I plan to keep PL2 on my Win 7 computer which will become an offline computer soon.
Can I use the upgrade price to put only PL3 on the new computer? (Assuming it will work on the cheapo Win 10 I bought.)
Yes.edit maybe see post under this post
You just do a fresh install on your win10.
Type in te key done.
One thing you might want to consider is that you no longer have a license to run PL2 if you purchase a PL3 upgrade. I asked support about this recently when I noticed that PL1 was no longer in my list of purchased software in my DxO login, and they pointed at section 3 of the EULA to support this. Not brutally obvious IMO, and more restrictive than other licenses.
It still works in practice, but you may run into activation restrictions, and DxO can presumably shut down your old license key whenever they want.
Also discussed in this thread.
owh! that’s new to me. (who reads the hole text normally, only by a “problem”…)
i can understand (a bit/litle) the thought of DxO in the difference between upgrade and purchage a full new version but somehow it’s a surprice for me.
re-selling ok that would be a no no. But reinstalling on a different pc inside the same LAN would be a normal way of use. (i would think of a old version on a laptop of my kids so they can learn to process there own images.Second of the same version would cause a only one active policy problem so i was thinking of reinstall the older version on the kids pc)
But now it seems i can’t proceed in that thought?
Wow, thanks for that info, after looking, I too lost my PL1. Because I upgraded from that license I guess.
It was news to me too. If DxO wants to limit the number of activations then they can do so, but saying that we can only run previously puchased software if we purchase a new version instead of an upgrade is fairly petty. Instead of rewarding loyal customers with an upgrade discount, DxO treats it like a trade-in rebate.
Their solution is also half-baked: an upgrade license replaces the old one, but they give you a new license key and don’t replace the existing installation. And since the old software continues to function until you try to move it to another computer and need to contact DxO to reset the activation counter, the impression is certainly that you’ve purchased a new license, not replaced an old one.
(Speaking for my self as customer)
Well this shows that they are worried that the older versions are go in the secondhand marked as a bought second live.
But replacing on a different pc owned by the same licence holder or a family member as wife or kids in the same house shouldn’t be a act of secondhand giveaway/sell/use. More a privilege of a loyal customer in my eyes.
But i can understand that that is difficult to control/check for DxO.
I need to read more ULA’s of other application’s to see if it’s normal or not this way of remote licence control. i never bothered to read all ULA’s full and with attention of most of my applications, maybe i need to change that habit. 
You do, do you read the fine print before signing up to your internet provider? I do and you should too.
Same with software licence agreements.
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Just for reference, here’s the offending paragraph from the EULA:
If DxO makes a Software release available you must be properly licensed to use the Software version identified by DxO as being eligible for the upgrade in order to use the Software release. Software labelled as an upgrade replaces and/or supplement the Software that formed the basis for your eligibility for the upgrade.
The and/or is enough to make this ambiguous, but DxO’s interpretation still isn’t obvious IMO. You can just as well read the second sentence as a statement about the impact of upgrade on your installation given how “Software” is defined earlier in the license as object code.
Legally, I have to agree with you - and I do for my ISP.
However I have 163 programs on my PC, excluding Windows, so for most of them it’s not going to happen 
In the UK Government lawyers don’t even bother, otherwise we wouldn’t get stories like this one: https://news.sky.com/story/no-deal-brexit-ferry-contractors-copy-conditions-from-takeaway-website-11597798
Well that makes no sense (meaning DxO not you). If I have one activation of PL2 on my Win 7 computer and one activation of PL3 on my Win 10 computer (if it even works on that computer)–why is that a problem? Why would/should I lose access to PL2? Elite has 3 activations so why would I lose access to PL2?
Someone from DxO better clarify. Otherwise, some of us may decide to not upgrade.
You can still run PL2 Elite on up to three computers even after the PL3 upgrade; DxO doesn’t prevent you from doing so. The problem is if you now want to install PL2 on some other computer; because your existing one has failed, you’ve bought a better one, you want to move PL2 to a lesser computer since you rarely use it now that you have PL3, or whatever.
To install PL2 on the new computer you need to have a free activation, and since you’ve already activated PL2 on three computers, you need to contact DxO to free up one of your PL2 activations. This is where they stop you: they will not reset the activation counter associated with your PL2 license since you no longer have a PL2 license: you traded it in when you purchased the PL3 upgrade.
It’s not particularly draconian if you just want to keep PL2 around for comparison while you get used to PL3, but you have lost your PL2 license, and you don’t have the freedom to redeploy PL2 as you wish the way you can with Capture One and others, where purchasing an upgrade gives you a license for the new version without affecting your existing license.
