Automating Activation

If you are a license administrator or if you are responsible for transferring NI products to end users, you can automate product activation and add network license servers by running NI License Manager from a command line or from a batch file.

What do you want to do?

• Launch NI Activation Wizard. This command is equivalent to clicking the Activate button in NI License Manager.
  
  Syntax: nilmUtil.exe -all
• Launch NI Activation Wizard with a preselected package or family. This command is equivalent to right-clicking on a product or family in NI License Manager and selecting Activate to activate a product.
  
  Package
  Syntax: nilmUtil.exe -activate "packagename version"
  Example: nilmUtil.exe -activate "LabVIEW_PDSM_PKG 8.0500"
  
  Family
  Syntax: nilmUtil.exe -family "family"
  Example: nilmUtil.exe -family "LabVIEW_ADE_080600"
  
  NI Activation Wizard launches and steps you through the process of activating your product.
• Activate a product silently. You can activate a product without launching the NI Activation Wizard using command-line flags. The -s flag triggers a silent activation. You can use the -s flag only with the -family or -activate flags.
  
  

  Note  This option requires an Internet connection that allows access to ni.com over an encrypted web connection (https).

  Syntax: nilmUtil.exe -s -activate "packagename" -serialnumber "serialnumber" [-firstname "firstname"] [-lastname "lastname"] [-organizationname "organizationname"]
  
  Example: nilmUtil.exe -s -activate "LabVIEW_PDSM_PKG 8.0500" -serialnumber "A111A1A11" -firstname "Jane" -lastname "Doe" -organizationname "Company Name"
  
  NI License Manager silently activates your product.

  Note  If you enter incorrect or incomplete information such as a invalid serial number, activation may fail. In order not to interfere with your remaining automation scripts, no error message will appear. You must activate manually before you can use your software.

• Silently point a computer to a network license server to check out licenses. This command is equivalent to using the Options»Preferences menu item to add a license server.
  
  Syntax: nilmUtil.exe -addservers servername[:portnumber][,servername[:portnumber],...]
  
  Examples:
  nilmUtil.exe -addservers server1
  nilmUtil.exe -addservers server1:28000
  nilmUtil.exe -addservers server1:28000,server2
  
  You can now use NI License Manager to check out licenses from the newly added network license server.

Command-line Flags

NI License Manager command-line flags are listed in the following table.

Note  Flag order does not matter.

Flag	Description
-s	Activates a family or feature in silent mode (-activate or -family). If you use silent mode, you must supply the serial number. First name, last name, and organization name are optional if they can be loaded from the computer preferences.
-activate	Activates a specific version of a single package using the Internet. You must provide the package name or feature and the version. You can find the package name in your license file, which is located in the \Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\License Manager\Licenses directory. Open the license file in a text editor and look for the PACKAGE line. Copy the text that includes _PKG and the version number that follows nilm on the PACKAGE line.
-family	Activates a single family using the Internet. You must provide the family name or feature and the version. You can find the family name in your license file, which is located in the \Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\License Manager\Licenses directory. Open the license file in a text editor and look for the FAMILY= line. Copy the text after the equals sign that includes the family name and version.
-all	Launches NI Activation Wizard for any installed products. This command cannot be used silently.
-all product	Launches NI Activation Wizard for a preselected product. This command cannot be used silently.
-serialnumber	The serial number of the product. You must provide the serial number of the feature or family to activate when using -s flag.
-firstname	The user's first name. This flag is optional if the first name can be loaded from the computer preferences.
-lastname	The user's last name. This flag is optional if the last name can be loaded from the computer preferences.
-organizationname	The user's organization or company. This flag is optional if the organization name can be loaded from the computer preferences.
-addservers	Adds a server to a list of existing servers. The port number is optional. servername is required. Port 27000 is the default if no port is specified.

Note  If you have numerous licenses to activate, consider using NI Volume License Manager with a Volume License Agreement. For more information, visit ni.com/vlp.