Licensing

When you purchase NetSupport School, you are allocated a serial number. This, combined with your company name and product-related information, is used to produce a unique software licence key that enables you to use the product. You can enter your licence and generate your key during installation or you can use the NetSupport School Licence Manager described below to generate a licence key after installation.

Note: NetSupport School is licensed by each machine that it is installed or used on. It is not licensed by concurrent usage. Therefore, if you have 100 machines on which you install or run a NetSupport School Student (Client) or Tutor (Control), you must buy a 100-user licence - even if the software is loaded from a Server.

Entering licence details during installation

When installing, you are prompted to enter your licence information. By entering the information provided on your serialisation certificate, you will create your unique licence key during the installation of the product. The licence key is stored in a file which resides in the directory in which you installed NetSupport School.

NetSupport School uses two different licence files depending on what platform your Students are using. The NSM.LIC is for Windows-based Students or if your Students are using a mixture of Windows, Google Chrome, macOS, Android and iOS. The NSW.LIC is for non-Window Students (Google Chrome, macOS, Android and iOS Students).

Notes:

  • If when prompted for your licence information, you enter EVAL in the licensee field and leave the other fields unchanged you can install NetSupport School  for a 30-day evaluation period.

  • If you copy the contents of your installation files to a server directory and replace the default NSM.LIC with your NSM.LIC file generated from your serialisation certificate details, installations run from the server directory will automatically use your generated key and the installer will no longer prompt you to enter licence information. This is particularly useful if you are installing on large numbers of machines and, when combined with the silent install facilities (refer to the defaults.txt file for details of how to do this), enables you to fully automate the installation of the product.

Limitations

The installer program will enable you to generate your licence key for the majority of keys but it does not support some of the advanced key options.

The following types of keys cannot be generated by the installer program:

  • Demand load keys

  • Quiet mode keys

  • Special evaluation keys with extended expiry dates.

For these types of keys, you will need to use the NetSupport School Licence Manager described below.

Generating licence keys without installing

There are a number of reasons why you may need to do this:

  • You have previously installed using an EVAL key and do not want to re-install.

  • You have a special type of key (see limitations in the above section).

You can use a utility called the NetSupport School Licence Manager to generate the licence key. Then you can distribute the key to machines that have NetSupport School already installed or use the generated key to replace the default key supplied on the installation media for new installations.

Starting the NetSupport School Licence Manager

  1. Click Options in the Tutor Console and select About from the drop-down menu.

  2. Choose the License tab.

  3. Click Update License.

Or

  1. Run PCILIC.EXE which you can find in the directory where you have installed NetSupport School.

When it loads, it reads the details from your existing licence file and allows you to update the information.

There are four tabs in the NetSupport School Licence Manager:

  • General

  • Advanced

  • Defaults

  • Enforce

The information must be entered exactly as it appears on your licence certificate. The process is case sensitive and needs to be exact. If your authorisation key does not match the information that you enter, the licence key will fail to be generated.

General tab

In most cases, this is the only information that you will need to change. Here, you enter the details from your serialisation certificate.

Serial Number This is your unique serial number.
Maximum Clients This is the number of Student licences that you have purchased.
Expiry Date If you have purchased the product, you will enter 0 in this field as there will not be an expiry date. If you have been provided with a special evaluation key you will enter the date supplied.
Licensee This is usually your company name.
Licence type Select the type of licence you want to use. All Platforms or non-Windows Students.

Advanced tab

You only need to check the boxes on this tab if you have specifically asked for the functions provided when placing your order.

Demand Load Key This type of key is only provided where specialist requirements prevent the Student program from loading on start-up of the Student machine.
Quiet Client This type of key is provided to prevent the Student icon from displaying.

Defaults tab

Settings are placed in this tab to change NetSupport School default configuration settings. Please leave this tab unchanged unless advised otherwise.

Enforce tab

Settings are placed in this tab to change/disable NetSupport School  functions. Please leave this tab unchanged unless advised otherwise.

When you have made the changes to the required tabs, you will need to enter your authorisation code and select the Generate button to create your updated licence key file. If this fails, please check and re-enter the details. Also see below for details of common problems.

Common problems:

  • The process is case sensitive; please enter as per the serialisation certificate.

  • Entering additional spaces between text.

Once you have successfully generated your licence key, you can distribute the file to the machines that you have previously installed the product on. Alternatively, you can use it to replace the default licence file on your installation media when installing on new machines.