Microstation 7

I don't believe v7 is freeware, but I could be wrong. I still have one seat up here that we haven't upgraded to v8.

Years ago MicroStation required a dongle key on the serial port before they would boot. Nowadays without a license being installed they just boot up for a 15 minute tryout. Before 15 minutes is up you need save everything and then reopen it for another 15 minutes.

I've been a Microstation user since mid '90's. I have the cd for Powerdraft, then upgraded to V7. They provide you with a license key code and no software whatsoever, and it is specific to that single computer. I later upgraded to V8, which is greatly more useful. Same drill, they provide you with a license key code specific to that computer and no software.

Each upgrade has an upgrade fee that isn't too bad. When I switched to V8 circa 2002, I did not wish to pay the $700/yr maintenance fee, so never did. I kept that computer until it crashed and burned a couple years ago so now I'm SOL. I tried to transfer my license to another computer and they wanted me to pay the back maintenance fees, which was considerable. The option was to buy a new license to the tune of around $10K. So I just loaded my Powerdraft onto my laptop and have been using since.

Nothing Bentley provides is "freeware". It actually is expensive ware. If this is new software for you I'd skip Bentley all together and look into Traverse PC, Carlson, Microsurvey - which are much more suited to surveying

Microstation

We had a license with Bentley for no specific number of chairs since 1993. We use to pay a small upgrade fee whenever a new V came down the pike. All in all we had two engineers using MS daily and four other PCs with MS installed, of which three were used almost daily.

Everything was peaches and cream...until they came out with V8. The new version runs to the internet and "tattles" on you when you're using it. We got a nasty letter from Bentley wanting $$$ for all our chairs. We faxed them a copy of our original agreement, which specifically allows multiple users. Their reply (after a couple of weeks) was "We don't do that anymore..." (wtf?!)

After much heated phone discussions we purchased a copy of Powerdraft (a neutered version of MicroStation) for 2K. It's on the PC that's in the print room. We left all the V8 software on the other computers, but cannot have any more than three folks using MS at any given time. Our annual fees are around 1500 bucks.

I actually disconnected my PC from the 'net in an effort to discourage the software from tattling on me. It saves a log file and the next time you get on the 'net it shoots it off to Bentley. Big Brother is alive and well.

They use to be a fairly friendly outfit. Their tech desk would even help us out with our EaglePoint from time to time. Not anymore...they're just like all rest now...

Microstation

> Bentley. Big Brother is alive and well.
>
> They use to be a fairly friendly outfit. Their tech desk would even help us out with our EaglePoint from time to time. Not anymore...they're just like all rest now...

I thought is was just little guys like me who got picked on. I know their market is big guys like state DOT's and who knows about international, which believe is much bigger. But face it, it is better than auto crud. Just get out your wallet.

But I disagree that "..they're just like all the rest...". I think were on the cutting edge of creating the rest, with all that internet nonsense and annual maintenance fees. Just in case you actually did need support or had a couple questions. No current maintenance fees paid, no support for problems that likely you already knew the answer to before you called so figure out yourself.

I like your "tattling on me" scenario. If it wasn't so true, it would be funny. Seems like you've got the workaround though. 😉

Glad I have my Powerdraft cd's. I can load it on any 32 bit computer. Plus I have about 4 inches of manuals I can barely understand. Bentleyese is similar to Timbleese as almost foreign languages.

Oh yea, there aren't many auto crud users who could even draw a line in MS. Just as a MS user opens an auto crud file and scratches his head. I was forced into an auto crud place for 3 yrs, and it sucked. Takes forever to even open the huge file that should be 700K. Then they wanted to go Civil 3D. I just laughed. Civil 3D is the red headed bashtard stepchild of microstation. Kinda thinks the same way. But I quit and started my own deal back up 7 yrs ago.

Microstation

What you describe actually saves big companies money. You pay seat license fees based on peak quarterly usage. So if you normally run only a few seats and occasionally have 3X as many people working on a big project to get it out the door, you're only paying for your actual use rather than having extra licenses go unused.

Microstation

> What you describe actually saves big companies money. You pay seat license fees based on peak quarterly usage. So if you normally run only a few seats and occasionally have 3X as many people working on a big project to get it out the door, you're only paying for your actual use rather than having extra licenses go unused.

If you believe that I've got some oceanfront property in Idaho to sell you!

What he is describing is that he has x-number of licenses (just like us). If you open up x-number +1 of licenses at the same time you get billed for it. Keep in mind that there is NO way at all to monitor this, no real time monitoring at all. How are you supposed to know how many users have the software open at one time? The method Bentley uses is pathetic. Just check their forums http://communities.bentley.com/products/licensing/f/275813.aspx if they haven't deleted or banned the complainers.

And...get this. They base usage by the calendar hour. What that means is that if you open up the software at 10:01 you are counted as 1 user until 11:00 am even if you open the program for 10 minutes to review something and close it. You can imagine the difficulties this poses without any method of tracking this in real time.

Sorry for the rant but their methods are very questionable if not fraudulent and if they weren't entrenched in the DOT world we wouldn't touch there software.

Microstation

> And...get this. They base usage by the calendar hour. What that means is that if you open up the software at 10:01 you are counted as 1 user until 11:00 am even if you open the program for 10 minutes to review something and close it. You can imagine the difficulties this poses without any method of tracking this in real time.

You are soooo right. When I bitched over the phone about their "hour" crap, the guy told me that's the way the software was written. I called him and his BS out right there on the phone. I told him they could un-write if they wanted!

Their "log" has time stamps. Simply put: if they can record a users time, they can cut some slack on that "hourly" business. That hour crap is an arbitrary length of time chosen to optimize fees and justify the existence of their "watch" crew.

Most of our overages were just opening a dgn and plotting it. Didn't take 45 seconds.

sheeesh...the way Bentley acted you would've thought we rode with Frank and Jesse!

ok...I'm gettin' pissed again...better shut up before I need to pop a Nitrol under my tongue..