That Old Chestnut "The Dreaded Licence Key"

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Guys

I am teaching a colleague to use PTE, initially I used my computer until he was sure he could cope, he is 93 BTW. I had loaded a show built up on my laptop onto his machine. Last week he decided to purchase the de-lux version and I helped him through the buying process on his machine. I thought I had completed the process and loaded the licence key and went on my way. Later in the week he rang and said he couldn't get the show I had done to operate and the warning about 10 slides only and license key came up. Today I went back and tried to sort things out, I loaded the two key strings onto a word pad doc in my documents, re-named it and tried and tried and tried. Then I realised there were two key strings one for PTE and one for the video builder. So I tried again using only the key string for pte, the message came up "you have successfully loaded your licence key", so i tried to open my old show, same problem load your key So I tried to construct a show from scratch using fresh pictures, no good, it would only let me use 10. This time I swiched of his anti virus programme, went through the whole proceedure again, supposedly successfully, result zilch So as a final act of desperation I copied the key email back to wnsoft asking for help, they replied this evening "contact the forum" I'm stumped.

Yachtsman1

[xahu34]

Hi Yachtsman1,

You may look what's in the registry. Open the Run window, type "regedit", click ok. Do not make any changes in the Registry Editor! Follow the path:

My Computer\ HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\PTE.

Inside the key "PTE" you should find the following entry: Name: Key, Type: REG_SZ, Data: *****the license key*******.

Best regards,

Xaver

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Yachtsman1,

You may look what's in the registry. Open the Run window, type "regedit", click ok. Do not make any changes in the Registry Editor! Follow the path:

My Computer\ HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\PTE.

Inside the key "PTE" you should find the following entry: Name: Key, Type: REG_SZ, Data: *****the license key*******.

Best regards,

Xaver

Hi Xaver

I have checked that out on my computer and got as far as the two attached screen shots, but dont know how to proceed further. The shots are from my computer not my friends who is having the trouble, He lives some way from me so I need to be sure I know what I am doing before I return to try again.

Regards Yachtsman1

[xahu34]

Hi Yachtsman1,

All I want to say is that you can check via the registry editor if the registration key has been installed correctly or not. What the program does (in any case), I do not know. If the key is included correctly, it should work!

I indicated the position, where the key is stored. Warning: Once you have found it, do not publish it, as everybody who will see it will be in the position to (mis)use it. A screenshot typically will no show the whole key, but be careful anyway. What you did, you looked at the entries "PicturesToExe" and "PicturesToExe_RegType". Four resp. three positions below you see (as your images show) the entry "PTE". This one contains the registration key (Again: Do not publish!!!). You may look at your friend's PC and check if the registry contains the said entry. If it is there, and the program does not work, you should ask the service!

Best regards

Xaver

[nobeefstu]

Yachtsman1,

Your screen shots indcate to me you are not at the correct registry location. You must search for PTE and not PicturesToExe from beginning of registry for Pte's key.

Make sure in the Find window you type PTE and select checkbox ... Match Whole String Only.

[xahu34]

Yachtsman1,

Your screen shots indcate to me you are not at the correct registry location. You must search for PTE and not PicturesToExe from beginning of registry for Pte's key.

Make sure in the Find window you type PTE and select checkbox ... Match Whole String Only.

See post no 4!

Regards,

Xaver

[fh1805]

Eric (aka Yachtsman1)

I've done the tests on the old XP-based laptop with results as follows:

On my desktop system I navigated into the emails that you forwarded and found the attached file - reg.txt. I right-clicked on this and saved it to a USB memory stick as reg.txt. On a second memory stick I already had the zip file for v5.52 as a left-over from when I upgraded my Vista laptop to PTE V5.52.

I next turned to the old XP-based laptop (Lost about two hours while it did some Norton updates and some Windows XP updates. As it hadn't been powered up for about two weeks, these didn't come as a surprise!). Once it was all up to date, I copied the PTE zip from the USB stick to the desktop and copied the reg.txt from the other stick to the desktop.

