It may become necessary to move installed licenses of ABBYY Recognition Server (v. 2.x, 3.x) or ABBYY FlexiCapture (v. 9.x, 10.x) to a different computer. Be it a hardware upgrade, business or procedural move, some planning ahead will make license transfers very quick and easy.
License Type
At the time of purchase, you license may be delivered in a form of USB Key (USB drive) or a Software Key (serial number, no hardware).
USB Key contains the serial number license inside of it, usually with a tag attached to it, so moving the USB key is the same as moving the license from machine to machine. This license type is the easiest to move as it is completely self-encapsulated and hardware independent. This is the preferred choice of licensing for environments where the license needs to be moved frequently between machines, where license may need to be portable for primary/secondary setup, sharing or disaster recovery, or where there is no Internet connection to bring in and activate software-based licenses. USB key is THE LICENSE, so caution should be applied not to lose or damage it.
Software Key license, also referred to as serial number license, is a string of vendor-supplied alpha-numeric characters that is entered at the time of installation. This license is typically provided via e-mail, and thus carries convenience of fast deliveries (no shipping required). This is also the preferred choice of licensing for remote desktop computers, data centers, VM-based machines, and environments where physical access or dependence on extra hardware components is limited or undesired. Serial number requires online activation at the time of installation via Internet or e-mail, so the computer where the license resides requires proximity to an Internet connection. This license, once activated, becomes hardware-specific, meaning it is tied to physical characteristics of the computer where it was installed. For this reason, major OS and hardware changes on the host computer may invalidate this license in some rare situations.
Importance of License over Software Package
It is important to reiterate that the license holds the value of your purchase, not the software CD on which the installation package arrived. For this reason the license should be preserved and archived with higher importance than the software package. Software will be available for your download at any time and at no cost from WiseTREND as part of Support/Maintenance (SMUA) subscription, but you must have your license in order to install and use this software.
Transferring Licenses from One Machine to Another
USB Key licenses are easily transferred by moving the USB dongle. No online deactivation/activation is required. It is suggested to install latest drivers for Safe-NET iKey 1000 security tokens with every new installation and before plugging in the USB dongle. Drivers are available from here: link.
Software Key license transfer process varies depending two following conditions:
- Have access to currently installed license, want to uninstall and move to new machine
The key aspect of this transfer is having access to existing “old” installation before attempting the new installation. You can release the license from the old installation in order to be available for the new installation. This process is referred as “deactivate” the license.
TIP: We suggest to a) take a screenshot of your activated license with the entire serial number and computer clock visible, and b) take s screenshot of deactivation confirmation with computer clock visible, for your records.
To Deactivate the license, do the following:
ABBYY Recognition Server — right-click on the license in the Administration Microsoft Management Console (Admin MMC) which resides under Programs/ABBYY Recognition Server folder on your server. Follow the wizard to complete the online deactivation. Once completed, the license will become available for a new installation on a different machine.
ABBYY FlexiCapture – open License Manager which resides under Programs/ABBYY FlexiCapture/Tools folder. If you are using Distributed Edition, then License Manager is located on your backend server. From within the License Manager, go to Tools -> Deactivate. Follow the wizard to complete the online deactivation. Once completed, the license will become available for a new installation on a different machine.
NOTE: In case of frequent deactivation of the license, it is possible to reach a limit of deactivations. If this happens, please contact WiseTREND for further assistance.
- Do NOT have access to installed license, need to install on new machine
This process will take a few steps, so we suggest to try Deactivation described above if at all possible. This situation is quite rare, but it may happen. Examples of this situation are: permanent and unrecoverable failure of OS or hardware on computer where the license was installed, permanent loss of laptop where the license was installed, accidentally or unknowingly deleting the software without releasing the license, etc.
In such situation where the license is still locked on the old machine, and if it cannot be deactivated, please contact WiseTREND for further assistance and instructions. WiseTREND will invoke internal ABBYY processes to help release the license and make it available for a new installation.
We are here to assist if you have any further questions or require any other assistance.
Your WiseTREND Team
