Multi-user scenario on a single Windows machine

Dear all,

I don’t understand what setup and license type is needed to use a single PC with multiple users. So that the Admin (or default user) could install and activate a license, and all other user accounts on the same machine can use the application.
Is this possible with just one Cryptlex user and license, because of one existing machine ID?
Would it even be possible to create a multi-user license which verifies and controls the numbers of user accounts on a single machine?

Thanks for any help to understand this basic EDU scenario.
Best Achim

Hello @Achim!

From what I understand, you would want to use a node-locked license, which links your license to a single device.

Within the node-locked license, you have the option to set the User Locked option which will activate that license only for the OS user being accessed at the time of activation.

A license can allow multiple activations, the details for which (like OS, OS user, etc) can be accessed via the dashboard or the Web API.

With the User Locked option set, every activation on a separate User will count as a separate activation and you will be able to track these separately, however, you will not be able to ensure in this case that the license is used on the same machine for all activations.

Hi @azan,
thank you for your feedback and support.

For our use case - licensing for institutions & universities - a solution where I can define a multi-user scenario for only one hardware (one machine ID) would be very helpful. Because we have to distinguish between a multi-user and multi-machine licensing.

Is this an option for a future feature in Cryptlex?

Best,
Achim

Hi Achim,

You can simply set “User Locked” property to false and “Allowed Activations” to 1. This way all the users of the machine will be able to use the same license (making it a multi-user license).

In the case of a multi-machine license, you just need to set the value of allowed activations to a value greater than one.

Hi @adnan-kamili,

yes, those two license scenarios are currently possible with Cryptlex.

What we are looking for and what doesn’t seem to be possible right now is:

• a multi-user license type for one-machine that allows to define the numbers of users
  and
• a license that only allows for a single-user scenario on one machine with multi-user accounts.

Are these added options for the future?

Hi Achim,

For the first case set the user-locked to true and use the allowedActivations property to control the number of users.

For the second case, set the user-locked to true and allowed activations to 1.

Hello @adnan-kamili @azan
There seems to be a misunderstanding. As described the attributes that are important for us are missing in your solution:
1.Multi-user on one machine but NOT on multiple machines.
2.Only ONE user on one machine.

• User-locked = true with selected x-numbers of users allows usage of the license on x-numbers of machines
• User-locked = true with activations to 1 allows all users on one machine to run the licenses.

Has this become understandable?
And again the question: Could these requirements be implemented in the future?

Hello @Achim!

We regret not being able to understand your use cases correctly. I am of the opinion that the second use case is well achievable in our service currently. To allow just one user on the operating system to activate the license on only one machine you can set Allowed Activations to 1, and User Locked to true.

We understand the need for the first use case you have mentioned, and after some brainstorming, we do believe that it should be implemented in the service. However, we cannot give you an ETA as to when it will get implemented.

Hi @azan

Thanks for the renewed support! It’s good to hear that you can see the need and will work towards a solution for the first case.

Concerning the second issue - perhaps I have not described this case in enough detail:
It is about the use on a Windows PC within a university course. On this PC our software runs for all course participants. They have their own Windows user account received from the admin. For this multi-user scenario (a PC workstation with x- users with their own windows account) we need a solution. With the current possibilities of Cryptlex we cannot prevent this use of any number of user accounts with only one license.
Has this case and the problem become clear now?

Thanks
Achim

Hello @Achim

I understand that in the second case, you would want x number of users on a single machine at the university to be able to access your application. Many of our customers that license to universities generally use a floating license in such scenarios.

I would suggest using LexFloatServer in this case which allows your users to use the software offline, and limit the number of users for a license, though not by operating system user. This allows the university to use the software on a server or even in a virtual machine, as is required for a large number of students.

In this case, the LexFloatServer is registered and locked to the university machine, and students/scholars can connect to the machine remotely or locally to use the software, but at once only ‘x’ students/scholars are allowed to use the software. Does this solve your problem adequately?

Hi @Achim,

I want to inform you that you can now activate a license once for all the users on a single machine from any user account. We name such a functionality as System-Wide Activation.
For that to work, please ensure that the license is having the User-Locked property disabled or set to false.
Additionally, make sure to pass the LA_ALL_USERS flag to the SetProductId() function.
Following these steps will activate the license system-wide.

​Note: The support for system-wide activations in LexActivator is available from v3.27.0 onwards and is currently supported for Windows Operating System only.

Thank you!