E-licenses and deployment

[_Rasmus_Borup_Hansen_]

Hi! I recently bought a number of licenses for Acrobat Standard version 8 which I want to deploy to our computers using group policy. How do the different licensing choices interfere with group policy deployment and the upcoming Customization Wizard? With the information I have now, I'm afraid I'll choose the wrong options when going through the "Setup e-licenses for new orders" procedure.

I want both deployment and licensing managed centrally. The users should just see that version 8 has been installed on their computers without any licensing fuss and without having to do anything to get it installed.

Another question: If I reinstall Adobe Standard version 8 on a computer without first uninstalling it to reclaim the license (e.g. because I reinstall everything including the OS) will the licensing mechanism reuse the old license or use a new one? Flexlm, the predecessor of flexnet, uses mac-addresses to identify computers so my guess is that the old license will be reused. Am I right?

I hope it'll be possible to issue licenses to computers that are valid for, say, 3 months and then make the client computers try to renew the licenses after 2 months giving laptop users a one month window where they can connect to the appropriate network. Will something like this be possible?

Best regards,

Rasmus

[_Juan-Carlos_]

Rasmus,

Good questions. I'll respond in order.

You said:
"I want both deployment and licensing managed centrally. The users should just see that version 8 has been installed on their computers without any licensing fuss and without having to do anything to get it installed."
==> Given this you want to use an advanced method that allows you to make the e-license download process silent (i.e., invisible to the end-user). You have two options: Adobe-hosted with custom options or in-house (installing a local license server).

Your second question: e-license reuse.
If you reinstall Acrobat 8 Standard on top of what you previously had, then the e-license will be reused. Same is true if you reinstall the OS. However, if you re-image the whole machine, all of your data will be lost, including your e-license. In this case, Adobe has establish a process where you'll get any number of lost e-licenses reestablished in your pool by calling Adobe customer service. Future enhancements we're considering would allow for automatic reconfiguration, but we're not there yet.

Related to you last paragraph:
The licensing model that Adobe sells is per seat, which means that the license is intended to stay on a machine. Users download an e-license from the pool you designate (hosted at Adobe or in-house) and after that, the do not need to connect again to the network. If the user does not need to application anymore, he or she can uninstall the application and return the e-license or return the e-license manually (via the help menu within the application).

Regards,
Juan-Carlos

[_Rasmus_Borup_Hansen_]

Thank you for your prompt answer. I'll install a local license server then. Can you tell me if there will be a Linux version of the vendor daemon available (I already have a Linux license server for other programs)?

Can you tell me where I can read the license agreement? The web page at http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/index.html doesn't have information about version 8 yet.

My vendor told me that he believed that people having both laptop and desktop PCs could use the same license for both computers. Is there any truth in this? It obviously doesn't fit with the e-licenses procedures.

Best regards,

Rasmus

[_Juan-Carlos_]

Rasmus,

We have considered Linux as the next logical version to support for the License Server, but we do not have any concrete plans yet.

The EULA for Acrobat 8 will be posted to the website shortly. I notified to the people in charge that it is not there.

Regarding secondary machine use rights. Your vendor is partially correct. The Acrobat 8 EULA, consistently with prior EULAs, allow each license to be installed on a primary and a secondary computer, for non-simultaneous use by the same user.

With e-licensing, Adobe established a process that allows you to add your secondary use e-licenses to the same pool you have (your in-house license server) or another pool of your choice (for example, hosted at Adobe). This is to allow administrators to track secondary use e-licenses separately, if desire. Secondary use e-licenses are identical to primary use e-licenses (if you add them to the same pool as your primary, you will not be able to differentiate one another). We wanted to add a bit of extra flexibility for those organizations who want to keep them separated.

To use your secondary use e-licenses please call Customer Service and request a portion or all the secondary use e-licenses up to the amount of purchased seats. They will add them immediately to the pool of your choice.

Regards,
Juan-Carlos

[_Rasmus_Borup_Hansen_]

Thank you once again. A final comment: The file "Abcpy.ini" that must be edited to pre-serialize Acrobat 8, has the following text in it:

Product=Adobe(R) Acrobat(R) 7.0
AbcpyVersion=7.0

Someone will probably want to change this.

Best regards,

Rasmus

[_Juan-Carlos_]

Oh you bet on that one!