Will Autodesk Activate a Retired Product?

I was trying to help an AutoCAD user at IntelliCAD.net who is unable to get a simple answer to what I believe is a simple question: “Will Autodesk activate a retired product?“. The answer to this question would determine whether he would stick to AutoCAD or dump it for IntelliCAD.

This Autodesk customer has a license of AutoCAD 2006 and does not wish to upgrade for the simple reason that it does his job just fine. He has previously posed this question at Autodesk Discussion Groups in the hope that someone from Autodesk would reply. But that didn’t happen. Surprisingly, his reseller tells him that Autodesk “may not” give him an activation code for AutoCAD 2006.

Autodesk has an entire section at its web site dedicated to activation – http://www.autodesk.com/activation. Here is part of one of the FAQ documents:

1.10 What if the company shuts down? I paid for the product and should be able to use it in perpetuity.
The Software End User License Agreement grants the user of an Autodesk product the right to use it in perpetuity. In the unlikely event of the company’s shutting down, we will enable automatic approval of all activation requests or provide other technical means allowing users to continue using our products.

So it seems like the reseller is either ignorant or a liar. I will put my money on the latter.