Licensing - How to discover the location of a licence file.

When users install MooD Business Architect for a workstation or as part of an Active Enterprise Install, they must install a licence file. After this has been performed, it is not clear where this licence is held in the Windows file system.

This information may be useful for automated update scripts, where you want to deploy a new licence without user interaction using PowerShell, .bat files, or a centralized domain management tool. The location of a licence file can be found inside the Windows Registry.

Editing the Windows Registry can be a very dangerous activity and should only be performed by competent users.

When installing a licence only for the current user.

If a licence has been installed for a the current user, the path to the licence file can be found here:

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MooD International\Licence\16.0

With a Name, Value pair of

Name: licencepath
Type: REG_SZ - String Value
Data: C:\mylocation\licence.xml

If you want to see the paths for all users on the system then you will need to know the System Identifier of the user, and interrogate the appropriate branch. i.e.

Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-1-22-0123456789-0123456789-0123456789-1001\SOFTWARE\MooD International\Licence\16.0

When installing for all users on the computer 

If a licence has been installed by an Administrator, selecting to install for All Users, then the path to the licence file can be found here:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\MooD International\Licence\16.0

With a Name, Value pair of

Name: licencepath
Type: REG_SZ - String Value
Data: C:\mylocation\licence.xml

How does MooD interpret this registry key when both are populated?

• The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE path is interrogated first for the licencepath entry.
• If a value exists then this is used.
• If a value does not exist, then HKEY_CURRENT_USER is interrogated and used.

Note: if Business Architect is connecting to a Licence Server on the internal network, then the situation is slightly different because licences servers produce per-user licences, not whole-machine licences.

• The HKEY_CURRENT_USER path is interrogated, and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE is ignored,  

What do I need to do if I update the registry key?

Unfortunately, swapping licence files is not a 'hot' operation. Services which are already started have cached the licence details internally so will not detect a change of licence path in the registry.

Therefore tools such as Business Architect, Repository Manager, Business Integration Engine, The IIS App Pool, will need to be restarted during a downtime period.

However, if the currently cached licence is still valid for a few days, then services can naturally restart in a maintenance window.

Can I Modify the Licence File myself?

Unfortunately not. The licence file is digitally signed to detect if even one bit of the file's binary signature has changed. This is by design.