Administering Individual Licenses

An individual license can be set to use machine activation or online licensing. This section covers machine activation. To learn more about online licensing, see the Admin Portal.

Typically, administration of individual licenses consists of activating and deactivating licenses directly from SOLIDWORKS.

Activation is a product licensing and registration process for SOLIDWORKS standalone (non-SolidNetWork License) licenses. Typically, if your product license has not yet been activated, SOLIDWORKS tries to activate it when you start the product.

You can also deactivate individual licenses, by clicking Help > Deactivate Licenses in SOLIDWORKS.

Activating a License

Before you can run SOLIDWORKS products on an individual computer, you must activate the license for that computer.

Activation requires that you have Internet or email access. After activation, you do not need to be online to use the products. If you do not have email access on the computer where you use this product, you can save the activation file and send it from another computer.

This process:
  • Activates all software licenses across the SOLIDWORKS product line.
  • Allows you to move licensing rights from one computer to another.
  • Can be performed immediately (recommended) or within 30 days of installation.
  • Eliminates the need for dongles. However, if you run previous versions of SOLIDWORKS products that do not use activation, you need to retain the dongle.

For system administrators who have multiple serial numbers to manage, you can use the Administrative Image Option Editor. For details, see Administrative Image Option Editor.

To activate a license:

  1. Start the SOLIDWORKS application.
  2. Start SOLIDWORKS Product Activation using one of these methods:
    • If you have not yet activated the license for this computer, the SOLIDWORKS Product Activation window appears automatically when you start SOLIDWORKS.
    • If the SOLIDWORKS Product Activation window does not appear automatically, start activation by clicking Help > Activate Licenses.
  3. Click the Product listing to specify the product whose license you want to activate.
  4. Specify automatic activation over the internet or manual activation using email.
  5. Supply email contact information.
  6. Click Next to proceed.
    • Internet: Activation occurs automatically.
    • Email: Press Save to create a request file, then email the file to activation@solidworks.com. When you receive the email containing the response file, extract the file from email and then click Open to load it.
      If necessary, you can exit and rerun the activation procedure to open the response file.
  7. Click Finish.

Moving a License

To move a license to a new or upgraded computer, first deactivate it to the license key server at Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS Corporation, then reactivate it on the other computer.

If you were unable to deactivate the license to Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS Corporation (because of hard drive failure, for example), reactivation is still successful in most cases. If not, contact your VAR for help.

To move a license back to the server:

  1. In SOLIDWORKS, click Help > Deactivate Licenses , and follow the instructions.
  2. To reactivate, go to the new or upgraded computer and activate the license as you did during the initial activation. For details, see Activating a License.