'Flex-able' Programming

How to Use the Flex License Tool

To install a new trial edition for Flex follow these steps:

1. Get a new trial license key from Macromedia customer service or Macromedia sales.


2. Bring up a command prompt (terminal window on UNIX) and navigate to the {flex.rootdir}/bin directory. On Windows the default installation directory for Flex is c:\Program Files\Macromedia\Flex. The customer’s Flex location may vary depending on where they installed the product.


3. Use the licensetool.exe to insert the new key. The following is an example of the syntax used to enter the new key.

licensetool –install {license key} {Flex application directory}

Figure One shows an example of using the licensetool.exe to install the new license key for the Flex default application. In this installation {flex.rootdir} is located at C:\App-Servers\Flex.

Below is an example of the message that the license tool will output after successfully installing a license key.

C:\eanderson\App-Servers\Macromedia\Flex\bin>licensetool -install FEDxxx-xxxxx-c:\eanderson\app-servers\macromedia\flex\jrun4\servers\default\flex

The license key was successfully installed.

Retrieving licensing information, please wait ...

- Flex 1.0 Full Commercial Edition enabled

C:\eanderson\App-Servers\Macromedia\Flex\bin>

What to do is you have a problem

If you have problems when using the tool, check the following:

1. The license tool will create an error message. This should tell you what is wrong with the tool. The most common issues are either the license key is not valid, or the path to the Flex application is not correct.


2. If the new key is valid and the path to the Flex application is correct you can manually edit the license file by replacing the existing key in the license.properties file located at {flex.root}/WEB-INF/flex/license.properties. Note, editing the file by hand can create problems with your Flex server. If you enter the wrong key into the file you server will default to a developer edition (limited to 5 IP addresses).

When editing the license.properties file by hand, you will see there is nothing added to the ‘sn=’ property. The following is an example of what the file will look like if no license key is installed.

sn=

To add the license key by hand you would edit the license.properties file and set “sn=” to the license key as shown in the example below:

sn=FED100-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

When editing the file by hand be sure not to include any extra spaces or line returns after the last number in the key as it will prevent the license key from being installed correctly.

Note, when change the license key (using either the licensetool.exe or by manually editing the license.properties file) you must restart the Flex server before the change takes effect