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Product key on a Proof of License Certificate of Authenticity for Windows Vista Home Premium. A product key, also known as a software key, serial key or activation key, is a specific software-based key for a computer program. It certifies that the copy of the program is original. Product keys consist of a series of numbers and/or letters.
Product activation is a license validation procedure required by some proprietary software programs. Product activation prevents unlimited free use of copied or replicated software. Unactivated software refuses to fully function until it determines whether it is authorized to fully function. Activation allows the software to stop blocking its use.
On Windows 10 and Windows 11, the activation process can also generate a "digital entitlement", which allows the operating system's hardware and license status to be saved to the activation servers, so that the operating system's license can automatically be restored after a clean installation without the need to enter a product key.
In cases such as prepress and printing software, the dongle is encoded with a specific, per-user license key, which enables particular features in the target application. This is a form of tightly controlled licensing, which allows the vendor to engage in vendor lock-in and charge more than it would otherwise for the product.
A software license manager is a software management tool used by independent software vendors or by end-user organizations to control where and how software products are able to run. License managers protect software vendors from losses due to software piracy and enable end-user organizations to comply with software license agreements.
a method where a software application hashes hardware serial numbers and an ID number specific to the product's license (a product key) to generate a unique Installation ID ... [that] is sent to the manufacturer to verify the authenticity of the product key and to ensure that the product key is not being used for multiple installations. ”
In software licensing, volume licensing is the practice of using one license to authorize software on a large number of computers and/or for a large number of users. . Customers of such licensing schemes are typically business, governmental or educational institutions, with prices for volume licensing varying depending on the type, quantity and applicable subscripti
A software license is a legal instrument that governs the usage and distribution of computer software. [1] Often, such licenses are enforced by implementing in the software a product activation or digital rights management (DRM) mechanism, [2] seeking to prevent unauthorized use of the software by issuing a code sequence that must be entered into the application when prompted or stored in its ...