What I don’t get is why DxO is bothered about letting us use our previously purchased versions as we see fit. If they’re worried about all the activations we’re accumulating as we upgrade year after year they could limit the total number across versions. We’re probably mostly going to use the new version anyway, or why else did we upgrade to start with, but I’ve run into at least one upgrade in the past (not DxO) that was such a disaster that I ended up going back to the old version of the software in question. I would not have been a happy camper if it had been Photolab, I no longer had a license for the old version, and was limited to my existing computers and the kindness of DxO in letting me run the unlicensed version at all.
Personally, I’m also not keen on giving up an old version that I can run on my existing OS when the new version drops support for it. In your case it’s Windows 7, in my case it’s macOS Sierra: if I want to run PL3 then Sierra doesn’t make the cut. Photolab isn’t the only program I run, so upgrading my OS, or adding a new computer just for Photolab, or migrating everything to another computer with all the problems that can bring for other applications, is more trouble than it’s worth for anything less than an absolutely stellar PL3. I wish DxO was as liberal with OS support as Exposure is (anything from Yosemite for X5, same as X4), instead of dropping another version of macOS each year. Might simplify their development to only support current - 2 (I doubt there are technical reasons given the consistency with which versions are dropped), but makes it more difficult/costly for customers to stay on the upgrade train.
Once you have upgraded from PL2 Elite to PL3 Elite your 3 user license is now associated with the PL3 upgrade. You’re still entitled to three installs, but for the most current version. However, Photolab 2 should still be able to work on the machine that it was originally installed on. You just can’t install it anywhere else, because the additional installs for PL2 have now been transferred to PL3.
Some people seem to feel that you should be able to install both Photolab 2 and PhotoLab 3 on other machines. That would imply a total of 6 possible installs. Remember the upgrade to PL3 is not a new license even though the serial number may be different. That is why if you want to be able to install three versions of PL2 on various machines, purchasing an upgrade to Photolab 3 is not the best approach. You need to purchase a separate license. What confuses the issue a bit more is that installing PhotoLab 3 on a machine that already has PhotoLab 2 doesn’t automatically uninstall the previous version. Most software upgrades automatically uninstall a previous licensed version of the software.
Mark
Out of my own interest;
How does this 3 install thing work?
Is there a master slave kind of numberisation?
Like first install is master second and third is slave?
And if so when second install is active and first install starting up second shuts down? Or is first active the key of three equal installs?
And can i release/unlock my own second and third installwhen i want or do i need to inform dxo to do this action?
I try to previsualise this matter.
I think DxO has to answer if you want accurate detail, but from my own installation/activation experience it’s nothing more than a counter in some DxO server that lets Photolab Elite activate on up to three computers, but without any checks that only one Photolab at a time is running for example (since the EULA prohibits concurrent use). There’s obviously some difference between what the license allows formally and what DxO allows in practice. Even three activations for Elite isn’t enshrined in the license that I can see: there it’s only a secondary installation on a portable computer.
If you want to install on another computer and you’ve already activated three Photolab installations then you have to contact customer support and ask them to reset the activation counter to be able to activate a new install since there’s no way to deactivate from within the software itself as there is with some of the competitors. (Very convenient; wish they would implement it.) I don’t think they can deactivate Photolab on a specific computer: it’s all or nothing, so you will have to activate again on all your machines. (If I recall correctly.)
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Ok that’s clear enough for me.
The all or nothing release is offious if it’s done remotely.
If they can do it selectively it become’s a macadres related thing and i am not sure if that’s allowed by law.
Only other way to control that is a licencekey-01 and licencekey-02 entry field.
Or let the owner control the release.
Keep in mind that when we pay for commercial software we are not the owners of it. All we have done is purchase a limited use license. The licensing limitations should be indicated in the EULA. If someone is not happy with those limitations, they should not purchase the license.
In my opinion, for anyone to complain that they cannot install an older version of commercial software on another machine once it’s been upgraded to a new version doesn’t understand the upgrade model used by most software publishers.
Mark
I never had this “problem” because my own desktop is the center of all things i do with specialized software freeware and licenced. But my kids get older and getting there own laptop and i have as less as possible profiles on my system to avoid " strange things" after a session of an other…
So it’s my first time i want to migrade a older version after a upgrade. Normally i just delete it or ithe install setup does this automatic.
But if 3 versions can run at the same or overlapping time it doesn’t matter that much which version i install on a second system.
(i don’t have the win 7 vs win 10 problem by the way)
I don’t own enough commercial software to judge what most software publishers do, but there are different models. With DxO you lose the license to the old version, with Capture One you don’t, with Adobe Photoshop (before subscriptions at least) you’re free to use the old version on any computer the new one is used on.
Like you say though, it’s up to us to walk away if we don’t like it.
Capture One is 3 times the price at 410$
You could had just use your free PL2 that came with Nik and upgrade to PL3 Elite for 99$US instead of 149$US and not affecting your other license.
you still can use your old version on 3 computer depending on your license, that been said on another thread.