License Screen - Working with Serial Numbers - Pro!
A Serial Number is a textual representation of a license (e.g. SR84D-VBESQ-GK3RC-F9HM5-ESQGU
) that can be printed on the product box or sent by a publisher as confirmation of purchase. Usually a Serial Number would be used by the end user to obtain a license using the Protection! Licensing Wizard.
Serial Numbers v2 are based on the concept of the License Alias. Serial Numbers v2 contain an encoded representation of the license number and license alias. Because Serial Numbers v2 refers back to the License Alias it is possible to associate an exact set of license attributes with each Serial Number. This eliminates a major limitation of Serial Numbers v1 where Serial Number v1 was able to hold only a limited set of license attributes.
Serial Numbers v2 is relatively transparent to the customers who are still using original Serial Number structure as Serial Numbers v1 are still supported. However, Serial Numbers v1 are now deprecated / obsolete. Special attribute in the products storage defines which version of Serial Numbers should be used. This could be controlled via the "Products Screen" - "Options | Use Obsolete Serial Numbers" menu item.
All of the Serial Numbers dependent functionality including API and the dialogs supports both versions of the Serial Numbers and provides specific implementation for the currently selected Serial Number version.
Working with Serial Numbers v1
Due to the limited length of the Serial Number, it includes the following license attributes only:
- "Product Short Identifier"
- "Product Short Edition Identifier"
- "Product Major Version"
- License Number
- "Number of Copies"
- Options:
- "Activation is Required"
- "Activation and Lock is Required"
- "Check Number of Copies"
The following procedure will generate a new Serial Number for a given license:
- Fill in all required license attributes.
- Select "Edit | Generate Serial Number" on the menu bar.
- Click the "Copy" button to copy the generated Serial Number to the system clipboard
The following procedure will generate Serial Numbers in bulk:
- Select "Edit | Generate Serial Numbers" on the menu bar.
- Fill-in the License number.
- Specify how many Serial Numbers you want to generate for a given license (the "Count" field).
- Click the "Generate" button.
- Click the "Copy" button to copy all of the generated Serial Numbers to the system clipboard.
The following procedure will parse Serial Number and generate a new license based on information obtained from the Serial Number:
- Select the "Edit | Parse Serial Number" on the menu bar.
- Either type the Serial Number or click the "Paste" button if the Serial Number was previously copied into the system clipboard.
- Click the "OK" button.
- Protection! generates a new License based on the information obtained from the parsed Serial Number.
- Adjust license attributes if necessary and save the newly generated license.
Working with Serial Numbers v2
Procedures to Generate Serial Number, Generate Serial Numbers in Bulk and Parse Serial Number are identical to the procedure outlined above for Serial Numbers v1. The only significant difference is that in order to use Serial Number v2 at least one valid License Alias must be created.
Note, unlike Serial Numbers v1 this version does not use any license attributes entered in the License Screen. Serial Number v2 uses its attributes from the License Alias as well as License Number and Number of Copies which are all entered in the Serial Number Dialog.
The following procedure will generate a new Serial Number:
- Select the "Edit | Generate Serial Number" on the menu bar.
- Select a License Alias from the "License Alias" combo box.
- Specify number of copies using the "Number of Copies" field or turn off the "Number of Copies" checkbox to accept default value specified in the License Alias.
- Specify the license number using the "License Number" field.
- Click the "Copy" button to copy the generated Serial Number to the system clipboard.
The following procedure will generate new Serial Numbers in bulk:
- Select the "Edit | Generate Serial Number" on the menu bar.
- Select a License Alias from the "License Alias" combo box.
- Specify the number of copies using the "Number of Copies" field or turn off the "Number of Copies" checkbox to accept default value specified in the License Alias.
- Specify the license number using the "License Number" field.
- Specify how many Serial Numbers you want to generate for a given license using the "Count" field.
- Click the "Generate" button.
- Click the "Copy" button to copy all of the generated Serial Numbers to the system clipboard.
The following procedure will parse Serial Number and generate a new license based on information obtained from the Serial Number:
- Select the "Edit | Parse Serial Number" on the menu bar.
- Either type the Serial Number or click the "Paste" button if the Serial Number was previously copied into the system clipboard.
- Click the "OK" button.
- Protection! generates a new License based on the information obtained from the parsed Serial Number.
- Adjust license attributes if necessary and save the newly generated license