To access and manage our iLok licenses users for many years now have used a web browser and a special extension, which worked well, but has been plagued with browser compatibility issues, especially with Firefox which hasn’t been supported for quite a while now, and there have been a number of things we couldn’t do like delete expired demo licenses.

New iLok License Manager Application

We can exclusively announce PACE, the manufacturers of iLok, who also manage the iLok.com site, have been working very hard over the past year or so, producing a solution to resolve the limitations of the browser based user interface. What the iLok.com Team has been working on is a dedicated application, called The iLok License Manager, to completely replace the web browser interface. But Team iLok haven’t been satisfied to simply do a like for like replacement they have added a load more features - see this comparison table….

But it doesn’t stop there, From the License Manager user interface it sorts all your licenses into tabs…

• All licenses 
• Available
• Activated
• Unavailable (expired, transferred to another user etc…)

They have added a Search feature for those of us who have more than a couple of licenses.

Zero Down Time Now Has Theft & Loss Cover

ZDT has remained at same price ($30 per iLok per year) but now it includes coverage for theft and loss (TLC). The way this will work is that a user can nominate an iLok and have all licenses on it expire every 90 days unless the iLok checks back in, so no need for the user to renew licenses every 90 days, just make sure that you run the License Manager so that iLok can see that you still have the iLok. This will help those of us who have hundreds of licenses not loose sleep worrying about the loss or theft of a very small iLok that can effectively be worth thousands of dollars or pounds.

Transfer Fees Capped

Team iLok have also capped the fees for transferring ownership of licenses from one account to another at $50.00. So it is still $25.00 per license but with a maximum of $50 per transaction, so if you need to transfer licenses when you sell them for example, then you no longer have to pay $25 for every license if there is more than two. Locked bundles (called Locked Groups from today forward) are also capped at $25.00.

Activate Licenses From Within Plug-ins

It is now possible to activate a license from within an application or plug-in, so no need to go to iLok.com or use the License Manager, if the plug-in vendor enables the feature, they can walk the user through accessing their account or using activation codes fro inside the plug-in after launching the un-activated application or plug-in. Expect to see this more and more as software vendors release new products.

Non iLok Licenses Possible

They have also added an option for software vendors to offer non-iLok licenses that activate to a machine. Now, software vendors may opt to offer non-iLok licenses for their products.  The licenses can be activated and de-activated and moving to an iLok USB Smart key will always an option.  But because machine based licenses are not as secure as iLok and then there can be problems with licenses when users loose their computers or give their computer to someone else without deactivating the license first, the software vendors may only offer this feature on their cheaper products.

More Help Available

To help you more you can download iLok’s Quick Start Guide to their new License Manager. We have had a sneak at the iLok License Manager and it is easy to use and we will have a video up very shortly.