I apologize for not reading the whole thread, but this seems to be the best place by far to get some actual help on my licensing issues, and it looks like the Autodesk staff here actually respond quickly. Thank you for that, guys; the main support website is worthless.
This is regarding vanilla AutoCAD 2012 64-bit. I have two different issues, which will most likely require some decent one-on-one PMing to sort out.
1) Standard thing. "The serial number you entered is not valid. Try again. (1)" when trying to activate during an installation.
We got four copies of ACAD 2012 (and two of ACAD 2013 I just recently realized) a couple years ago directly from Autodesk. Stand-alone licenses. I have pictures of the dvd cases with the serial numbers and product keys, and I have the invoices from Autodesk confirming these numbers. In other words, everything is 100% legitimate, and I can prove it multiple ways in a heartbeat. At the time we bought those licenses, things changed around here, and we didn't need to use most of the licenses we bought, so I held on to them until we did need them, which is now. I believe one of our 2012 installations from a little over a year ago had the same "serial number not valid" problem and it took my assistant days to get a response from Autodesk through the normal channels to get a request code and get the installation fully activated. It was a pain. I was just working on another installation yesterday (boss is breathing down my neck about it) and got the same thing during installation. It makes zero sense.
2) I've had two 2012 licenses running on my work desktop and laptop respectively for a couple of years. Recently Windows on my laptop decided to randomly self-destruct, requiring a full wipe and reinstall. This time around, I decided I would take advantage of the ability to have two stand-alone installations for the same serial number and transfer my desktop license back-and-forth between my desktop and laptop via the License Transfer Utility. (I didn't know I could do this a couple years ago, or I'd have been doing it the whole time and saving a license for another future user.) So I read all about the LTU, fired it up on my desktop, and tried to export it to Autodesk's servers. I used my login credentials that I use for these boards; I don't know if that's correct or not. However, it did appear to sign in, and then I got hit with "Export Request Failed: The serial number you entered is not valid. Try again. (1)" I've been using this installation without issue for years now; how can my serial number be invalid? So I can't reinstall 2012 on my laptop, because I can't export my desktop license.
As an aside, I also, in general, still don't fully understand how to manage licenses I might export via the LTU, probably because I can't get it to even work. Still, is there someplace on the website under my account where I can view licenses I've exported to Autodesk's servers? Do I have to register my licenses to connect them to my online account? Given the fact that Autodesk strongly recommends you export a license before you reinstall AutoCAD so you don't exceed the activation limit for a license, I'd really like to know exactly how exporting/importing/managing licenses works, so that I can do it completely right in case of the need to reinstall or switch out installations in the future.
The LTU questions may be a topic that's already been addressed, so just point me in the right direction of where to find the answer in that's the case, please. Currently, I just want all my serial numbers to work. And I want the ones we own now but will use in the future to work as well when that time comes. They're all legitimate, and I don't want to have to come back to the boards here to solicit help EVERY time I want to install another license. At the very least, I need to be able to immediately get help or an activation code or whatever if this same problem occurs in the future. Two business days of waiting via the standard support website is absurd for a company this big that sells software that costs this much, and small companies like mine can't have their drafter sitting around for two days doing nothing while Autodesk responds. I don't want to be a bother since I know you support staff are busy, so if we can just nail this problem on the head right now, it'll save many future dealings with me, which is good for everyone. Thank you.
