Act! Licensing Software Update

We have recently been informed that an embedded third-party software component of Act! that facilitates licensing services (Protexis) is being discontinued by the manufacturer at the end of 2018. As of January 1st, 2019, depending on what version of Act! you are running, there will be necessary steps that need to be taken to ensure uninterrupted access. You can read the statement from Swiftpage, here

This affects all Act! users

All Act! users will need to upgrade.

If you're on an old version, Act! may stop working in January.
If you have v18.2 or newer, YOU WILL NEED A PATCH
To Check Your Version in Act! – Help Menu > About Act!

As of January 1st, 2019, customers who haven’t updated Act! will no longer be able to:

Install Act! on new machines
Re-activate Act! on existing machines
Modify your user count
Make key modifications to existing machines (eg. Motherboard swap, network card swap)

If you make any of the changes listed above, your Act! product will fail to re-activate and you will lose access to the software completely.

*Note: If you are a NEW Act! customer (I.e. you are not upgrading from a different version), and you have purchased v21 on or after November 19th, 2018, you will NOT be affected by this issue.

Please refer to the obsolescence policy for your region below:

North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand: Act! Support Obsolescence Policy
Europe, UK and Rest of the World: Act! Support Obsolescence Policy

See below for the necessary steps for your version and the expected dates for updates.

If you have any questions, or need any help, please contact GL Computing by clicking on this button:

Licensing Software Update: v17 and earlier

Solution:

Because you are on a retired version of Act! you are no longer eligible to receive critical updates and enhancements. In order to ensure uninterrupted access to your product, you must upgrade to latest version of Act! by December 31st, 2018.

More info →

Licensing Software Update: v18.2

Solution:

Version 18 will be unsupported from Nov 30th 2018 as per the obsolescence policy linked above. In order to ensure uninterrupted access to your product, it is strongly recommended that you upgrade to latest version of Act! by December 31, 2018.

Should you elect not to upgrade to Act! v21, we have decided to make available a one-time update for v18.2 products that seeks to address this specific issue in January, 2019. We cannot and do not make any representations as to how long this one-time update will provide the functionality of Act! that you expect. Please note that this decision to provide you with the update in this instance shall not be precedent, or require us to provide, neither now nor in the future, any fixes for additional issues that may or will arise after the date of obsolescence as specified in the Act! Support Obsolescence Policy.

Update 7 for v18.2 is available here

More info →

Licensing Software Update: v19, v20 and v21

Solution:

In order to ensure uninterrupted access to your product, you must apply the update provided before December 31st, 2018.

More info →

What’s new and fixed in Act! updates

To see what’s new and what issues have been fixed in updates for your version, click here.

I was recently asked about how to remove some of the Act! items that load for each user from a machine used for Terminal Services, where only a few of the users needed Act!.
The following ideas are also worth doing on any system/server where Act!’s Outlook/Google Integration isn’t required. This also applies to Web Servers with Act! Premium for Web as the integration is done from the client end.
There are two basic areas where you can remove these components.

Startup Folder Shortcut

The All Users Windows Startup Folder can be found at:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

These programs start up for all users. To open this folder, bring up the Run box (Windows Key + R), type shell:common startup and hit Enter.

From there, you can remove:

Act! Integration – this shortcut is only needed to set the Preferences for the ISPA (Integration Services Patch for Act!) that provides the synchronisation of Contacts/Activities with Outlook and/or Google.

If you want to make this available to specific users, you can place the shortcut in their individual Startup folders, located at:

C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

These programs start up for the current logged in user only. To directly access this folder for the current user, open Run (Windows key + R), type shell:startup and hit Enter.

Windows Registry Run Keys

Bring up the Run box (Windows Key + R), then type regedit and hit enter

Warning: We strongly recommend that you back up the system registry before making any changes. Incorrect changes to the registry could result in permanent data loss or corrupted files. Please make sure you modify only the keys specified. For detailed information on backing up the Windows Registry, click the link below:

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

Check each of the following locations:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

From there, you can remove any of the following keys if you like:

Act! Preloader – This loads parts of Act! to make it faster when opening and using the program
Act.Outlook.Service – Needed to load the Act! address book in Outlook and for recording history
Act.Outlook64.Service – Needed to load the Act! address book in Outlook and for recording history
ACTSchedulerUI – Used for changing the Scheduler settings. Likely only needed for the admin
ISPA - Integration Services Patch for Act!. Provides the synchronisation of Contacts/Activities between Act! and Outlook, Exchange, Office365 or Google.

Memory Saving

In my testing, removing all of these saves about 50MB Private memory and 200MB Commit memory per user for those not needing Outlook/Google integration with Act!.
Let me know, in the comments, if your results differ.

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