There used to be a license server that the code would 'phone home' to after you entered your details, and then run after that handshake for new sessions. They appear to have iced it. It went down for a weekend or so at a time a few times back in 2018, 2020, etc. (look for old posts). But this time it's been down since I think August or so 2023, and not come back up.
They appear to have stealth-edited their webpage for the Express to state you only can use in 72-hour blocks. Each time you run the software after a time away, you'll have to get a temporary key from them.
Here's the process;
- Try to start the software. When it pops up the "what's your proxy?" window you've already encountered - just "X" out of that window. That's the legacy of it trying to reach out to the server and failing.
- It should pop up a new window and offer to let you request an activation key. Click that button.
- This will open a web browser and ask for your username (usually email address) and password. Enter that, and it will show you a lengthy hash-code.
- Select this all and copy it to your clipboard. Now you can paste that into the relevant window for the software and activate. Once you do this, you can close the software when you want and re-open it within a 72 hour period (as long or as many times as you want). Each open it will once again 'try' to contact the server and then show a little "work offline (xx hours remaining)" option button you have to click.
- Repeat all steps for the next 72 hours.
Be advised - if you mis-enter your password in step 3, the Creo page will STILL GIVE YOU A HASH CODE. But it will not work if copied and pasted into the Activation Code window of the software. It won't tell you that you failed to log in correctly or anything, so it might just appear that the procedure didn't work.
