How to Deactivate SOLIDWORKS

Every few years, it comes time to turn your trusty old computer out to pasture in favor of a sleek new laptop or workstation. Or, with the increase in home offices, you want to be able to use your SOLIDWORKS license at home. Here’s what you need to know when it comes to deactivating the SOLIDWORKS license on your computer.

To help reduce unintentional misuse of the SOLIDWORKS software, all SOLIDWORKS license activation servers only allow ONE active machine at a time per standalone serial number. The Activate/Deactivate mechanism inside SOLIDWORKS is an easy, fast, and proven system that has been in place for years. Using this process will allow the license to be accessed by another computer.

Transfer Licenses

To deactivate a SOLIDWORKS license from a computer, click the “?” button in the top right corner of the SOLIDWORKS window. Select Licenses > Deactivate from the pull-down menu.

SOLIDWORKS activation tab            

Select the product(s) you want to deactivate in the SOLIDWORKS Product Activation dialog box. Don’t forget to fill out the required E-mail field.

Keep Automatically over the internet (recommended) selected and click the Next button.

SOLIDWORKS activation page

The Activation Manager will connect to the online activation database to deactivate the selected SOLIDWORKS products

Activate New Machine

The steps to activate a SOLIDWORKS installation are similar to deactivation. Click on the “?” button in the top right corner of the SOLIDWORKS window. Select Licenses > Activate   from the pull-down menu. Select the desired products to activate and click the Next button.

SOLIDWORKS deactivation tab 

Showing Current Licenses

If you ever want to view what SOLIDWORKS products are currently active on a computer, click the “?” button in the top right corner of the SOLIDWORKS window. Select My Products from the pull-down menu.

My SOLIDWORKS products page

Standalone License Management

For the future management of your license, you will want to deactivate the license from your machine before doing any of the following:

• Taking the license home to do work
• Bringing the license from home back to the office to do work
• Uninstalling SOLIDWORKS
• Moving from an older workstation to a new, replacement workstation
• Upgrading operating systems on a workstation
• Changing hardware on the workstation (Hard Drives, Motherboards, Video Cards, etc.)
• Changing serial numbers on a workstation
• Repurposing a computer for non-SOLIDWORKS use