I installed PTE 5.52 taking all the default options. When I ran it, it behaved as expected and even allowed me to preview a sequence of more than 10 slides - which did surprise me! I then remembered that this machine had had a version of PTE installed at one time but I had uninstalled it months ago. I closed down PTE and looked into the registry using regedit and, sure enough, there was the PTE key entry from the previously installed version. I deleted this key entry - as Xaver and nobeefstu have pointed out, you need to be looking at the entry for PTE and not those two for PicturesToExe that you found.

Having delete the key entry, I ran PTE 5.52 again (no need to uninstall/install) and now I got the prompt to register, which I ignored at this point. When I tried to preview a 20 slide sequence I go the warning about having only 10 slides in a sequence. I closed PTE down and re-laucnhed it. This time I took the "Load a key" and navigated to the reg.txt file on the Windows Desktop. It took this and accepted it. Now, when I previewed the 20 slide sequence there was no warning. The key had been accepted and was working as expected. Whilst I was in regedit I had noticed that there was another key entry further down the list for WnSoft. When I expanded that, there was a "child" entry for Video-Builder. This entry contained the product key for Video-Builder.

So, what you need to do, young man is, I believe:

- Save Arthur's reg.txt file to a USB stick. Save your PTE v5.52 install zip to a USB stick

- Go to Arthur's and uninstall his existing PTE v5.52

- Edit the registry using regedit; navigating as per the instructions you got from Xaver

- Delete the entire entry for PTE and if there is one, the one for VideoBuilder under Wnsoft

- Close regedit

- Install PTE v5.52 from the zip file on your memory stick (or from Arthur's zip file if he still has it)

- When PTE prompts for the "Load a key", point it at the reg.txt on your memory stick

- Check out the key is working by building a sequence that uses more than 10 images and try and preview it.

- If that test works, start the process of building a DVD-Video, if you're going to get a key warning it'll come up when you are assigning the .pte project into the DVD-Video project or shortly thereafter

Hope this gets him going,

regards,

Peter

[xahu34]

... This time I took the "Load a key" and navigated to the reg.txt file on the Windows Desktop. It took this and accepted it...

Hi Peter,

here you apply the registration method which did not like to consider in the corresponding FAQ

Best regards,

Xaver

[fh1805]

here you apply the registration method which did not like to consider in the corresponding FAQ

OK, you caught me out!

I didn't even process the file attachment in the manner that I described in the FAQ (I'll own up to that before you catch me out there as well!).

Eric's problem is proving very useful for increasing my knowledge about the keys and the registry entries. Once we know we've solved the problem, I'll update the FAQ to take into account what we're learning here.

regards,

Peter

[xahu34]

OK, you caught me out!

It's nice to see that you bear it with humour.

Regards,

Xaver

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Peter & Others

Thanks for the assistance. I think I know what to do, but when you have a couple of guys with a combined age of 161 anything can happen. For your information and how I understand you want me to proceed.

1 My Machine in programmes has a folder named WNSOFT PICTURESTOEXE, inside are 2 sub folders named 5.1 and 5.5. there is also a text document named REG(1).

2. I copied 5.5 to a memory stick. The text document contained 2 key strings with no punctuation whatsoever, unlike the keystrings in Arthurs email.

3. Copy the key string attachment to Arthurs email to the memory stick.

Now onto Arthurs machine

Go into "add remove programmes" in control panel on his machine, and delete PTE 5.52

Go into his registry and delete PTE & Video Builder. Close Regedit.

Install PTE from my memory stick, run it to the load a key phase.

Install the attacment containing Arthurs keys.

Do a trial show with over 10 slides and check if it works. Do the same with DVD builder.

If I have missed anything please let me know. I intend to visit him tomorrow if he's available to see if I can sort it. I'll come back to report the results following my visit.

Thanks again

Yachtsman1

[fh1805]

Eric,

Step 1 and 2 are wrong, or I've misunderstood you!

