Online Licensing – Bring SOLIDWORKS back home
| Working at home is becoming more common with the recent situation. Most likely for designer or engineer, you will also need to have SOLIDWORKS with you back home. After you have installed and open SOLIDWORKS, have you ever seen an error message “Activation count exceed”. This could be the most common error message for SOLIDWORKS user. Since SOLIDWORKS is using machine-activation based for its license service, if the license had already activated on the computer at your workplace. You will not be able to open SOLIDWORKS back home. |  |
There are two solutions for this issue, old & new:
OLD: You can deactivate the license from your work computer, and activate it at home. Problem solved! However, this solution would require you to perform in person, if you have forgotten to deactivate, you will need to run back to the office in order to activate it back home.
| NEW!!
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Using Online Licensing, a tool that helps you manage your users and licenses through a cloud-based management service. No more activation and deactivation. Only needs your account and password, which will allow you to access SOLIDWORKS anywhere you go. Online Licensing can help you to use SOLIDWORKS both at work and home simultaneously. Here I will explain the reason you should use Online Licensing and how you can convert your license.
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Online Licensing’s Background:
Online Licensing had been released on 2018 and is available to anyone using standalone SOLIDWORKS 2018 or newer and is compatible with all products except SOLIDWORKS PDM. Currently, SOLIDWORKS license had 2 types: Standalone and Network. Only Standalone license can be switch to Online Licensing.
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| [source: https://mlc-cad.com/solidworks-online-licensing-is-this-the-solution-for-me/] |
Online Licensing’s Requirements:
- SOLIDWORKS version 2018 or above
- License De-activation from Machine Based Activation
- Stable internet connection, or Offline Mode
- Admin Portal account
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Admin Portal is the platform you must have for using Online Licensing. Admin Portal allows you to manage all their users and licenses in a single platform. And to switch your license between Machine Base and Online Licensing. In order to access for Admin Portal, you will need to have a SOLIDWORKS ID and a ‘MySolidWorks’ Guest, Standard, or Professional account.
Benefits of Admin Portal:
- Can switch license type between Machine Activation and Online Licensing.
- Allows you to invite members into the Company’s account and assign specific product to them.
- Other than SOLIDWORKS license, also support Standalone version of multi-products, e.g. Simulation, Visualize, Composer, etc.
- Admin can deactivate or activate member’s licenses any time via internet.
- If an employee leaves the company, you can remove the user and reassign the license.
Offline Mode
One major Online Licensing requirement is to have internet access with your computer. If you are going to places where you cannot go online or have internet restriction, there will be risk that you cannot open SOLIDWORKS. But don’t worry there is also a solution, which is called Offline Mode. A similar concept as borrowing a license. You can take and lock the license on your computer for up to 30 days. Go up In the SOLIDWORKS title bar, click the “Login” icon and select “Take License Offline”.
Procedures
A detailed guide on how to register an account on “MySolidWorks” and switch the license from Machine Activation to Online Licensing. You can click on the link HERE.
Written by Benjamin Cheung, Intelligent CAD/CAM Technology Ltd.