Cubase license question, anyone?

Alright you 'orrible lot, see if you can help me with a quandary I've encountered on my travels through the world of Cubase.

I had been using Cubase Studio 4 for some time. Earlier this year I upgraded the license to a full Cubase 6 license. Since Cubase 6 doesn't run on Mac OS 10.4.11 which is what I'm usually using, it's been installed as planned on my mum's laptop running Windows 7 (we did a sort of joint ownership thing where I'm going to teach her how to use it etc). However, what I didn't realise is that when you upgrade from a Cubase Studio license to a full Cubase license, you are no longer able to run the Studio (intermediate-priced) version of the software, only the full version! Since I used to run Studio 4 on my Mac and on the PC I used to use, I can no longer access any of the projects!

This puts me in a rather strange situation, in that I need to get hold of full versions of Cubase 4 (and ideally 5 as well), but I don't need any sort of license key crack or anything because I do actually own a license...yet of course I'd have to actually buy another, older version of the software I already own in order to get it from Steinberg anyway. I just need the files that would be installed to the computer from the DVD, or a DVD itself, which won't run without the license key.

Can anyone offer me any good ideas about what to do, as I'm a bit confused about the whole thing!

The way the license system works is that you have a license for ONE copy of the software to be running at any time. If you have several machines, each with a copy that is legal but only if you run one at a time.
BUT when you Upgrade, as opposed to buying another copy you still only have the same license to use ONE copy of the software so it disables all previous copies. It assumes that you won't want them anyway.

So you could have additional copies of the upgraded software on other machines and that would be legal but not if you had them all running at once, because then that would be using multiple instances of the software, which you haven't paid for.

Ways out of this : Buy more copies of the software.
Hack the software you have and risk getting into legal problems.

I think you've misunderstood the nature of the problem, Thud.

I have a license to run one instance of the software. Running one instance is what I want to do. However, while I could now run Cubase SX, SX2, SX3, 4, 5 or 6 with this license, I can no longer run Cubase SL1, SL2, SL3, Studio 4, Studio 5, or Studio 6. I have previously used SL3 and Studio 4. My other operating systems won't support Cubase 6, but they would support 4 or 5, which is why I need a copy of one of those in order to run one instance of the program on anything, and access my old projects. The license key is on a USB dongle, so it can be transferred easily between computers.

Total pain in the neck but I hope my suggestion works!

Will older Cubase files open in Cubase 6? There's another World of pain waiting to happen. Otherwise you're down to bouncing as .Wav on one partition and having a new OS on another partition...

What a pain.

Yes, since SX you've been able to open older files in a new version, but once you've saved them in the new one then you can't open them in an older version. That's fine for me though.

Thing is, a lot of my older projects (first Ben & Amy album for example) are on a PC. However, I understand that some versions on Windows 7 will run XP-era programs without a hitch...so that might be the direction to go in for those.

You'll probably find that most XP programs will run ok on 7. The only issue I've had is with a couple of older games that need access to things like graphics hardware. I've had 7 for ages and it's fairly backwards-compatible. Windows 8 won't be.

It's charming, isn't it, the way both sides of the computer software duopoly show little to no regard for users of what might be termed 'historic' software. Programs don't stop being useful simply because they're old...but, I suppose they cease to be profitable. Surely there's a market left unexploited there...