need installation advice for Desktop Subscription License versions of Maya 2014

[buck_license]

Hello!

I'm here looking for some official advice on installing Desktop Subscription License versions of Maya 2014; it's what on every workstation in our studio. Ever since Maya 2015 was rolled out of your company there's been alot of oddities springing up.

First of all, we no longer get email announcements that our Maya 2014 purchased serial is ready. I had to go visit manage.autodesk.com 3 days after purchase, to see for myself that not only has the order been fulfilled, but only a Maya 2015 serial was provided. For Maya 2014 instead, you see a message stating "more details available after download". I've attached an image showing how the serials are provided from a Contract purchased 2 weeks ago, and one purchased just last week. 

We're not ready to move over to Maya 2015 just yet. So if Maya 2014 is already installed on a workstation, but the newly purchased license is only provided for Maya 2015, what is the best method of 

We have a studio of about 30 workstations here all on Maya 2014, and we often move people around rather than workstations. Which means the licenses and logins follow our users as they move around the studio. Programs like Adobe CC allow users to sign out, and sign back in which works well with our studio process. I haven't yet found a way to get the Autodesk Account Login screen to pop up at will for this to happen, but I'm also not certain this is the right way to switch licenses for your product?

[TravisNave]

There are a few things you need to know.

1.  The license can stay with the machine.  It doesn't need to follow the user.  So if you own 30 seats, just activate them all and don't worry about moving them. 

2.  You need one license per use.  So if you need 30 people working, you need 30 licenses. 

3.  If you are currently using 2014 then you don't have to upgrade to 2015 just because your Subscription has migrated.  It just means that you are entitled to use 2015 if you'd like.  Subscription will allow you to run the current version and 3 versions back.  So, technically, you could also run 2012 and 2013.

4.  You cannot run more licenses than you own.  So if you do own 30 seats, you can't run 30 of 2014 and 30 of 2015.  You can only run a max of 30 for a combination of all versions total.

Does that make sense?

[buck_license]

TravisNave wrote:

There are a few things you need to know.

1.  The license can stay with the machine.  It doesn't need to follow the user.  So if you own 30 seats, just activate them all and don't worry about moving them. 

---

Thanks for your advice Travis! Here's a rundown of how we currently activate our newly purchased monthly licenses. We're currently only purchasing single seats for our monthly's.

- create email account for new license
- create account with Autodesk using that email.
- add user at autodesk.manage.com
- but everytime I tick "Assign Access Immediately", it always shows 0/1 seats available for the new license, and I can't assign access for the newly added user
- open up Maya 2014 on the machine, go to Help, go down to About Maya, click the Product Licensing button on the bottom left, click update next to the serial in the License Information pane, and enter my new serial.
- Maya will take the serial, but everytime I reopen the program on that machine, it will hit an Activation menu with a Run button on the bottom left, and an Activate button on the bottom right.
- click Run to launch the program.

And we have to perform this last step everytime, ever since the new Autodesk switched over to providing 2015 keys exclusively. In the past, opening up Maya 2014 will initiate the Autodesk login dialog since it was a new install, and activating feels straightforward: login with new Autodesk account, provide new 2014 serial and product key... voila! But now that most of our machines have been sat on and have 2014 installed, the login dialog almost never appears again. I'd like to know the cleanest most straightforward way of activating our new Maya 2015 serials on our network when we receive them.

[TravisNave]

You are renting them?  Is that what I am reading?

Or do you own them?

Have you considered network activation and running a license server?  That is the easiest method.

[buck_license]

---

@TravisNave wrote:

You are renting them?  Is that what I am reading?

Or do you own them?

Have you considered network activation and running a license server?  That is the easiest method.

---

These are Monthly auto-renewing Desktop Subscription licenses. If that is what you mean by rented, then yes they are.

Network Activation and License Server considerations are all within the pipeline, but are not going to be executed immediately.

What is the next best alternative given the way we're approaching purchases and activation at the moment?

[TravisNave]

Hmm, I am not sure there is a better method, to be honest.  It is what it is.