Revised and Reviewed July 2020

There are several reasons why you might need to update your A-Shell license: increase the numbers of licensed nodes, extend your software maintenance contract through a new date, add options, change company name, or change platforms. In all cases, make sure you have received clear and unambiguous license information before beginning. Having somebody tell you over the phone that the company name is "Smith and Company," for example, is likely to cause problems; is it Smith and Company? Smith & Company? Smith & Co, Inc.? J. SmithCo? It may not make a difference to you or Smith, but it does to A-Shell.

To update the A-Shell license:

•   Log to the system operator account OPR:

•   Type LICENS followed by the Enter key.

There are two things that can happen at this point: either LICENS will run, or it will not, in which case A-Shell displays ?LICENS?. If LICENS runs, then you need only to follow the prompts and enter your new or updated information. If it does not run, then this means that your version of A-Shell is very old and may no longer be supported; contact Microsabio to investigate.

If LICENS runs as expected but the license info you enter is declared invalid, see the topics LICENS Error Codes and Troubleshooting Licensing Issues.

Comments

The company and license key fields are NOT case-sensitive.

The "Maintenance Expiration" date will not prevent A-Shell from running unless you update A-Shell beyond your maintenance expiration date. If your expiration date is 15 January 2006, for example, and you install a new version of A-Shell on 16 January 2006 or after, A-Shell will revert to demo mode and require that you get an updated license. The basic rule is,  don't update A-Shell unless your current maintenance expiration date is in the future.

Information about the A-Shell license is also available with the ABOUT command, and from the Help | About menu under A-Shell/Windows.

If the existing company name needs to be changed (it was misspelled, firm has a new name, you need to add "Inc.", etc.), you must simultaneously get a new security key from MicroSabio and change the company name on your system. Both the new key and the name company name can be entered by use of the LICENS command.