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jakeslade
Senior Member
United Kingdom
25 Posts |
 Posted - Sep 18 2025 : 12:08:58 PM
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Hi folks,
My VAX license recently expired and I'm not ready to renew just yet.
I get a popup telling me to renew or revert. I click revert and it directs me to an older release of VAX with the following message:
"
Your software maintenance expired 2025.09.13, which qualifies you to run the following build of Visual Assist without an additional purchase.
Visual Assist build 2568 (General Release) released 2025.07.03"
I download it, install it correctly, and then when I launch VS, I am greeted with the same prompt as before.
I have tried fully uninstalling the extension and installing from scratch, same issue.
Any idea how I can get this sorted?
Cheers,
Jake |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19227 Posts |
Posted - Sep 19 2025 : 07:45:57 AM
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Apologies for this. I have a theory as to the problem. Do you remember which license type you purchased? Can you quickly and easily find the order email to check? I ask, since on our purchase page, currently if you purchase a personal license you are buying a "Annual Subscription License", which is only going to be valid while the subscription is active.
This is cheaper than the standard edition license which is a perpetual license.
If this is what is happening, then VA needs to actually explain this. The messages you are reporting only make sense if you are using a perpetual license, while what you are seeing happen makes sense if you are using an expired subscription license. I have put in a bug report to get this explained better, assuming I am right in guessing what is happening:
case=165972 |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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jakeslade
Senior Member
United Kingdom
25 Posts |
Posted - Sep 23 2025 : 05:48:57 AM
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Hi feline,
Thanks for looking into this! It's a personal license that expired recently.
I've been renewing my annual license for several years now, and in the past when maintenance expired, I could always continue using whatever version was current at the time. That's exactly what the revert dialog is telling me should happen - that I qualify for build 2568.
But here's what's confusing: at the very least, I should be able to use the versions I had access to before I renewed last year, right? By choosing to renew (mainly to support you folks - didn't urgently need the updates), it seems like I've somehow lost the ability to use older versions indefinitely? That can't be right - I'm essentially worse off for having paid to renew.
Any clarification would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Jake |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19227 Posts |
Posted - Sep 23 2025 : 07:48:15 AM
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Since I focus on the tech support side, not the license side, I am not sure when the change was made, but somewhere along the line subscription licenses appeared, and then went from being an option to being the default.
Purely from a financial point of view, if you are a personal user, they make sense. Since the current list price is $129 (currently on sale at $99) for an annual subscription license. In comparison, a standard perpetual license has the list price of $279 (currently on sale at $209). So two years of a personal subscription license is still cheaper than buying two standard licenses, back to back.
I suspect this change happened a little over a year ago, since over the last couple of weeks I have now had a few people reporting that their install, and license, for VA has "stopped working". I have put in a bug report for this, since if this is actually caused by the subscription expiring then we actually need to explain this nice and clearly, and currently we aren't.
case=165972
This does assume you maintain fairly constant VA maintenance, as opposed to getting a perpetual license and then just running an old version of VA for several years, before getting a new version of VA. I know some people do do this, but its not such a simple plan these days, since there have been a few breaking changes with Visual Studio 2022 updates over time, and I suspect the same will be true with VS2026 once it gets released.
But having said all of that, this doesn't seem to being well communicated or explained. This is something I have pointed out myself, but I am not sure how much effect this is having so far. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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jakeslade
Senior Member
United Kingdom
25 Posts |
Posted - Sep 23 2025 : 08:32:51 AM
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So was it a bug that I was able to continue using the software after expiry in previous years? Because that's how personal licenses always worked for me until now.
This is honestly disappointing. I use the symbol browser religiously in my workflow, but I can't justify a subscription knowing I'll lose access completely if I don't renew. And the perpetual license at $279, considering the features I use, is too steep for me.
I think sadly I'm going to have to look at alternatives to VAX going forward, which is a real shame.
Thanks for clarifying the situation at least.
Jake |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19227 Posts |
Posted - Sep 23 2025 : 11:09:23 AM
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No, in previous years I assume you were using a perpetual license, so everything was working as intended. Since the point of a perpetual license is that it keeps on working.
As for how much value VA offers, are you making good use of other features as well? Open File in Solution is remarkably powerful, especially once you start using more than one search term at once. VA Hashtags can be very helpful for moving through your solution, by just marking and cross referencing locations.
Alt-G and Alt-Shift-G are very helpful.
But ultimately if you don't feel VA is offering enough value, I just hope that you got plenty of use out of it over the years, and perhaps we can tempt you back one day. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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jakeslade
Senior Member
United Kingdom
25 Posts |
Posted - Sep 24 2025 : 05:41:02 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by feline
No, in previous years I assume you were using a perpetual license, so everything was working as intended. Since the point of a perpetual license is that it keeps on working.
As for how much value VA offers, are you making good use of other features as well? Open File in Solution is remarkably powerful, especially once you start using more than one search term at once. VA Hashtags can be very helpful for moving through your solution, by just marking and cross referencing locations.
Alt-G and Alt-Shift-G are very helpful.
But ultimately if you don't feel VA is offering enough value, I just hope that you got plenty of use out of it over the years, and perhaps we can tempt you back one day.
As far as I'm aware I've always had personal licenses, not perpetual. They just used to let me keep using older versions after expiry.
I use Ctrl+Click instead of Alt-G (built into VS now). Hashtags are neat but don't fit my workflow. It's really only the symbol browser that I truly miss.
Here's what's frustrating: I'm stuck on VS2019 at work, so updates weren't even important to me. Everything worked fine on my old version. I renewed purely to support VAX and check out anything new - and by doing so, I've apparently lost the ability to use older versions that I could have kept using if I hadn't renewed.
That's what feels wrong about this whole situation. |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19227 Posts |
Posted - Sep 24 2025 : 09:25:50 AM
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Speaking personally, I really appreciate your efforts to support VA, and yes, the situation you are now caught in really isn't right.
Older personal licenses were perpetual licenses. If you still have your older license on hand, and install a version of VA that is covered by that license, it should just work. Especially since, as you say, under VS2019 updates for IDE support really aren't an issue. It is only new features that are going to help or interest you.
You might need to uninstall your current, now expired license, which can be done by closing all instances of Visual Studio, then finding and deleting the folder:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Embarcadero
Older versions of VA can be downloaded from this page:
https://www.wholetomato.com/kb/a/archive-of-visual-assist-builds-and-release-notes |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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jakeslade
Senior Member
United Kingdom
25 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2025 : 08:53:48 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by feline
Speaking personally, I really appreciate your efforts to support VA, and yes, the situation you are now caught in really isn't right.
Older personal licenses were perpetual licenses. If you still have your older license on hand, and install a version of VA that is covered by that license, it should just work. Especially since, as you say, under VS2019 updates for IDE support really aren't an issue. It is only new features that are going to help or interest you.
You might need to uninstall your current, now expired license, which can be done by closing all instances of Visual Studio, then finding and deleting the folder:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Embarcadero
Older versions of VA can be downloaded from this page:
https://www.wholetomato.com/kb/a/archive-of-visual-assist-builds-and-release-notes
Thanks feline. Really appreciate your consistent support over the years as well.
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19227 Posts |
Posted - Sep 25 2025 : 09:19:20 AM
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I am here to help, and actually fixing problems, making a difference, it can be rewarding  So fingers crossed we can get this working for you again soon, and easily. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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Using old version with expired license.
