Borrowing a SolidWorks License from a SolidNetWork License

While working on support the other day I had a question that has been asked of me many time before but when I tried to walk the customer thru the process I realized that something had changed in that process. Upon doing some research I found out what those changes were.

Pre SolidWorks 2011 – If you wanted to check out a license to take offsite you needed to:

1. Start the SolidNetwork License Manage on the client machine you want to take out of the office/off of the network.


2. From the License Borrowing Tab select the Product you wish to borrow, and this is where it gets tricky.
   
   
   1. To take a Standard License (no Add-ins) select the Standard and away you go.
   
   
   2. To take a SolidWorks Office, Professional or Premium license you need to select not only the SolidWorks Office, Professional or Premium seat you also need to select a SolidWorks Standard seat.
   
   

In option b. it will look like you are taking 2 seats of software but you are really only taking one and the reason for that is if you look at you overall license count in the SNL Manager (see below) you will see that they have 1 Standard seat for every 1 Office, Professional or Premium seat. The reason for this is Add-Ins if you have none turned on then you only take a Standard seat, as soon as you select an Add-In it will pull the appropriate higher level seat as well out of the pool.

 

SolidWorks 2011 and Forward – The process of borrowing a Standard license when a Office, Premium, or Professional license is requested is automated. It is no longer necessary to have to borrow a standard license first.  If you want to check out a license to take offsite you need to:

1. Start the SolidNetwork License Manage on the client machine you want to take out of the office/off of the network.


2. From the License Borrowing Tab select the Product you wish to borrow. Notice in the screen shot below that that no Standard seats are Free yet there are 6 Total. This is because on this license the Customer only owns 6 seats of SolidWorks Premium so when they go to Borrow a seat it will take both automatically.

 

When you go to return a license before it expires if you select to return the Standard and not the Premium you will get the following message. This message confirms the new automation process of the SNL Manager.

Josh Altergott

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.