If you are still running Dorico 3.5 or earlier, please be advised that Steinberg has announced the end of support for the eLicenser system that these versions of Dorico rely upon. After March 2025, it will no longer be possible to activate, re-activate, update or upgrade any product that has an eLicenser-based license.
Although existing eLicenser licenses will continue to work after end of support, you will no longer be able to activate a new USB-eLicenser, move licenses between computers, or purchase an update to a version of Dorico that uses the successor Steinberg Licensing system.
We strongly recommend that users currently running Dorico 3.5 or earlier consider updating to the current version of Dorico (at the time of writing, Dorico 5).
I hope everyone gets to see this before finding out the hard way that they can’t reactivate their license, and neither can they update it. Hopefully there is an email mailout about this as well for all the customers who don’t frequent these forums.
Steinberg has records of all the licenses so it’s perplexing they would choose to disallow an upgrade without the eLicenser system present. I guess we will see what happens.
I believe we have already sent one email to everybody whose account is set to allow us to email them, and I’m sure we will send further notifications by email (as well as using social media, banners on the web site, etc.) to try to ensure that as many people as possible are aware of the eLicenser end of service.
A portable install is a bit tricky, because of where the license has to be read from. I’m not aware of any concrete plans in this direction, but I’ll ask the licensing team if there is any possibility of this in the works.
You did not mention what release of Dorico you are using, but I guess it is one that is prior to Dorico 4.
So if you have a Soft eLicenser it will survive as long as your computer is active. To avoid losing this you can still buy one of these USB eLicenser sticks, transfer the license from the Soft eLicenser to the USB stick and that will activate Dorico on any computer, where the stick is connected to.
The best option is you update your license to Dorico 5 and switch to Steinberg Licensing. This is not dependent on the eLicenser anymore.
There are complete descriptions in the support area on the Steinberg Website.
Thank you. I’m using 3.5 and have a USB elicencer. I’m not sure what a soft-elicenser is and will look that up. The link you gave me is partially helpful and I’ll browse through the user manual/installation to shed more light on how it’s done. I’m happy with 3.5 as I use it for engraving, not composing and playing. I don’t want to have to shell out another £500 just because I’m replacing my computer.
Again, thank you.
The upgrade price from version 3.5 to 5 is £135. “Even” for engraving, there are no end of improvements and additional features that will help you to produce beautiful scores more quickly.
@IvorStuart , my understanding is that the “standard” upgrade cost is a bit under £400. With the discount Daniel mentions, you’d have an easier time of moving “up,” and I think you’d find that for engraving work things have gotten substantially better since 3.5.
Thank you indeed for your replies and help. As I think I mentioned I’ll be buying a new machine next year partly forced by MS no longer supporting windows 10 and I’ll upgrade then. (Unfortunately I’m not a technical person, just a composer, so the admin always worries me. I know it’ll be all right in the end, thanks to the help received on this forum.)
Not sure which will be the price next year for upgrading from 3.5 to the version that will be selling . The current offer to upgrade to Dorico 5 is really good! And there is really a big amount of functionality improvements, since 3.5.
The offer that has been running this month for Dorico 3.5 and earlier users to update to Dorico 5 at a discount has now ended. However, because we really want to make sure that these users are given the opportunity to update before the end of eLicenser service next year, we will most likely provide at least one further opportunity to update to Dorico 5 at a reduced price before the end of this year. Please make sure you are signed up for our marketing emails in your Steinberg ID account to ensure you are notified. And if you haven’t yet registered your existing eLicenser-based product in the old MySteinberg portal, please do so as a matter of urgency.
