Mathcad re-installation

Shlomo Ruschin schrieb: After having given-up with my unsolved dll problem (see discussion http://communities.ptc.com/message/154574) I found out that I cannot reinstall MC 14 on a new machine, since I will lose my license at all. As a last solution I am ready to format the gard disk and install MC from the CD. Questions: 1. Will it work? 2. I have only a key no. Is it enough? 3. If I format I will probably want to update Windows. Should I expect trouble? Thanks!

I may be wrong but I think that formatting the hard disk without saving your licence.dat is not a good idea.

The key number you have, entitles you to obtain once or twice (depends upon which kind of licence you bought) a licence from PTC. Later (e.g. if you change your hardware) you have to contact PTC licencing support to (possibly) obtain an additional licence file. While I have no personal experience it is said, that they react quite cooperative if you ever have the luck to really get in contact with them.

As I understand it the keynumber you have has nothing to do with the license file itself (other than being a necessity to be able to obtain one). Unless you are working in a company using a Flex-license-server the licence.dat, which is located somewhere in the directory you installed Mathcad into, depends either on the MAC of one of your network cards or on the volume-serial-ID of the harddisk partition. The latter ID will be changed if you reformat or repartition your harddisk. So in this case you should not only backup your licence.dat but also that volume-ID-number. Ther are tools around which let you set that volume-ID to any numer you want.

A FAQ at FH-Dortmund (http://www.fh-dortmund.de/de/studi/fb/3/personen/mitarb/wambach/lehre/Mathcad_FAQ.php) says you can find such a tool at http://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/sysinternals/bb897436.aspx

So in any case don't reformat your HDD without backing up your licence.dat and probably your volumeID-Nr.

I just looked at the thread you mentioned and saw you already were advised to contact PTClicensing and also to backup your license.dat before reinstalling. Nothing was said about reformatting, though, which could get you into troubles because of the changed volume-ID

Regards

Rag

Try contacting the Mathcad License and Install.

-.

Mike