Accessing Products Through Email

After any purchase, the following link can be used to have product installers and keys emailed to the email account that purchased them:

Stardock - Support - Product Key Retrieval

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While this page will work for both account holders and Guest Checkout purchase, that page is the only way a Guest Checkout purchase can retrieve products and keys at a later date if they have lost their receipt.

Accessing Products Through a Stardock Account

If you have a Stardock account, you can access it here.  If you don't have a Stardock account, you can create one here.  You can also use that page to convert a Guest Checkout email to a full account by just supplying a password (and replying to a subsequent verification email).

All of the purchases you've made through our store can be found in this location. Also, if you have an Object Desktop or WinCustomize membership, you can easily check how many days you have left of your membership.

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For purchases made directly from Stardock, you can get your key(s) from here:

Stardock - Support - Product Key Retrieval

Activation Via In-app Prompt

The images in this example will show Fences but the dialogue and the procedure will look and be the same regardless of the product. If your activation method does not look like any of the images below, please click here.

To activate, click the 'Enter Product Key' button.

Enter in the product key you received and your email address and click 'Activate'. If you do not have your product key, you can go here for instructions on how to retrieve it.

If you already have an account and have activated the product previously, you can click the 'Stardock Account' option at the bottom to activate with your Stardock account credentials instead.

If the activation is successful, you will see a dialog stating so.

Offline Activation

If there is a problem activating, you may see the following:

In this case, your Internet connection may be functioning but your ability to connect to the activation server may be blocked. Click the 'Offline Activation' button to proceed.

Click 'Save Activation Request'. A dialog will prompt you to save the .req file. Save it to a location of your choosing. You will then see the following:

If your machine is able to access Stardock: Alternative Activation you can go there and upload the .req file which will give you a .resp file to save to your computer. You can then click the 'Select Activation Response' button to browse to where the .resp file is saved. This will complete the activation.

If you are not able to access Stardock: Alternative Activation from the machine you are activating on, you will need to bring the .req file to a machine that has internet and complete the process there and then bring the .resp back to the machine you wish to activate on. The .resp file can also be loaded using the 'select offline file' option as seen on the initial activation screen in the second image at the top of this webpage above.

If you receive any errors trying to upload the req file or download the resp file (404 errors), please try another web browser like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Edge, or Firefox

Troublshooting Activation Issues

Please see:
https://support.stardock.com/space/SHC/1350696976/Activation+Troubleshooting

Silent Install

Running any app installer via a command line with /s switch will silently install.

Adding /noreboot will not reboot the machine post-install.

After any install (manual or silent) is done, the Stardock Activation window is shown as well as the config UI or the app:

If your desire it to have an end-to-end silent install \ activation, in your script after the silent install, you would include the following before any silent activation.

Silent Activation 

Most of Stardock's current applications can be activated via the command prompt. The command line option will activate the application without exposing the application or activation UI.

Command line example

Start11
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Stardock\Start11"\SASUpgrade.exe -prodId=2663 -prodName="Start11" -company="Stardock" -ver="1.0" -email="USER@USER.COM" serial="PRODUCTKEYGOESHERE"

Variables

prodId
The internal Stardock product ID is unique to every product line

prodName
The Stardock issued product name. This must be accurate. (Example: Fences4 <-note no space in name and version)

company
For Stardock products, this will always be “Stardock”. Do not enter your company name or the activation will fail.

version
The version being installed.

serial
The serial \ product key for the registration.

email
Email address of the account the current registration is activated under or the email account it is to be attached to if activating for the 1st time

Stardock Product IDs

‘ProdID’ and ‘ProdName’ table for command line activation

Activaiton Verification

If a command line activation was successful, a product-specific license.sig file will be created in the app-appropriate folder in\ProgramData\Stardock. For example, a successful Start11 activation will have a license.sig file created in:

\ProgramData\Stardock\Start11

Example Video

The example video below is for Fences but can be used for any of the apps above:

https://cdn.stardock.us/support/uploads/sdComPromptAct.mp4

Most of Stardock's current applications can be deactivated via the command prompt. The command line option will deactivate the application without exposing the application or activation UI.

Command line example

Fences 4

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Stardock\Fences\SdDisplay.exe" -deactivate -prodID=2664 -prodName="Fences4" -company="Stardock" -prodVer="4.00"

Variables

prodId
The internal Stardock product ID is unique to every product line

prodName
The Stardock issued product name. This must be accurate.

company
For Stardock products, this will always be “Stardock”. Do not enter your company name or the activation will fail.

version
The version being installed.

Stardock Product IDs

Deactivation Verification

If a command line deactivation was successful, a product-specific license.sig file will be removed from the app-appropriate folder in\ProgramData\Stardock. For example, a successful Start11 activation will no longer have a license.sig file created in:

\ProgramData\Stardock\Start11

Software Crash Collection

If you are experiencing crashes that you believe are caused by one of Stardock’s products, we would really like a dump file from a crash if you are willing to use WinDBG to capture it.

WinDbg - Free download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store

Once installed, you would make it the default postmortem debugger (click for larger image):

When a crash happens, it will pop WinDBG and PC could become rather slow while it works through it.

Example of what you would type there using your Windows account name instead of ‘sdrohan' and the specific product name if different than 'Fences’:

.dump /mf c:\users\sdrohan\desktop\Fences_RiverComb_04062022.dmp

The dump command (with the period), the /mf switch, where you want it put, and a name that indicates what app
that it's yours, and the date.

