Open topic with navigation

Tutorial: Deactivate a License Remotely

This tutorial assumes you already have created and activated either a test license from a previous tutorial. If you do not have a test license yet, you may follow the Activating a Perpetual License tutorial before proceeding.

This tutorial will demonstrate remotely deactivating a license using SOLO Server. Once the license is deactivated on SOLO Server, the software will no longer be licensed locally once it validates with SOLO Server.

Deactivation

There are two different ways in which a license may be deactivated:

Deactivating an entire license in SOLO Server

This allows you to disable all activations and individual devices activated with a particular license. This can be useful in scenarios such as:

Deactivating an individual activation

Depending on your needs, a license may allow multiple devices to activate using the same license, or you may want to allow your users to deactivate a license in order to transfer licensed use to another device.

If you enable the Allow Deactivations feature in SOLO Server, when a device activates an Installation ID is created by the server and attached to the device activation. This Installation ID is also stored in your application's local license. Most communication between your application and SOLO Server will then include the Installation ID in order to track the specific activated device.

What SOLO Server options need to be set to allow individual device deactivations?

"Issue Installation ID" must be enabled in the Product Option settings.

"Allow Deactivations" must be enabled in the Product Option settings.

"Deactivations Left" count for the specific license must be at least 1.

More information about Product and Product options may be found in the SOLO Server Adding Products and Product Options manual topic.

This tutorial will first demonstrate deactivating and reactivating an individual activation remotely followed by deactivating the entire license remotely.

If you are continuing from a previous tutorial and are logged into SOLO Server with the test license page displayed you may skip to Step 2.

If you no longer have the License ID used to activate the Demo Application, you may run the Demo Application in order to get the information.

Click the Common API Features tab. The License ID and Activation Password will be listed in the License Information section.

If you are not logged into SOLO Server please do so now by opening the link https://secure.softwarekey.com/solo/authors/Default.aspx in your browser. Your browser will display the SOLO Server log-in page.

Use the following credentials to log-in to the SOLO Server test author account:

User ID: test

Password: test

Select Customers / Search from the SOLO Server menu.

Enter the test License ID number from the previous tutorial (or from the values on the Common API Features tab of the Demo Application) and click the Search button.

Alternatively, if you registered customer information after activating the Demo Application in a previous tutorial, you may search by any of the customer registration data you had entered.

You may skip this step and go to step 4 below if you only want to learn how to deactivate the entire license.

When a customer activates a license using SOLO Server, he or she is issued an "Installation ID" which corresponds with that activation. Since each activation receives its own, unique Installation ID, it is possible to manage and deactivate individual computer's or systems which were previously activated.

What is meant by Installation in SOLO Server?

An Installation is an activation entry in SOLO Server that represents a device that has been activated at one time. A license in SOLO Server may contain many Installations and each one is assigned an "Installation ID" in order to track the entry.

In SOLO Server you should be viewing your license. Select View Installation History from the Activations drop down.

Currently, there is one installation activated. Note the Status icon is a green check box meaning this device is activated. Click the button under the "Actions" heading.

A pop-up window will be shown to make certain you want to deactivate the installation. Click the Deactivate button.

Note the status is now the red "deactivated" icon. This also automatically increments the Activations Left count on the License ID so that the activation can be used on another device.

Run the Demo Application. If the application was already running you will need to close and reopen it.

The application will display a message the license is no longer valid. This message is configurable in the Instant Protection PLUS 3 wizard.

After clicking OK, you will see the activation dialog. The application has been deactivated since it is prompting for a new activation.

What if there is a reason you need to reactivate this installation? Doing so is almost the same as the previous deactivation step.

In SOLO Server just click the reactivate button under the Actions heading. Note that there must be at least one activation available to reactivate an installation.

Click Reactivate to verify this is what you want.

Notice the Status is a green check again.

Run the Demo Application and it is once again activated! If the application was already running you will need to close and reopen it.

You may deactivate an entire license which allows you to disable all activations and individual devices activated with a particular license.

If you are following this tutorial and finished the previous step, you will need to return to the License Details page in SOLO Server.

If you are viewing the Installation History, click the View License link in the breadcrumbs.

Otherwise, you should be looking at the License Details page after following Step 1 previously.

Note the License Status is "OK". This signifies this license is valid. We will want to change this status in order to deactivate the entire license.

Select License / Edit from the Actions menu.

Select Expired from the Status menu. At the bottom of the page click the Submit button.

What about all these other license status options?

SOLO Server only considers licenses with a status of "OK" (or "Upgrade" in some cases) to be valid. Any other status may be used to deactivate a license.

Now the License shows the Status as "Expired".

Run the Demo Application and it is once again deactivated. If the application was already running you will need to close and reopen it. The application will display a message the license is no longer valid. This message is configurable in the Instant Protection PLUS 3 wizard.

After clicking OK, you will see the activation dialog. The application has been deactivated!

Tutorial Completed

Return to the Tutorials Overview.