Home → More on Networks → Overview → Why Only a Year at a Time? (Network Licenses)
Applies to:
Concurrent Network license certificates
Enterprise Network Activation IDs
Why is my license file or Activation ID only good for a year? I thought I bought a permanent license.
The great majority of our commercial network licenses are indeed perpetual, though we do sell a few for a term of years. But we issue all Concurrent Network certificates (license files) and Enterprise Network Activation IDs for a maximum of a year at a time, to allow for the possibility of planned or unplanned server changes. With an Enterprise Network, this annual "reset" also lets you recover licenses lost during the year when workstations failed or were reimaged without deactivating the software.
How can I tell when my current certificate or Activation ID will expire? What do I have to do to get it renewed? What does it cost?
We include the expiration date in the email when we send you a certificate or Activation ID. You can also see the expiration date in the lower window of Palisade Server Manager, and in plain text in every certificate license file. (If you view the license file in a text editor, be careful not to make any changes, because then the checksum will no longer be correct.)
About a week before expiration—somewhat longer for Enterprise Networks—we contact the server administrator who received last year's license. (You can initiate the contact if you prefer. Please include your serial number in that case.) This lead time allows the new license to be created and installed with no disruption to your users. We'll ask you a couple of things, and we need your prompt answers in order to create the renewal license. Once we have them, we can provide the new license within one business day, usually within an hour or two during our business hours. On your end, installing a new Concurrent License certificate should take under five minutes. (Enterprise Network renewals take longer, because of the need to reactivate the software on every end user's computer.)
There's no charge for these renewals.
See also: Why Only 30 Days? (Concurrent Network Licenses)
Last edited: 2018-08-14