activate

[OpTech]

I am no longer allowed to connect our Industrial Controllers to the internet, so to activate programs installed on them I have to do it using another computer. What is happening is that I use the other computer to get an activation code and everything seems to work fine. I get the code and put it in and it all works. Then sometime later the program quits working (not sure if the power may also have been cycled on the Industrial Controller) and when I go into the License Manager I have the triangle with an exclamation point by the program which has quit work. I tried putting in the previous activation code and it didn't work. So I went back through the activation process on another computer, got a different activation code this time and it worked again. I don't understand why this is happening?

[billko]

Do the activation wizard ON THE MACHINE YOU ARE ACTIVATING and tell it you don't have an internet connection.  This will prompt you to make a phone call.  Be prepared with pen and paper.  The phone call will give you your activation code "verbally."

[crossrulz]

I've seen this as well.  I think we concluded that the VPN software I was using was causing the MAC address to change.  This causes a change in the computer ID, which causes the activation codes to be wrong.  For me, this happened every time I rebooted the computer.

The solution was to get an activation code based on the hard drive serial number.  Have a look at this kb for more information:How Can I Change the Hardware Used for Activation of NI Software?

[OpTech]

I didn't even think to look at the computer ID to see if it had changed from the last time that I did it. I will check that as soon as I get a chance. Thanks.