When it is done, you can click the red 'Stop Debugging' button:

The resulting file will likely be BIG, perhaps hundreds of MBs, too large to send uncompressed.

Stardock Games Crash Collection

Most all Stardock games have an in-game popup that asks for some details about the crash (what you were doing in-game, is it repeatable, etc).

Email address: Completly optional and we only ever use them for cases where we want to reach out to you for more information and help with resolving any particular issue.

If you do end up creating a forum thread about your issue, note in it that you submitted a crash report and the 1st portion (or some portion) of your email address so we can look it up here. For example, if your email address is jim555@acme.com, you can write ‘Crash report look up: jim555’ and we can use that partial. If you are not comfortable posting any portion of it, when we respond, you can private message the one of us that responds with what it is.

If for some reason this in-app crash prompt is no longer showing for you, click here.

Performing a Clean Boot

A "clean boot" starts Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs, so that you can determine whether a background program is interfering with your game or program. This is similar to starting Windows in Safe Mode, but provides you more control over which services and programs run at startup to help you isolate the cause of a problem.

Creating a new Windows Administrator Account

For testing, please create a new Windows Administrator account.

Windows 7 

Manage user accounts in Windows - Microsoft Support

Windows 8

Manage user accounts in Windows - Microsoft Support

Windows 10 & 11

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/create-a-local-user-account-in-windows-10

Log in under that account and try.  If it fails, and while still under that account, please click the link below for performing a 'clean boot' under it:

Windows Clean Boot Documention

How to perform a clean boot in Windows - Microsoft Support

In an effort to create a clean install environment without having to reformat your system, Windows 10 & 11 Pro have a "VM" (Virtual Machine) like feature called Windows Sandbox. This will replicate a freshly installed operating system without any other software installed. This is a great test to see if other programs conflict with Stardock products. 

The following guide will walk you through the steps to enable Windows Sandbox:

How to enable Windows Sandbox on Windows 11, 10 - Pureinfotech

After Sandbox is set up, install and activate your Stardock product to see if the issue you are having is also being reproduced in this new environment or if it is working correctly in this mode.

NOTE: If you have a single activation Stardock product, you will be asked if you want to deactivate your other PC to proceed to install it in the Sandbox environment. After finishing the test, you will eventually be asked to activate on your other PC again and can do so.

Purging the application

Double-click the downloaded purge file and select "Run as Administrator" if you're on Windows 7/8/8.1/10.

If you are running Windows 8/10/11, you may be notified that Windows is protecting your PC.  Select "More info" and then "Run anyway". 

Reboot the computer and reinstall the application.  It is important to get the most recent version of the application.

Reinstalling

For trials:

Please ensure you have the most recent trial available:

Software: Windows Customization Apps from Stardock

For Stardock direct purchases

For getting your product and key, please see the following: 

Stardock - Support - Product Key Retrieval

For Steam Purchases

Even after using the purge file, you still need to use the 'uninstall' option in the Steam client:

After, re-Install from Steam and Steam only.

Please DO NOT change any of the default settings until you verify that the application is running as expected in its default state.

If you have any issues that were not resolved by reviewing the documentation here, we very much would like to still work with you on them. We use our forums for this so as to help the most people for the longest period of time. The forums are staffed with support personnel, developers, and seasoned users of our products. If a search of our forums also does not provide relief, please create your own thread using the following format.

Post Title

The title of the post should be brief but descriptive - for example:

Crash: Starting Multiplayer Match Crashes

App Usage: Do X to get Y but Z happens instead

Gameplay: Tech tree not giving proper bonus

MODs: My MOD is not showing up

Installation: App \ Game fails on instal with error

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More detail about your issue should include:

Exact Version of Windows, Game, or Application

The exact version of Windows can be obtained by running Winver.exe from a search. Posting an image of that would be sufficient. Example:

New or existing issue

Has the issue been happening for some time or is it new, perhaps since an update to the game, app, or Windows itself? Detail as much as possible what changes seem to have corresponded to your issue(s).

How to reproduce

If the issue is reproducible, please provide exact steps on how to do so. For game issues, if possible, uploading a save game to a cloud drive service and sharing a link in the post is very helpful.

Images \ Video \ Saves (for games)

If possible, any images and videos greatly help with troubleshooting. Images can be copied and pasted directly into a post. Videos (and Saved games) can be uploaded to a cloud drive service and a shared link included in the post.

Occasionally Stardock will provide a beta update for software which requires the user to opt-in. You can opt-in to product betas by right clicking the game or software on your Steam Library and choosing "Properties".

From the properties window select the tab titled "Betas". From this page select the applicable beta from the drop-down menu. If you've previously opted into a beta you can opt out by selecting the menu option.

Once you're done making your selection close the properties window by selecting "Close". Once the window is closed it will begin updating to the selected version if you've met the requirements.

For our software products sold via Steam the update check is handled differently than the versions sold via Stardock directly

If there is an update available, the update check would look like this:

You can disable these checks by disabling the scheduled tasks, to do so:

• Run Task Scheduler via Windows

• Look for the product you are looking to disable (they will all start with Stardock)

• Right-click on the item, and select Disable

• If you do, you will have to use the Steam client to manually update.