Someone... anyone...  say it ain't so!

Well, if you need the DVD in the drive what's such a big deal? Virtual Clone Drive for instance is just for that!

Hey, that's cool, costelus.  I hadn't seen that before.

But still...  If it's true, I still resent the extra step (& occupation of hard-disk real estate). 

I had a very old ('90s) chess program called Extreme (it was actually a version of Fritz that was licensed to Simon & Schuster), and it required the CD to be put into the drive to periodically 'recharge' the license, but that was only like once every couple of months or so.  That seemed a bit more humane, assuming the vendor just can't live with the license/registration/activation model used by pretty much the rest of the industry.

Well, unfortunately there is nothing you can do. Phone chessbase and tell them how unhappy you are with their product (I would be. I have a laptop and it is known that the best way to destroy the CD/DVD drive is by having the CD in the drive while playing a game let's say).

If you are really unhappy you can try things like W32 Dasm and Hedit (but I can guarantee you it's not worth the effort).

They will come up with a no-cd crack for Fritz 12 owners eventually, just like the previous versions.

NO No No and NO

Much ado over nothing -- you're NOT required to keep the DVD in the drive to use Fritz12.

Um...  Ok, but let me put it this way:  I'm upstairs in the computer room and I want to start Fritz (which has been installed already).  The DVD is next to my chair in the living room because I was thumbing through the liner notes, etc.

Do I need to get out of my chair?  :)

I can't speak for Fritz 12, but in earlier versions of Fritz it would ask me to put the disk in the drive the first few times I used it, and then never ask again. So if you've run in to this issue, but you've only just purchased Fritz 12, maybe give it a few uses and see if it keeps asking for the disk.

Nice.  Thanks, Loomis.  That, I wouldn't have a problem with.  (It's quite similar to the policy with 'Extreme' I mentioned in #3.)

I don't have Fritz yet... or a PC... or a Mac that will run a capable Win7 virtual machine...  just thinking ahead, you know.. hypothetically.   :)

Only if your computer's on the other side of the room. ;-)

LOL!  Thanks.  (And I thought I'd accounted for everything too.)  That's great to know.

Btw, my computer-room chair has wheels, so... 

oh boy - the joys of proprietary software [sigh, rolleyes]

get SCID instead and don't put up with that kind of nonsense

Netbooks don't have optical drives, and some have small solid state drives. I shouldn't have to buy and install software to run software I already own.

But wait, I don't own the software or the operating system. I'm only "renting it."