I bought it and it's barely different. Mostly just had bugs that were not present in 3.

Will never buy a Stardock product again. I hate predatory tactics. I get it - at some point you have to make a new version and recharge for it. But in this case Fences 3 barely changed over time and 4 just barely adds anything new with maybe some Win 11 support...and you get a measly couple dollars off. Li9terally, 20% off but that's just $2. It should been 50% off at the very least.

Nah - I'm good.

I am not being hostile, I am just standing against bad business practices.

No one is "physically" forcing me yes, but by way of discontinuing support for the old version and requiring purchase of the new version that will be updated...yeah..that's as close to forcing as you can get.

Hello everyone,

Even though I don't agree with hostile attitudes or rude behavior in general, I do want to show my discontentment with this practice.

I completely understand that Stardock has, in fact, as every other company in the world, to find ways to make money and fund development for its products. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to continue to see this product being continuously developed and improved, a strong community support, etc. All those things cost a lot of money and employees do have families to support and deserve our support.

I do not, however, understand the logic behind a 20% discount for current loyal customers and agree that we should have been more appreciated. I use Stardock products for more then 10 years now. Since the release of the first Windowblinds, where skins / desktop customization were all the rage [ deviantart anyone? ] . You can imagine my disappointment when I saw that I have to basically pay almost the same price as everybody else for continuing to have support for a product that I have already bought. I think that it might be worth it to review customer loyalty practices.     

That being said I am upgrading it anyway through Steam as i find it be a good product at a reasonable price for what it does. Please just don't create Fences 5 in a year or 2 with the same "discount".

just my 2 cents 

I have Fences 3 on Steam.  

UPDATE:  I found the coupon.  Too bad it's not usable for the multi-device upgrade as well, so not really worth it.

Interesting.  Can you tell us what you like about it more?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

I probably will upgrade it if it was only <5 dollars, but in I bought the license last year and in just a few months they ask me to pay the same price again with the upgrade.

Look at Dopus for instance, they offer constant upgrades for free, that is the way to trust a developer, if you do something really major then we can pay for an upgrade but having to pay for the same product twice is ridiculous and make us look for alternatives.

@mich4u

That Fences is 'unchanged' between versions 3 and 4 is just not true.

Also, we do not 'withdraw' anyone's license for any reason. 

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

'She' did 😉

But this is a question of value and how people use Fences. 

Of course. It's a far cry from what we offer but we welcome the comparison. Can you give us your impressions of the product after you installed \ used it?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

@sdRohan:

I can make tests and compare both products,  for you.

If you are interested and want to know what's on market and how far from Fences is Easy Desktop just write to me. For sure we will we'll come to an agreement...

@davidpitt03

You are not missinig anything.

Stardock started to pretend to be Adobe / Autodesk with prices. They forget to create really valuable product first and that Fances is just small gadget for desktop.  Without even one serious update since beginning.

I really have hope new upgrade policy is mistake.

Strangely enough I have received an email for a promo on Fences 4 while I haven't received an email from Stardock for years! Why is that?

Curious I wanted to learn more on Fences 4 but I have a 5 licences v3 and when I go on the Fences 4 page I'm only offered and upgrade price for the single licence? Why is that? Make no sense.

Bye!

As it is coming up to black Friday, I thought I'd come and check if there was any offers to upgrade to version 4.  I started with the free version 1. Bought version 2 (Multiple license's) and upgraded them to 3. Not that I have had issues, but I knew that version 3 was out of support and generally better to have the newest version, but I could not stomach the price for zero more features I would use.

Low and behold the beta for version 5 is out and us loyal customers have been rewarded with Stardock trying to drive us to a subscription model. (I googled changes between 3 and 5 and ended up here)

Yes, you can buy Fences 5 outright at 3 x the subscription price, but version 4 is only around 1.5 years old so they are really trying to make that a rip off, so that the subscription is the "value" product. Version 2 lasted 2.5 years before being superseded and Version 3 which went for 6 years. With Windows 12 just around the corner, could fences 6 may not be far behind. depending on compatibility of 5!!

Such a high price to upgrade for features many won't use plus a subscription model is really making this product unpalatable.  

From my point of view, the cost to benefit ratio no longer adds up  for Fences 5.

Really disappointed, but it's Stardock's product to do with as they will.  

Installed it, and it looks a bit like Fences, without many of the pluses Fences has.

On using the Windows unistaller, 449 files and 13 registry entries were left over which Iobit Uninstaller 12 removed successfully.