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GarethOakes16-Pearl
16-Pearl
July 1, 2011
Question

Arbortext Editor 6 and Remote Desktop

  • July 1, 2011
  • 16 replies
  • 13004 views
Hi guys,

One of our customers is trying to upgrade their system to Arbortext Editor 6.0 and has hit a roadblock.

[cid:image001.png@01CC37E7.5E5C6BB0]

In case you can't read the graphic above, the error message says:

(-103) Cannot checkout an uncounted license within a Windows Terminal Services guest session.

What the customer is trying to do is work with Arbortext Editor from home, just as they have for years previously in 5.3 and 5.4. The customer connects to his work desktop via Windows Remote Desktop. In this case, it seems that their node-locked license in Editor 6.0 does not want to play ball with Remote Desktop.

Has anyone else encountered this problem yet?

[cid:image002.jpg@01CC37E7.5E5C6BB0]

Gareth Oakes

+61-439-743-740

      16 replies

      N
      naglists1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      July 1, 2011
      Hi Gareth,

      Yes. The change in licensing systems requires a floating license for Remote
      Desktop authors. I will reply to an older e-mail from PTC on the subject
      that should have all the information you need. After you're done reading it
      over, you may want to drop a line to Susan Fort. There *may* be some help
      available during transitions to the new requirements.

      A
      Anonymous
      July 1, 2011
      If you go back into the archive a couple of months, we had a pretty
      detailed discussion with Susan Fort about upgrading to 6. If you had a
      node-locked license, you have to use a floating license to access
      Arbortext on a computer using RPC/terminal services; node locked
      licenses will not work on a PC with Arbortext if you access the PC using
      Remote Desktop.



      Yeah, it does kind of suck. We've got an offshore team that we have to
      upgrade to floating licenses in order to support them remotely if they
      have issues.



      -Jason


      A
      Anonymous
      July 1, 2011
      To clarify, the issue is with the Flexera FlexLM in use with Arbortext
      6. Previous versions used the ELan license manager, and remote desktop
      was not an issue.


      G
      GarethOakes16-PearlAuthor
      16-Pearl
      July 1, 2011
      Hi Paul,



      Thanks for digging up the old thread. Good to hear others are having similar
      experiences.



      This is a massive red flag for our customers. Many are used to remoting in
      to work on things and this is a showstopper for some people. It doesn't seem
      right that PTC would remove functionality from a product "upgrade". That is
      typically known as a regression. If you purchased something then you expect
      it to keep working, and if you are paying maintenance, remain maintained in
      its functional state.



      We'll check in to what can be done for our customers. Thanks again for the
      response!



      Cheers,

      Gareth


      G
      GarethOakes16-PearlAuthor
      16-Pearl
      July 1, 2011
      Oh and here's another thing I figured out. This new node-locked licensing
      also won't work with desktop virtualisation via Windows Virtual PC (or
      Windows XP Mode) because they actually use Remote Desktop Protocol in order
      to connect to the VM's "screen". I guess VMware and VirtualBox will still be
      OK.



      -G


      N
      naglists1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      July 1, 2011
      Another potential gotcha I've heard about is if a machine (not sure if it
      happens to hardware, virtual, or both) has two NICs, the licensing can fail
      to recognize the machine. I think in some situations the OS may determine
      the "primary" NIC based on initialization timing ... if the primary changes,
      then the hash of the machine ID used by the licensing changes and the issued
      license then fails. Something like that.

      I'm not sure how easily this can happen or whether it has been fixed ...
      just something I heard.


      E
      ebenton1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      July 1, 2011
      Is this Windows 7, Windows XP or what?
      B
      berard1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      July 1, 2011
      I was able to temporarily install a VNC server (TightVNC in my case), then
      install the licence with no problem.

      keith

      B
      berard1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      July 1, 2011
      Oh, and I suppose to clarify...

      My situation is that I live/work in the Boston area, but our main servers
      are in Seattle. I keep a headless machine in Seattle that I use for
      development work... having an instance of Arbortext remote to test latency,
      and one local as a control is a must. I'm still in the process of
      evaluating 6, with the intent of rolling out at the end of the year in time
      for our new writing cycle. We have a meeting at the beginning of January
      where all of our writers get together in one place... an ideal time for
      someone like me to upgrade and install licences.

      Our writers pretty much all remote to Seattle, so we only employ locked
      licences anyway. I sent a message to PTC support, and the response I got
      was simply:

      "As it is locked license, you cannot install it remotely. You have to
      install it physically on that machine itself."

      Knowing that the alternative would require me to either fly out to Seattle,
      or get someone there to find the machine, hook up a monitor/keyboard, and
      spend time getting the license installed, I tried a few other things.
      Since the error message itself specifically mentioned Terminal Server (even
      though this was just a simple XP machine that only allows a single login), I
      figured I'd try VNC.

      Install of the VNC server was a snap, connected right away, and allowed the
      license install. Only suggestion is that you uninstall/disable VNC via
      VNC, since you won't be able to RDP until you do.

      That's it. I can't see in any way how this would violate any license
      agreement, as it is a single locked license, a single machine that only
      allows a single user at a time (again XP, not TS Server), and I'm
      _technically_ wasting a full licence just for dev work anyway.

      Good luck,

      keith

      L
      lfraley1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      July 1, 2011
      This is absolutely true. The fix is to "go into regedit and make changes..."
      Directly from Tech Support's mouth.

      That's a bug, not a fix.


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