Solved Magix Activations

It appears Magix are probably in a bit of a tangle here as well as with their email lists.

1 - Despite assurances that products don't phone home periodically it seems they do. On going to my Magix account and checking my registered products I find my current products are shown as being Last Activated on recent dates. The dates are after they were validated or revalidated with an update.

2 - We are allowed two activations. I have one pc and one installation of MS14. Yet two activations with my serial number are shown. Both for the same computer with different Last Activated on dates. I hope it doesn't mean that when MS14 next phones home I get kicked out as it's a third activation.

3 - Communicating with Magix isn't easy. I want to raise the above problem with them. But after going to the support pages my query doesn't fit any of the categories so I just go around in circles. Nowhere can I find an email address. Perhaps I'll raise this on the Magix Vegas forum and hope it gets noticed.

1 - Despite assurances that products don't phone home periodically it seems they do. On going to my Magix account and checking my registered products I find my current products are shown as being Last Activated on recent dates. The dates are after they were validated or revalidated with an update.

I'm sure you are aware of this, that every time a user installs a (free) New Build Version, the installer re-validates your Serial Number/Activations.

2 - We are allowed two activations. I have one pc and one installation of MS14. Yet two activations with my serial number are shown. Both for the same computer with different Last Activated on dates. I hope it doesn't mean that when MS14 next phones home I get kicked out as it's a third activation.

If you see multiple activations for the same computer, just de-register that activation.
I had the same problem with my New Blue FX, after I re-installed Windows. I deactivated everything and then re-registered from scratch.

Multiple activations for the same computer, are caused by the re-installation of Windows or possibly major Window's Updates.
Last year I had to re-install Windows 10 multiple times. Every time I re-installed my programs, some software programs would think I was on a different computer, because the auto-generate Computer ID changes every time you do a re-install.

Some Anti-Virus and/or Windows Registry programs, can also screw up activations every time they do a deep clean. However, I don't think this would be the problem in relation to Magix programs. I subscribe to Foxtel in Australia, which is the only "cable/satellite" TV provider here (nice little golden goose owned by Rupert Murdoch). Foxtel Go is the "anytime/on demand" app on my computer, for catching up on programs and it uses Microsoft Silverlight. I have to make sure that CCleaner does not clean the cache for this program, otherwise the login activation is reset. When I log back in, Foxtel then thinks I am on a different computer. When I look up the activations, it shows multiple activations for the same device.

Thanks Derek.

It could have been the Windows Creators update but strangely only MS14 has duplicated itself. DVDA7 and Magix Music Maker haven't. My earlier Sony/Magix apps don't show full details of their registered devices. Probably because being old apps Magix are no longer bothered.

I'm reluctant to delete one of the multiple registrations because they are both tied in to the same machine ID and I might loose both. I'll leave it until I'm forced to do something.

Reading the EULA for VMS it appears regular checking does occur. With Magix's non Vegas products those with serial numbers beginning P3 apparently undergo this checking. And guess what my MS14, DVDA7 and MMMaker all have P3 serial numbers.... So it seems you cannot use Vegas on a machine that isn't connected to the internet. So hard luck to those who like to have a dedicated non internet connected editing machine.

Lastly another discovery. Today I fired up Magix Movie Maker, which I rarely open, and there was an update. After downloading, installing and activating I went looking for the downloaded file to archive in case needed in the future. It's nowhere. I even used Windows search to look at every one of today's files. Usually the file is in your Docs under MAGIX Downloads but not this one, nor in my Appdata Temp folder. Presumably it got deleted after installation. I find Magix confusing and inconsistent at times.

Don't be scared to delete any current Magix activations in your Magix account.
I did this myself recently and deleted everything, due to the same problem you are seeing now.
Then I re-activated all my software.

This is what you can safely do - I say this is full confidence, because I just did this myself and nothing bad happened!
Open Vegas Movie Studio and go to Help/Deactivate the software on this PC.
This will remove your current activation.



When you press Help/Deactivate the software on this PC, this window pops up and clearly states it is OK to deactivate Vegas and then reactivate on the same computer.



Then open your Magix account and the activation that remains will be the duplication that is useless.
Deactivate this duplication.

Now re-open Vegas Movie Studio 14 Platinum and the activation window will greet you and be auto-filled.
Activate software and everything is back to normal.

Thanks Derek. I decided to deal with the duplicate registration solely from my Magix account. I deleted the 1st earlier registration leaving just the second. MS14 still loads okay.

Presumably a glitch in the Magix system that it will register a product twice against the same registered device (ID).

It bugs me that MS14 clearly needs to phone home once a month to stay working. I like to have control of my software and servers can go down, the internet not be working properly, communication lines down etc. Germany is a long way from our corner of the planet and with the way the world is heading at present anything could happen.....

Lastly another discovery. Today I fired up Magix Movie Maker, which I rarely open, and there was an update. After downloading, installing and activating I went looking for the downloaded file to archive in case needed in the future. It's nowhere. I even used Windows search to look at every one of today's files. Usually the file is in your Docs under MAGIX Downloads but not this one, nor in my Appdata Temp folder. Presumably it got deleted after installation. I find Magix confusing and inconsistent at times.

Hi Eric
I have also wondered about how Magix updates "Magix" programs.
Magix uses the same method that Cyberlink does.
The day you buy one of their programs, you get the first build version of the program.
Unlike Vegas, Magix does not allow you to download and save the current build version of the program.
You can only use the update service and then this is what happens:

I used CTRL + Alt +Delete
Opened Task Manager/Performance/Open Resource Monitor
When a Magix program is being updated, you can see where the data is being written to.

The new build version gets saved to here:
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp\MAGIX
It gets saved as MxUpdate.exe
After the file is downloaded, it is unzipped and installed over the top of existing version.
When the install is complete, the MxUpdate.exe file auto deletes itself.

Before the install began, I copied the MxUpdate file and re-named it to the correct program name.
When I build my new computer in a couple months time, I'm going to see if I can install my "Magix" programs from the MxUpdate version.

Thanks Derek.

I still have the Temp\Magix folder and it was one I looked at yesterday. It contains a sub folder 'mm24'. This contains a 1 KB file 'result.xml'. Opening this with Notepad it says:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?><response><patch /></response>

If I really wanted the download file I could probably get it from my Magix account and after downloading try and grab it in the way you suggest.

This is my go-to page (maintained by volunteer Magix Vegas forum mod Nick H) when I forget where (most) everything still exists
www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-where-can-i-download-vegas-pro-and-other-vegas-software--104782/
Some direct links including earlier patch releases are in section 5 there.

Note that a Magix staffer just informed us on the "official" forum that Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 11 has now been added to their own download options. It took them only several months after the good Doc and some others brought this omission up.