Can education free network licensing manager activate previous versions of autodesk?

[fdigiovanni]

We have the free education license for autodesk 2021 but in the flex manager lmtools license file it shows that it will expire this month.  I was hoping to use 2021 again this coming year and not upgrade all 100's of lab machines to 2022 but I cannot find out how to get a license for 2021. I only can get a license for 2022 which implies to me that it is not possible and that we are forced to upgrade every year.  This is a lot of work for us so I was wondering if anyone had any insight on that.  Do education licensed autodesk apps need to be upgraded to the latest and greatest every single year?

[Anonymous]

Your license, when generated, will include 2022 as well as entitlements to certain previous versions.

Understanding package licenses and previous version support | Network License Administration | Autod...

[fdigiovanni]

"certain" versions.  So does that mean autodesk 2022 license will also license a 2021 node?

[leowarren34]

Hi @fdigiovanni,

Autodesk Education licenses are good for 1 year but are renewable provided that product version is still in support.

Do you have AutoCAD 2021 still in your account?

[fdigiovanni]

We do but every time I go through the portal to generate a license for 2021 the client nodes license says the expiration date is Sept 12 2021. Same as it was before.   It's not extending.  In our download page we see Autodesk Apps for 2022, 2021, 2019 and we can download or use the generate network license file "for autocad 2021 for example" it goes through and generates just fine. I download it and apply it to our LMTOols flex license server and it still shows the old expiration date of Sept 12 2021.  I dont understand why?

[leowarren34]

Hi @fdigiovanni,

Is it generating a new license file or just a copy of the existing license file?

That's my first thought.

[fdigiovanni]

Seems like it's generating a new license file with the same old expiration date.  It has licenses for 2022 in it and I can see it, its just the 2021 still shows Sep 12 2021.  My guess is that Autodesk has to extend it so that the license generator spits out a different date.  I would just love confirmation on the mechanics of how this works.

[leowarren34]

Hi @fdigiovanni,

If it's anything like our education licenses, we can only renew 1 month in advance of our expiration, so I wonder if the same applies here.

@natasha.l Can you confirm this?

[fdigiovanni]

That's interesting,  we are within that 1 month.  It says Sept 12 2021.  I just dont know what else to do so we're downloading 2022 and generating a year license for that.  We'll just have to uninstall / install 2022 and or reimage everything.  Just such a waste of time.  I wish Autodesk support was more helpful on this part.