[jdiehl]

Yeah I understand where you are coming from it definitely is ridiculous. But in some ways I can understand X-Cart doing this. It probably makes it easier for them to track down theft of licenses instead of constantly tracking down legit copies where someone forgot to enter the correct URL on their license. It saves them time I'm sure, and in turn gives them more time to do other things.

It's not exactly the best way to do business, making the customer jump through hoops to save them time, but at the same time I find it acceptable because probably maintains lower costs and thus lower licensing pricing.

And I know what you are saying about the live store. I think all you'd really need to do is either create a directory, or a subdomain to slap your xcart in temporarily and then you can register it which removes all the stuff and then you can download to your dev and remove from the server.

Don't get me wrong I completely understand that it's a lot of work especially considering it's something you shouldn't have to do. And you probably don't want to do all that for a dev copy now, but at least the information is here for future users.