Somewhere on your machine you should still have the zip file that you downloaded from the WnSoft website in order to get the v5.52 software. You would then have used that zip file to install your copy of PTE v5.52. What you now need to copy to your memory stick at Step 1/Step 2 is that zip file - NOT the installed software files from C:\Program Files\WnSoft Pictures To Exe\. Unfortunately I have no way of knowing where you might have hidden the zip file on your system. If you cannot find the zip file, the simple solution is to download a fresh copy of it from the WnSoft website (www.wnsoft.com) and save that copy onto your memory stick.

After that you seem to have the right idea. I know what it is like to try and teach "elder statesmen" about computers. I'm a tutor at a "Computing for Beginners" course in my village. Our oldest student is a gent of 83 years of age who has never used a computer or a typewriter in his life. It's a big challenge - but I'm enjoying it. More to the point - so is he!

regards,

Peter

[quietstorm]

Hi Guys

I am teaching a colleague to use PTE, initially I used my computer until he was sure he could cope, he is 93 BTW.

Our oldest student is a gent of 83 years of age who has never used a computer or a typewriter in his life. It's a big challenge - but I'm enjoying it. More to the point - so is he!

regards,

Peter

Like the old saying here in the states:

"Never too late to teach a old dog new tricks!"

I think it is awesome to see our elders learning a new curve late in their life.

It will keep both their mental and physical capacity active.

I hope when I get to that age..I can still remember(at present, I still have a hard time remembering things!)

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Eric,

Step 1 and 2 are wrong, or I've misunderstood you!

Hi Peter

I originally bought 5.1 using my second laptop and upgraded it to 5.5 on this one, I will check the other machine to see if I can find it. I also transferred documents from the second machine to this one using a usb to usb link which was iffy to say the least and difficult to use. I presume the file we are talking about should be in my documents/programmes???

Regards Eric

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Peter again

I have searched my old machine and can't find a zip file with the number you quote PTE v5.52, only a folder in programmes named 5 not 5.1 as I said before. Not sure what you mean by "download it from wnsoft??? if you can't find it".

Regards Eric

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Peter

I think the file you are referring to is named apr-delux PTE5.5 ???

Regards Eric

[fh1805]

Hi Eric,

Yes, the zip file that comes down to your machine when you download PTE from the WnSoft website is called apr-deluxe.zip. If you've got a file of this name on your machine then that is the file that you want to copy to your USB stick.

regards,

Peter

[fh1805]

I hope when I get to that age..I can still remember(at present, I still have a hard time remembering things!)

I just hope I get to that age!

regards,

Peter

[oldarthur1]

I just hope I get to that age!

regards,

Peter

Hello everyone. I've been learning under Yachtsman 1, that means watching him try everything that everyone, mainly Peter, has been telling him, and somehow or other, the system is now working!

Many many thanks to everyone.

Oldarthur1

[fh1805]

Hi Arthur,

Welcome to the Forum! I'm pleased to hear that the collective brain power of the forum has managed to get your system into full working order.

Have fun with PTE!

regards,

Peter

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Everybody

To wind up this saga of the PTE key, I must hold my hands up, after visiting Arthur this afternoon it would appear that how I tried to add the key to the original sign in wizard for pte was the problem. It's 12 months since I bought my copy, that's my excuse. For those interested and to assist Peter in compiling his FAQ on the subject, I originally tried to cut and paste the key string, which must have included some unwanted text which caused the rejection of the key. This time I used the text document when asked for the key and after a small hiccup I shut down and re-started and all was well. The programme has accepted the show composed on my machine and Arthur & I produced a trial show of about 20 slides which also worked. Thanks to everybody, I'm sorry I wasted so much time.

To Arthur, I forgot to try the video builder in my haste to get back home for tonights Harvest service at Church, but I think that's a minor snag, which I will sort next time.

Arthur is producing a show called "On my doorstep" which I will help him to put on mediafire so you can all see you are never to old to learn.

Yachtsman1

[fh1805]

Good work, Eric!

I for one look forward to seeing Arthur's first offering.

regards,

Peter