File Share Encryption

Since June 15 2012 my copy of PGP Desktop 9.8 with a perpetual license no longer allows me to mount virtual disks.  It requests a license, but if you enter the license in the initial authorization routine it looks on the internet for a while and then says "you may not be connected to the internet".  Since I am connected to the internet and since the original PGP/Network Associates web pages are either down or aliased to a generic Symantec page, I assume that Symantec has now taken down the PGP License Server as part of its "no more support for PGP 9.8".

Does anyone know if this is the case and, if so, is there anything that can be done about it or have I just lost all of my PGP secured archives on the virtual disks?

You might be successful in resolving this by going to C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\PGP Corporation\PGP and renaming PGPprefs.xml   This will result in your licensing and preferences all having to be reset.  If it is not successful you can rename the file to the original name of PGPprefs.xml to return to your current status.  If you are still having the difficulty, I'd suggest contacting Customer Care - they handle all licensing issues. 

Tom,  thank you for the rapid response.  I'd seen that suggestion in another post of yours and had already tried it, but to no avail.  I've also tried downloading a trial version of 10.2 and entering my License number, but the response I get is exactly the same.

I'll try Customer Care tomorrow.

Paul

You may want to try this for the 10,.2 download:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH149480

Thanks Tom, I got the 10.2 trial version working with the 30 day license I was sent, so I can now open my virtual discs!

However, my original license won't work in 10.2 or in 9.8.3 so I still think that the licence server for versions lower than 10 may have been switched off by Symantec.  Any thoughts on that?

Alternatively, I may not be entering the right name, organisation or email address.  Since the 9.8.3 program doesn't see me as licensed, it shows nothing in the Help, About, box!

I'll call customer care.

Paul

I think the 9.8.3 should still be able to work for you.  I think Customer Care will be able to advise you on the name and organization you used for the license purchase.

When you are prompted to enter license, use "Authorized User" as user name and "Authorized Company"  as corporation name.

Use your own authorization code as usual.

 

I am using the 9.8 version of PGP Desktop Professional Perpetual Licenses for which I have a license. However, I can not activate it ("PGP desktop was unable to cennect for authorization. It's possible that you Internet connection for web acces...). I have Internet connection.. In version 10.1.1 there are no problems. Can I use this version without violating the license agreement?

I would tend to think that if it accepts your license, it is okay.  However, it is Customer Care that handles licensing issues, so you may want to confirm with them.

I have said this before on other forum threads and I feel its important to highlight in here also. PGP Desktop 9.8 is End of Life for support and software maintenance. that means that if you run into a critical bug (such as corrupting your filesystem and you cannot boot) then supports only solution to help at this point would be to have you decrypt using a recovery CD and then upgrade your version of PGP. That combined with that fact that with PGP Desktop 9.8 (released over 3 years ago at this point) we don't support any of the current operating systems that Microsoft supports. From our 9.8 release notes:

System Requirements:

Microsoft Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4), Windows Server 2003 (Service Pack 1), Windows XP
(Service Pack 1 or 2; 32-bit versions only), Windows Vista (all 32-bit and 64-bit versions), Microsoft
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 (requires attached keyboard)
Note: The above operating systems are supported only when all of the latest hot fixes and security
patches from Microsoft have been applied.
PGP Whole Disk Encryption (WDE) is supported on client versions of Windows 2000 (Service Pack
4) and Windows XP (Service Pack 1 or 2), and on Windows Vista; it is not supported on Windows
2000 Server or 2003 Server.
512 MB of RAM
64 MB hard disk space

Here is a link to the release notes for your reference:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC3634

This means that if you are on Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista Sp1 (or newer) or Windows 7 (at all) then you are not supported by PGP Desktop 9.8 and this surely hasn't been tested or QA'd today since we are now on PGP Desktop 10.2.1 currently with 10.3 coming out here within a couple months.

I would strongly urge customers on PGP Desktop 9.8 to consider upgrading your software. Even if you have to pay another year to Symantec to get the latest software updates...

I have exactly the same problem, the (active) license validation got no response by the server so I cannot validate my (valid) license, unsupported or not I think a company must allow valid license to work on valid product version or maybe Symantec has other policies?

Who can I contact to solve this problem?

Thanks

Lorenzo

All licensing issues are handled by Customer Support.