proxy support for activation process

Dear Avid,

Recently I upgraded MC5 to MC5.5 on a mac and found myself for the second time in the situation where I could not de-activate MC. Why is it that there is the option to activate MC on a seperate internet computer but not a de-activation process?

Now it is quite common for editing stations to be in a seperate network from the rest of a office network with internet. Often a link is created between the 2 networks with a proxy server so that for example anti virus programs have the option to update their virus definitions. While almost all software that connects to the internet has the ability to go through a proxy.. not MC.

Now there is the posibility that de-activation is not needed when using manual entry of the activation code as the activation code stays the same when re-installing but this is not the case when upgrading to a new version. If the activation status of a media composer license is based on the system ID then you need to de-activate to be able to activate the new version with the same system ID with the new serial nr. that came with the uprade. Am I correct?

Avid is saying that I have already activated the software and won’t let me install.

Balls!!!!!!!!!!!

So I had to reformat my boot drive (which had MC5 installed) and start fresh (osx 10.6.7 is now installed). I installed AvidMediaComposer_5.0.3.9. 

It is now saying that I have reached the max allowed activations for this serial number even though it has been installed on the same computer as before. I called Avid but naturally they took the day off on the public holiday. 

I guess if I had remembered I would have de-activated the software before I did a reformat. 

What can I do? Oh why oh why Avid? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?