January 5, 2026
Tile and Error
Dealing with abandonware (2024)
Dad’s tile tool vanishes; internet splits between “rewrite it” and “don’t break the law”
TLDR: A designer’s beloved tile program disappeared, leaving old projects locked behind fussy activation. Commenters clash: some joke about “AI just rewriting it,” others warn against breaking licenses and blame hostile locks, while many dream of software that runs forever without subscriptions and constant updates.
A mosaic-loving dad’s favorite early‑2000s program, TileCreatorPro, basically ghosted him after a PC upgrade. The website is gone, the maker pivoted to family life, and years of custom tile designs are trapped behind a cranky activation system. Cue the comment section meltdown. One camp rolls their eyes and says “Just rewrite it, AI can vibe‑code anything now”, turning the whole saga into a meme about modern tech bravado. Another camp, led by legal buzzkills (their words, not ours), warns that cracking abandoned software is still illegal and suggests politely asking for the source code to open it up. Meanwhile, the licensing drama steals the show: commenters rage that the software tied your activation to your computer’s identity — a kind of digital lock that makes upgrading your PC feel like defusing a bomb. There’s relief that this wasn’t a subscription (“SaaS” means pay‑forever, cloud‑dependent apps), but also a chorus of “Why can’t software just run forever?” Fans of simpler tools cheer languages that make “write once, keep forever” feel possible, throwing shade at modern dependency chaos. The vibe: nostalgia, frustration, and a lot of tile puns — plus a showdown over law vs. preservation vs. pragmatism.
Key Points
- •TileCreatorPro is an early-2000s Windows-only design program used for tile mosaics and inventories.
- •The program was purchased in 2017 from thoughtfishmedia.com, which later became defunct.
- •In 2021, a planned upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 raised concerns about program compatibility.
- •Attempts to contact the manufacturer failed because the official website no longer existed.
- •The author analyzed the installation file and binary using the strings utility on a MacBook to glean information from the software.