If my Mac blows up - I lose my Waves plugins?

[simon.a.billington]

Occasionally you can pleade your case to tech support. If your lucky, your drive will still be okay, you can exhume that from its charred corpse and plug it in to an exclosure and rescue the licenses that way.

I don't think not having a valid WUP should prevent you to transfer your licenses. You don't even need WUP to update your software. You get a free license rescue service a year with out WUP, beyond that you can always pay WUP after the fact just to recover your licenses.

Besides, if you have invested in a bundle you are most likely going to get free extra plugins with your WUP. Bundles seem to have new plugins added all the time. Mercury owners are usually the bigges winners.

[albee1952]

Much of this depends on which version of waves plugins you own(which you never mention) so I would do a support request to Waves on this is give them lots of detail. My own experience: support is really very good. I have my Waves on a USB stick(an old 128MB formatted FAT, that I have had for at least 10 years). Almost all of my Waves are outdated to some degree(I buy what I need when they have a sale, which seems to be very often). I bought some plugins last week and when I installed them, I saw a message that other plugins would be updated in the process(and I have not paid WUP). All my plugins are some version of Waves 9.

Back to the USB stick; I had one die completely on me and was able to restore all licences back to the cloud(from Waves Central) and move them to another USB stick in about 20 minutes, with no support from waves(call me very happy on that day). Last week, after buying a few new plugins, some of them(for reasons I don't understand) ended up with the licenses on my computer, instead of the USB stick. After a bit of fussing and head scratching, I located them and moved them to the USB stick. I know folks like to complain about iLok and Waves on USB, but after restoring my system 3 times in a week(don't ask) and re-authorizing half my plugins(non-iLok and non-waves), I'll take iLok and waves method any day

[YYR123]

I have the USB auths, but had HArd Drive auths once upon a time.

After reformatting once I realized I had wiped my auths inadvertently, Waves was super quick to help me get them back (basically gave them back to me) and asked no questions and told me I could do that about once a year without issue....super quick and helpful

I think there is another issue at play, b/c you should be able to move your licenses around freely, even if WUP is expired

[Andy Gone]

You can move licenses as you wish even when WUP expires.

Moved Waves to USB too. As far as I use iLok and eLicenser, another dongle just does not change anything :)

Actually I prefer it exactly because what @albee1952 said – no re-authorizations, easy to move between machines.

As a last resort, you always can recover your licenses no questions asked. Once per year though.

[noah330]

I had all my Waves plugins stop working a while back. From what Waves could tell me it had something to do with my network card.

I started a chat with Waves and they called me within minutes. They took control of my machine and got everything running again free of charge - and I was out of WUP on some things and they also put them on a USB.

I can't say enough about how awesome their support was.

[suicune]

I was able to recover waves licences a couple of months ago from a dead machine - took 5 mins and my WUP has expired. It was very easy. Like was said you can only do it once a year, but if you're blowing up macs more often than that you may be doing something wrong!

[simon.a.billington]

Originally Posted by suicune

I was able to recover waves licences a couple of months ago from a dead machine - took 5 mins and my WUP has expired. It was very easy. Like was said you can only do it once a year, but if you're blowing up macs more often than that you may be doing something wrong!

...Unless you have a valid WUP. The you can do it numerous times.

To paraphrase what I said earlier, if you find you need a second recovery for the year, or face not being able to use the investment, you can always WUP then and there to get the extra recovery support you need.

No need to purchase WUP annually at all.

[jsvalmont]

Originally Posted by simon.a.billington

...Unless you have a valid WUP. The you can do it numerous times.

To paraphrase what I said earlier, if you find you need a second recovery for the year, or face not being able to use the investment, you can always WUP then and there to get the extra recovery support you need.

No need to purchase WUP annually at all.

That is not true. When this happened to me I was fully up to date on WUP and they still told me you could only recover once per year.

[simon.a.billington]

I might be wrong then and have to look into that. I was sure I read it in their WUP agreement policy however.

I'll look into it...

[metalmixer]

What happens if your USB drive blows up?