned.
Yes, which he intimated by mentioning waiting for the sale. I was simply mentioning that it’s not a bad idea to take the plunge prior to D4, if he’s concerned about his old laptop, because then he can get in with the older dongle system for that machine.
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As far as I know, every old license used for a upgrade from the dongle system to the new one will be marked as NFR (not for resale). So, you will keep the license in the USB dongle, but can’t sell it in the future.
Just to be clear. I currently have a Steinberg dongle (I had to buy the newer, stubby version quite recently as there were issues getting the older one to to work with Dorico 3, lots of threads on here with that issue.) I have Cubase 8.5 Pro on it, legacy Cubase VST 5 & Nuendo 3, and Wavelab 10, OMF, Retrologue, and Vienna Instrument. None of which I need to upgrade or update in the near future - I intend to keep this old MacBook with High Sierra on it for backwards compatibility - and because it works. I’m also trying to resist this constant upgrade / update hardware, for sustainability reasons, and because actually my hardware does everything I need it to. I’ve held off upgrading to D 3.5 Pro purely for budgetary reasons. It’s doubtful that D4 will offer me anything I really need, though of course other users will be happy and keen to upgrade, and that’s fine.
The cost alone of upgrading to Dorico 4 is not just the upgrade price, but the investment of around ÂŁ500 for a laptop that will run it. My studio MacPro is a 5.1 and maxed out at Mojave. So I could run D4 on that (I guess?) but be unable to look at those sessions on my MacBook. No incentive for me to upgrade to 4 then - Elements or Pro.
I’m sure there’ll be many long time Steinberg users (and I go back to Pro 16 on the Commodore…) with lots of licences on their Steinberg dongle. It’s going to be interesting seeing how this moves forward to accommodate a mix of all these licenses. Is the new license for Cubase going to recognise the USB dongle with Retrologue on it? Will upcoming hardware / OS still install the e-licensor software to recognise existing licenses? If so, for how long? I think I read that support will be dropped, so built in obsolescence then. Or keep older hardware, and hope the dongle doesn’t get broken or lost.
HAPPILY!!! 
It is most certainly a perpetual license. We understand concerns from some users about the requirement to connect to the activation server once every 30 days, and we are actively discussing that internally.
We are closing threads about the new license management system because there is nothing new to be said at the moment. If and when we have any information about changes to the system as announced, we will make clear communication about them and of course welcome any further feedback that our customers would like to offer about the revised system.
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