When QuarkXPress Won’t Activate

Fri, Feb 8, 2008

Bug

Recently, I had to have the motherboard replaced on my MacBook Pro. When I got it back, I migrated all my files back onto it. I expected QuarkXPress 7 to require reactivation, but was surprised that it wouldn’t. It complained about not being able to write to the activation database (or something).

The quick and painless fix was to double-click the “QuarkXPress Components” file that lives inside the “For System” folder inside the QuarkXPress application folder. Apparently it reinstalled whatever hidden activation database file was required, and the next time I launched QuarkXPress it activated without a complaint. Go figure.

I’ll keep this trick tucked away for the next time one of our Macs needs some surgery.

This post was written by:

Jay Nelson - who has written 507 posts on Planet Quark.

Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7, and the QuarkXPress 7 training at Lynda.com. In addition, Jay writes for several other publications and speaks at industry events.

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