I don't want V....now what?

I am just an amatuer wanabe organist with a lower class key fob......I can never (at my age) pretend to do more than just enjoy the simple pleasure of playing any of my dozens of organ models .....I have been fortunate to collect many freebie rar files over the past years.......I just want to hang on to what I have (works perfectly) and remain content....

Am I in danger of losing what I already have with this new fangled V update? I have the HP 4.1 model....
Hoping for good news.....Thanks
Joseph

If you are content with what you have you can keep using it in perpetuity. Your current installation will not cease to function. The only way that would happen would be if you made a decision to upgrade to HW V. After completing the upgrade process any previous versions would indeed be rendered unusable. However, if you take no action nothing will change and you can continue to use Hauptwerk 4 as you have been.

Thank your Mr. SMann...
That's all the assurance I need....
and I remain a happy camper.....

In case your computer breaks down (hopefully years from now), you should have externally stored backups of your Hauptwerk installation, user settings, and the HW installation .exe file to reinstall if necessary on a new computer. Also the Sentinel drivers.

There isn't any guarantee that an update or new version of Windows will still run HW 4. Or your USB key can break.

While nobody is forcing you to upgrade to HW 5 now, technology tends to make it necessary within about 5 years anyway.

Hello,

While nobody is forcing you to upgrade to HW 5 now, technology tends to make it necessary within about 5 years anyway.

Who knows what will be in 5 years. This is quite a long time to go from "amateur wannabe organist" to "professional wannabe organist" Maybe you have the chance to get your hands on a nice self made console. Maybe HW V.1 or VI or SIX or whatever it may be called is out there with some features you ultimately like and are worth the upgrade costs.

Until then: Be safe, make a backup.

Kind Regards,
Rico

Yipes - I just realized I don't have the Sentinel driver installation file! I may upgrade to V5 at some point, but just in case ... does anyone have a link to the proper driver download? I have searched but since they don't come from the Hauptwerk site, I have no idea whether they are the correct ones.

[mdyde]

Hello Sylvaticus,

It's available on the main Hauptwerk website here (under 'Support | Licensing | ...'):

https://www.hauptwerk.com/v4-license-updates/

Thanks so much, Martin! Can I assume that since my dongle has been activated once, I will not need to do so again with a fresh installation of V4?

Right, the HW4 dongle can move to a new HW4 installation without reactivating.

I'm in a similar(ish) position as my present Win7 system has been working for nearly 10 years and my PC surely won't go on for ever. When it's time for a new PC and Windows 10 I might take the plunge with HWV and just accept that for the next wee while I can't buy myself any more sample sets (and indeed I wouldn't be able to regardless of not having HWV as my SSD is full!)

But before any upgrade I'd definitely want to image my hard drive so that if I tried HWV and for some reason regretted the upgrade I could go back to HW4 with all settings intact. Indeed I'd suggest having a disk image of your system as it stands if you don't already, stored offsite, so that you can get back to your existing system very easily if the hard drive fails.

The strategy of backtracking will only work if you don't migrate any of your encrypted Version 4 licenses. The old dongle has to be in place as well as the new one (or at least you need an iLok account with internet access to the iLok cloud) in order to accomplish the migration. Once you initiate the migration process and submit the file, the Sentinel dongle will be disabled permanently.

The other problem with this - unless I'm missing something - is that you can't just image your hard drive and expect it to work on a new computer because the Windows installation on the disk image will not activate on a new machine. Linux, on a free distro, would be another story - just take the drive out of your old computer, pop it into the new one, and boot up. Except you would be limited to the free version of Hauptwerk v4 (running via Wine).

If you are going the route of casting V4 in stone, it might make sense to buy the new computer now. If you are old like me, that would take care of the problem. However, V5 would be cheaper!