English Chess Forum

Wanted to ask some other people their opinion on what should I do. Give up on Chessbase and try another program; Take their offer of a reduced ChessBase Light 2009 Premium; or fight for a free replacement of Chess Base Light Premium. I'm personally a bit peeved, and was going to try for the replacement as I feel I paid for it, but wanted to see where other people thought I stood.


I paid 50 Euro last February 2009, to upgrade Chessbase Light 2007 to the Premium version so I could create databases to transfer books onto the computer to make it easier to study them and to use later on a laptop when on the move.

I have just reinstalled Windows XP on my computer and of course then needed to reinstall CB Light... unfortunately a message came up stating, "Installer expired, please visit www.chessbase.com". So I contacted Chessbase saying I had paid 50 Euro to activate CB Light and was unable to do so as the installer had expired. How could I use my 50 Euro activation key to get CB light Premium?

Their reply was:

"Dear Chess Friend,

thank you very much for your email.

The old CB Light 2007 can no longer be installed for technical reason. There
will also be no bugfix here anymore.

As a gesture of will and with the intention to keep you a satisfied customer
we would like to offer you a Premium Key for the new CB Light 2009 program
at the special price of 30 EURO only (list price is 49,99 EURO).

The new CB Light 2009 programs comes with several improvements over the old
version. The most striking feature is the new superfast Online DB with more
than 4,5 million games. You will find games here in less than one second,
and the database is upgraded on a weekly basis.

Visit
http://www.chessbase.com/download/cblight/index.asp

for more information.

If you want to make use of this offer and if you have a PayPal account
please arrange the payment to our PayPal account: [email protected].
Please contact us again if you prefer a different method of payment (VISA or
MasterCard).

Kind regards"

Ashley Peile wrote:Wanted to ask some other people their opinion on what should I do. Give up on Chessbase and try another program; Take their offer of a reduced ChessBase Light 2009 Premium; or fight for a free replacement of Chess Base Light Premium. I'm personally a bit peeved, and was going to try for the replacement as I feel I paid for it, but wanted to see where other people thought I stood.

Its unreasonable for something to stop working less than a year after purchase in my opinion. I'd tell them that if they were unable to make the activation key work again I wanted a full refund of the purchase price (but I might settle for a substantial partial refund).

If you need a replacement have you considered a chess playing program with database functions, such as Fritz 12, which can be bought for £17.99 on play.com (http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/1214593 ... cat:Puzzle)?

Ashley Peile wrote:I have just reinstalled Windows XP on my computer and of course then needed to reinstall CB Light... unfortunately a message came up stating, "Installer expired, please visit http://www.chessbase.com".

The installer "might" actually be physical date based, so you could try setting your computer date back a year and then trying the installation then?

I am guessing of course

Ashley Peile wrote: The old CB Light 2007 can no longer be installed for technical reason. There
will also be no bugfix here anymore.

As a gesture of will and with the intention to keep you a satisfied customer
we would like to offer you a Premium Key for the new CB Light 2009 program
at the special price of 30 EURO only (list price is 49,99 EURO).

The new CB Light 2009 programs comes with several improvements over the old
version. The most striking feature is the new superfast Online DB with more
than 4,5 million games. You will find games here in less than one second,
and the database is upgraded on a weekly basis.

That's probably the most insulting gesture of good-will I've ever seen.

I agree - withdrawing support for that product so soon is not great.

You could always try to get them to throw something else into the deal , for example a years premium membership on their playchess server or one of their older opening cds that you're interested in ? Given the prevailing economic conditions they might be happy to compromise, their getting revenue after all and you're only asking for something that costs them nothing.

Make sure you let them know how unhappy you are with the situation and that you feel pissed enough to bitch about it on a forum !

Carl, you're a genius! Thanks for the guess.

Pity the guys at Chessbase weren't so helpful. I replied Wednesday before last, saying how disappointed I was at the fact that I couldn't reinstall a program after paying for it 11 months ago and that they expected me to pay more money to buy an upgrade. At the end of the email I added that after this experience I would be reluctant to buy any ChessBase products in future. Still haven't heard back from them, and I doubt I will... I'm sure they'd have replied within 6 working days if they were going to. Overall, I'd say from my experience, ChessBase customer services suck!

Unfortunately when I tried activating the upgrade, it said the serial number was in use. Too late now, with a fresh install, to deactivate the previous copy (didn't think!) so I'm going to try contacting them again and see what I can do.

Ashley Peile wrote:Unfortunately when I tried activating the upgrade, it said the serial number was in use. Too late now, with a fresh install, to deactivate the previous copy (didn't think!) so I'm going to try contacting them again and see what I can do.

You can probably do a remove via control panel and add remove programs and then install it again, but you would be stuck with the older product then...

They "should" be able to sort out your serial number issue though!

Best of luck with it

Twitter, Facebook and go on as many forums, stating how bad you think they are, and they will come round to changing their minds.

Power of the Net

I recommend downloading for free chess programs.
SURELY there is some freedom of speech here!
What I'm about to say is not hateful, racist ... yada, yada, yada ...
but it is considered a bit of a curse word on other chess forums... (why?)
here goes...

"Torrents".

Peter Lalic wrote:I recommend downloading for free chess programs.
SURELY there is some freedom of speech here!
What I'm about to say is not hateful, racist ... yada, yada, yada ...
but it is considered a bit of a curse word on other chess forums... (why?)
here goes...

"Torrents".

May not be hateful or racist, but is definitely illegal. Especially since the Digital Economy Act was rushed through at the end of the previous parliament

So is "Ripping a CD" or recording a VHS from the TV. No-one has been prosecuted for these, ever.
We have very strange and illogical laws in this country regarding IP, copyright and online activities IMO.

Richard Cowan wrote:We have very strange and illogical laws in this country regarding IP, copyright and online activities IMO.

I agree, Richard. At times they're incomprehensible / complicated.

Yes, torrent downloading is illegal. I confess to that fact, even if, let's say, "some good friends have given me many, many ChessBase DVDs".

But surely I am allowed to mention that people are able (although in fact not allowed) to download things. Otherwise they are kept out of the know. In future, I will say also that it is illegal, just in case.

Since the DEA was passed, it has become highly inadvisiable to torrent. Though if you can get chessbase by recording a VHS from TV, i doubt anyone would find out.

Would you like it if you had worked very hard to create a product that took loads of your time for someone to make copies of it and not pay you your dues? Would you support such behaviour if you had bills and a mortgage to pay?

Ljubica Lazarevic wrote:Would you like it?

Of course, this is a good point.
Speaking in general about these workers, I would understand if they were unhappy about the free distribution of their material.

But I am just worried for a unsuccessful person (with therefore not much money), who plays chess - there are many, many, many such people. What if this chess player starts spending such large amounts of money (£30 per FritzTrainer DVD)? Perhaps his obsession with chess study goes too far, and his finances are in trouble? I would feel very sorry for such a person who cannot afford a luxury like this DVD (I believe that all ChessBase DVDs are vastly overpriced). If there is a way to download the product, why not inform people? It pains me to think of people spending good money for improvement at a board game, like Scrabble, Snakes and Ladders or Chess (of course I exaggerate).

If the question is directed at me personally, I would say that I would work in a different way. I would understand that material in digital format (if it is popular) is regularly put up for free download. Thus, I would not work in this DVD business.