Although you may have not had to do so in the past, there are three reasons you may need to refresh SOLIDWORKS Network Licenses through the Network License Manager:
- Starting with SOLIDWORKS 2022, it is required to refresh your SOLIDWORKS Activation once per year to ensure any subscription-based products such as SOLIDWORKS CAM continue to work. You may see a message appear saying “SOLIDWORKS licenses will Expire in 30 Days” but it’s nothing to be alarmed about!
- You may have recently purchased additional SOLIDWORKS Products and had them added to an existing Network Serial Number. Typically, the Network License Manager appears to be missing some products from the list. In this case, the Network License Manager will need to be refreshed to update the local installation to recognize the newly acquired products.
- You see an error message when launching some SOLIDWORKS add-in products that “Could Not Obtain a License for …”.
Fortunately, the process is straightforward so long as you have access to the server the license manager is running on.
To refresh your SOLIDWORKS Network License Manager, the steps are as follows:
1. Open the SOLIDWORKS SolidNetWork License Server Manager
The most important step is opening up the program that hosts the SOLIDWORKS Network License Manager. Every end-user machine that is running SOLIDWORKS with a network license will also have the SolidNetWork License Server program on it but it will be the client variant. The client version of the software does not have all the same functionality as the manager version and will not let us refresh the license activation.
Note: Make sure to run this License Server Manager as an Administrator
SolidNetWork License Server
2. Click Modify
Note: If you are using SOLIDWORKS 2021 or newer, you can use the “Reactivate” option instead of “Modify” to skip step 3.
Modify License Information
3. Select “Activate/Reactivate your product license(s)”
Activate/Reactivate
4. Select Licenses to be Refreshed
The easiest thing to do is to refresh all the licenses activated on your SOLIDWORKS License Server: this can be done by hitting “Select All”. However, individual licenses can be refreshed here as well. Next, fill in the email of the person running the refresh and hit Next! If you have any additional licenses you want to add, you can do so at this stage as well.
Note: The email entered here is not binding the license to that user. It is just for record-keeping of who most refreshed the license during that transaction.
Contact Information
5. Success
Each license selected will run its activation based on the method selected in the previous step. This typically takes a few seconds per license and should be completed within a few minutes at the most. You will be provided with confirmation of reactivation with each product’s expiration and new reactivation date for the future. The prompt can be closed,
Activation/Reactivation Success
After following the steps below, the number of licenses on the Network License Manager should reflect the total licenses that were purchased. Additionally, any error messages related to subscription-based products or that your SOLIDWORKS Licenses will expire soon should go away. If you continue to encounter issues with your SOLIDWORKS Network Licenses and a refresh does not solve it or you just have other questions, feel free to get in contact us with any technical supported related issues!
