Notes & articles

Activating your products

This article relates to the following Red Gate products, and any later versions:

• ANTS Profiler 4.0
• ANTS Memory Profiler 5.0 - 7.2 (For 7.3+, see Activating your products)
• ANTS Performance Profiler 5.0 - 7.2 (For 7.3+, see Activating your products)
• Data Compare for Oracle 2.0
• Exception Hunter 2.0
• PST Importer 2010 1.0
• PST Importer 365 1.0
• Schema Compare for Oracle 1.0
• Schema Doc for Oracle 1.0
• SmartAssembly 5.0 - 6.7.0 (For 6.7.1+, see Activating your products)
• SQL Compare 7.0
• SQL Connect 1.0
• SQL Data Compare 7.0
• SQL Data Generator 1.2
• SQL Dependency Tracker 2.5
• SQL Doc 1.3
• SQL Multi Script 1.1
• SQL Object Level Recovery Native 1.1
• SQL Packager 5.5
• SQL Prompt 3.9
• SQL Refactor 1.5
• SQL Source Control

For help with activating other products please see the following:

• Activating .NET Reflector Pro
• Activating Exchange Server Archiver
• Activating SQL Backup
• Licensing the SQL Comparison SDK
• Activating SQL HyperBac
• Activating SQL Monitor
• Activating SQL Response
• Activating SQL Storage Compress
• Activating SQL Virtual Restore

Overview of activation

When you download and install a product from Red Gate Software, you have a 14 day trial period in which you can evaluate the product. When your trial period expires, you are invited to purchase the product. If you need more time to evaluate the product, contact licensing@red-gate.com

When you purchase the product, you are sent an invoice that contains your serial number. You use the serial number to activate the product. If you cannot find your invoice, you can review your serial numbers at http://www.red-gate.com/myserialnumbers. Note that if you purchased a bundle of products, this serial number activates all of the products in the bundle except for SQL Backup, SQL Response, and SQL Multi Script.

When you activate the product, the licensing and activation program sends an activation request to the Red Gate activation server, using checksums of attributes from your computer. The checksums that are sent to the activation server do not contain any details that might pose a security risk. The activation server returns an activation response and an encrypted key to unlock the software. The licensing and activation program should activate your product within a few seconds.

If you are experiencing problems with activating your products, you will be offered the option to activate manually. For example, you will need to use manual activation if:

• your computer is not connected to the Internet
• your network uses a proxy server that interrupts contact between the product and the Red Gate activation server

  Activation should work with proxies configured in the Internet Options applet in the Windows Control Panel. However, it will not work when:

  • the proxy settings specify an automatic configuration script
  • the proxy requires authentication, which cannot be transparently handled by Windows
  • the proxy filters out SOAP packet data or XML data
• activation is unsuccessful (see Troubleshooting licensing and activation errors)

If you are reinstalling products on the same computer, for example following installation of a new operating system, you can re-activate the products using the same serial number (this does not affect the number of distinct activations for the serial number). To install products on a different computer, you can deactivate the products on the old computer using the deactivation tool, and then re-activate them on the new computer.

For general questions about licensing and links to useful web pages, see Licensing and activation resources.

To activate your products

1. On the Help menu, click Enter Serial Number.

   The product activation dialog box is displayed, for example:

   

2. Enter your serial number.

   When you have entered a valid serial number, is displayed next to the serial number box:

   

3. Click Activate.

   Your activation request is sent to the Red Gate activation server.

   When your activation has been confirmed, the Activation successful page is displayed, for example:

   

   If there is a problem with your activation request, an error dialog box is displayed. For information about activation errors and what you can do to resolve them, see Licensing and activation errors. Depending on the error, you may want to try manual activation.

4. Click Close.

   You can now continue to use your product.

Manual activation

Manual activation enables you to activate products when your computer does not have an Internet connection or your Internet connection does not allow SOAP requests. You will need access to another computer that does have an Internet connection.

You can use manual activation whenever the Activation Error dialog box is displayed and the Activate Manually button is available, for example:

To activate manually:

1. On the error dialog box, click Activate Manually.

   The Activate using the Red Gate Web site dialog box is displayed, for example:

   

2. Copy all of the activation request, and leave this dialog box open (if you close the dialog box, you may have to start again).

   Alternatively you can save the activation request, for example to a location on your network or to a USB device.

3. On a computer that has an Internet connection, go to the Manual Activation page of the Red Gate Web site at http://www.red-gate.com/activate and paste the activation request into the box under Step 1.

   

4. Click Get Activation Response.
5. When the activation response is displayed under Step 2, copy all of it.

   Alternatively you can save the activation response.

6. On the computer where the licensing and activation program is running, paste the activation response or if you saved it, load it from the file.

   

7. Click Finish.

   The Activation successful page is displayed.

8. Click Close.

   You can now continue to use your product.