This policy outlines our current licensing and product activation terms, and is effective for all orders processed on or after June 1, 2011. For orders processed before this date, refer to the previous version of this policy.
Licensing
Our products are licensed on a per computer basis. In this context, a computer is any separate and distinct physical or virtual device capable of running the software product, like: physical PC, laptop, tablet, work station, server, PDA, Smartphone, communicator, etc.; or a Virtual Machine of any kind. You can use the product on as many computers as you have activations available provided by the license(s) you purchased. This means, for example, if you have purchased 1 Personal/Single license that provides one activation, you can activate and use the product on 1 computer only. Activation is explained in detail in the next section below.
Typically every product comes with several different licenses that you can choose from when making your order, so you can select what's best for you. For example, a Business and Dual-PC licenses allow you to install and use the product on 2 computers, while the Site license allows for up to a 100 computers. The details of the different licenses available for a particular product are clearly explained on the order form, so you can decide on the license you want before placing your order. If you have the needs for volume discounts or custom licensing, please contact us.
Activation
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, our software products, once installed and run for the first time, require a one-time activation that binds the product to a specific computer so that it can be used on it. Activation itself is a one-time, simple, and anonymous process that only takes a few seconds.
To activate the product, you simply launch it for the first time once it has been installed; when prompted enter your serial number you got from your order confirmation e-mail; and finally activate it by submitting the serial number you entered to our servers for processing - right from within the program. While Internet Connection is recommended for this process, it is certainly not required for product activation, so you can easily activate purchased product(s) on computers without Internet access too by using the Offline activation mode.
Every successful activation on a different computer decreases the number of available activations left that come with your license(s), limiting the number of computers on which the product can be used, as per the license(s) you purchased. Therefore it is important that you activate the product only on those computer(s) where you intend to use it.
Activation itself is accomplished by generating and sending a unique computer-specific ID for every computer where the product is activated along with your serial number for verification to our server. The computer ID generated and sent by this process is based on your hardware configuration and is totally anonymous; it does not contain any personal information, so you can be absolutely sure that your privacy is fully respected.
If you are trying to reinstall and reactivate the product (due to Operating System reinstallation for example) on the same computer where you already performed activation previously, your original serial number will work and the new activation will not decrease the number of available activations left. If however you are trying to activate the product on a different computer - be it a new PC or Virtual Machine, or the original computer but with significant hardware changes, activation will fail if you no longer have available activations left. Significant hardware changes include but are not limited to: motherboard replacement, CPU(s) replacement/addition/removal, boot device replacement (replacement of hard drive, SSD, PCIE storage card where the Operating System is installed), etc. Note that the computer to which significant hardware changes have been made will be treated as a different computer by the product activation and thus you will be required to activate the product on such a computer again, with all implications for activation on a different computer mentioned above.
Activation and License Transfers
Although the activation binds the product to a particular computer, should the need arise, the product may be easily transferred from one computer to another as described below.
If you no longer want to use the product on a computer where it has been activated previously, you can transfer your activated product to another computer. This may be useful in cases when you are upgrading to a new computer or simply wish to use the product on a different computer.
Within first 30 days of the license purchase, you can transfer the product from one computer to another free of charge as many times as you need. After this period, you can transfer the product from one computer to another free of charge as many times as is permitted by your license. If your license does not allow for free transfers, or if you have already used up all the available transfers supplied by your license, you can still transfer the product to another computer once you have paid the non-refundable License Transfer Fee, which is 20% of the price of your license at the time of the purchase divided by the number of activations that came with it but no less than US $19.95. Please note that the payment of this fee entitles you only to a single transfer of the product you already have to another computer; it does not entitle you to receive a free upgrade to the latest version (if the version you are using is not the latest), nor does it entitle you to use the product on additional computer(s).
In all cases of product transfers, before another activation can be granted and the product transferred to another computer, you must first deactivate the product on the old computer, and send us the deactivation response code as explained below:
- Download and save this tool: https://download.binarymark.com/bmdl.exe.
- Run this tool with Administrative Rights.
- Deactivate the product and send us the response code generated by the utility.
- Uninstall the product from your old computer.
Once we get the deactivation response code from you, we can supply you with an additional activation, enabling you to activate and use the product on another computer, provided you have available activation transfer(s) as was described above.
If, for whatever reason, you are unable to run the deactivation tool mentioned above (perhaps because you no longer have access to the machine where the product was originally activated), the license transfer is still possible but is subject to additional requirements:
- Our explicit approval, which we usually grant after a review of the case
- License Transfer payment described above becomes mandatory even when your license allows for free / still has unused transfers
Just as different licenses have different number of activations that are granted by them, different licenses have different number of free activation transfers too: some have none, some have 1, and some have more. Unless otherwise stated on the product order page at the time of the order placement, the licenses have the following number of free activation transfers associated with them:
- Personal, Single, Starter licenses allow for no free activation transfers.
- Business and Dual-PC licenses allow for 1 free activation transfer.
- The number of free activation transfers allowed by all other licenses is exactly half of the number of activations supplied by those licenses. For example, a typical Site license allows for 100 activations, and hence it comes with half of 100 = 50 free activation transfers.
Note that any free bonus products that might be part of your order do not come with any activation transfers regardless of the type of license of the main product.
Unplanned Activation Transfers
In the case of a sudden hard disk failure or other hardware-related problems, when you cannot use the deactivation tool mentioned above to deactivate the product on the old computer in order to transfer activation to a new computer, our policy allows you to use available activation transfer without running the deactivation tool, so you can nevertheless transfer the product to a new computer. If there are no available activation transfers because either your license does not include them or you have already used them up previously, you can still transfer the product to a new computer without running deactivation tool, provided you pay the License Transfer fee described in the previous section above. Such unanticipated activation transfer, however, can only be used once per license purchased.
If you have any concerns or questions regarding our Licensing and Activation Policy, please feel free to contact us any time! We will happily answer your questions in a timely manner!
