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TiTou

Improve that damn Licence manager!

Status: New

As you can read in the link below the licence manager uses the MAC addresses of a computer to create computer ID used for the activation process.

The trouble is that when you use a NI PCIe 8235 (Quad-Port GigE Vision Frame Grabber) you are adding 4 Ethernet ports to you computer and any change to any of these ports (even a fix IP change of one of the ports) will change the computer ID and therefore you will need to re-activate all your NI products... As day to day users we simply cannot work that way.

 

The knowledge base article below explains that in such cases we can get the hard drive serial number, send it to NI and they'll give us a computer ID based on that HDD serial instead of the computer ID given by the licence manager and we can then use it for the activation process.

 

The point of this idea is to ask NI to improve the licence manager so we don't have to go through this issues, I think the licence manager should inform the user about what the computer ID is based on and tell him about the options (MAC address or HDD serial) and let him choose between the 2.

 

How Can I Change the Hardware Used for Activation of NI Software? 

 

PS :

and now that we're talking about improving that damn licence manager, you can refactor it to include other ideas such as :

Smartphone application to activate NI Software

Add a QR Code (2D Bar Code) Option To NI Product Activation Dialog

 

[admin edit]

I am copying the workaround posted by crossrulz in the comments to benefit users having these issues who find this idea:
"Here is a work around if you want to play around in the Windows registry:

In "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\National Instruments\License Manager" add a string value named "DiskOnly" and set it to "true".  The license manager will now only use the HDD serial number."


We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

Epictetus

Antoine Chalons

10 Comments
kegghead
Member
The license manager causes me grief every year with my virtual machines that operate through VPNs. The activation process simply does not work on those systems because it picks an unstable MAC to register off of. Every year I need to open a ticket.
Intaris
Proven Zealot

Are VMs now officially supported by the LabVIEW EULA?

crossrulz
Knight of NI

We have issues with the MAC address getting changed due to our VPM software.  It would be really nice to have something in the options to use the HDD serial number for the computer ID.

 

But here is a work around if you want to play around in the Windows registry:

In "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\National Instruments\License Manager" add a string value named "DiskOnly" and set it to "true".  The license manager will now only use the HDD serial number.


GCentral
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Manzolli
Active Participant

Great tip crossrulz. Thanks! Smiley Happy

André Manzolli

Mechanical Engineer
Certified LabVIEW Developer - CLD
LabVIEW Champion
Curitiba - PR - Brazil
AristosQueue (NI)
NI Employee (retired)

Intaris: I checked your question with Legal. Answer:

> Under the current version, yes. 

> See Section 1(F) here: http://www.ni.com/pdf/legal/us/software_license_agreement.pdf

 

However, I'm not sure a VM would solve this problem since -- to the best of my knowledge -- the VM would pick up the MAC address of whatever machine it loaded onto, so you couldn't just clone the VM and still have a valid license. Am I wrong about that? Licensing really isn't an area I've dealt with much.

Intaris
Proven Zealot

AQ. Previous eulas explicitly forbade usage in a vm.  hence the question.

crossrulz
Knight of NI

But read it carefully.  It considers 1 VM on 1 computer to be acceptable.


GCentral
There are only two ways to tell somebody thanks: Kudos and Marked Solutions
Unofficial Forum Rules and Guidelines
"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God" - 2 Corinthians 3:5
Intaris
Proven Zealot

So that means still a limitation of three installs, either VMs or physical with only one executing at a time.

 

Well I can safely say that I adhere to the "one executing at a time"  but I'm way above the three computer limitation when factoring in VMs.

 

Paragraph 2 A is not compatible with modern development methods where multiple products over multiple LV versions need to be maintained.  Why the limitation to three installs?  This (with NI releasing two different LV installers each year) is crazy.

 

I've been complaining about this for years and I think most professional developers are actually in violation of 2 A without even knowing it if you take it literally (which is kind of the point of legal documents like this).

TiTou
Trusted Enthusiast
right... nothing has changed, so I will call NI support once a week to ask for a computer ID based on the hard drive serial number instead of the mac address, then it will become cost effective for NI to fulfil my request. I'm starting tomorrow. I love the fact that I can access NI support in 4 different countries 🙂

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

Epictetus

Antoine Chalons

TomOrr0W
Member