About Individual Licenses

Following installation of the software the usual procedure is to register the software by supplying your personal details along with information about the PC on which the software will run. This will enable VSN International to generate a license key for you, which will be sent out by email as soon as the information has been processed.

Licenses for Individual software installations are provided in plain text files named appname.lic, where appname is replaced by the actual application name. For example, GenStat.lic, ASReml.lic, SAMM.lic. You can read the license file to find out what restrictions apply and so on. Your software may also display this information for you.

In some cases you may already have a license key, in which case you can skip the registration step. Note that the key must be in the format described below, older keys in other formats (.gli, .ali or .sli files) will not be recognised by the software.

Registering Software

Before registering, you should have your Site Reference number handy. This is not essential, but speeds up processing of your license request and other communications with VSN International. Also note that registration will require some important details of the host system so should be carried out on the computer on which you intend running the software.

Following installation of your application you should try running it. In the absence of a license you will be offered the choice of registering or installing a trial key. You should choose to register and you will then be presented with the following options:

If you choose to register online your browser will launch and display a form on the VSN website. You should fill in the requested details and then click "Submit Request". Your license key will be despatched by email in due course. If you are not connected to the internet, or do not wish to register online, you can instead register by saving the required information and your personal details to a text file which can be emailed or posted to VSN.

When you receive your license key you should proceed as follows: Individual License Installation.

Pre-issued Keys

In some cases you may already have a valid license key for the software. For example:

Your company or institution has an unlimited or site-wide license
You have upgraded from an older version of the software
You have been given a time-locked key for demonstration or course
You have renewed support and been sent a new key automatically

If you have already installed the key (for example, because it was issued for an earlier version of the software) the new version of the software may work immediately. If it does not, or if the key has not yet been installed please proceed to Individual License Installation

License Key Formats

Licenses for Individual software installations are provided in plain text files named appname.lic. Apart from comments (prefixed by #) the file should contain only a FEATURE line. In practice this may be split over several lines, using the back-slash (\) to terminate the intermediate lines. For example:

FEATURE GenStat VSN 0502 permanent uncounted VENDOR_STRING="Department \
	of Science and Technology" HOSTID=00210971af91 PLATFORMS=i86_n \
	SN=40108120 SIGN="0562 E837 D104 7370 89BB 8027 F176 F9E1 7A5F \
	B3A2 AC03 6385 F321 D4B7 5F85 826E 4DA5 1E3A 06BF 383A 154B"

The most important elements of this key are as follows:

Application name	GenStat	the software application
Vendor name	VSN	the software vendor (VSNi Ltd)
Support code	0502	key is valid for software versions released up until the end of February 2005
Expiry date	permanent	key does not expire
VENDOR_STRING	company name	appears in JOB message

In particular, note that this key encodes the end date (0502) of the support period in which it was issued. Although it is a permanent key, it is only valid for software versions (including patches and service packs) that are issued prior to the end of this period. In this case the user has permanent access to GenStat Release 8.1, but if they tried to run GenStat Release 8.2 they would get an error message. When the user renews support they will be issued with a new key recognizing the extended support period.

See License Details for further details of support codes and software versions.

Important: the key includes a digital signature encrypting various items of information. If the text of the key is altered the signature will no longer be valid and the software will not run.