Activation Questions

4D Payments Activation

What is Activation?

Activation is an additional step in the registration process designed to limit both intentional and unintentional software piracy. Product activation has become a popular way for software vendors to control software piracy and is used by a number of vendors including Microsoft, Novell, Embarcadero etc. By limiting software piracy, companies are able to focus more attention and resources toward development and customer service providing substantially more value to customers.

Activation is not intended to hinder legitimate usage under the terms of the product licensing agreement.

How does it work?

Activation normally occurs during the initial installation process. When installing the product for the first time on a machine the install program will inform you that the product must be activated. The product installation will then offer to open a URL to a page on our site where you can download the activation keys. At this point if you chose to accept, you will be taken to our website where your product name, serial number, key, and NODEID should all be filled in. Simply click on the .reg file icon and you should begin downloading the appropriate registry file to activate your product on your machine.

After downloading the REG file to your machine, save the file to disk. From that point on, as long as you don’t change your machine name, you will be able to active the software by simply double-clicking on that REG file, you will not have to go to our web site. There will be no problems because the NODEID will remain the same.

What is a NODEID and how can I find out what my NODEID is?

The node id is a one-way hash of the machine name that is used during the activation process. This is done to protect your privacy as we never learn or collect the actual machine name of the computer where the products are activated. You should be able to find your NODEID in a couple of places:

During the installation of the product a window will appear informing you that you must activate the product. This window also contains the NODEID of the machine.

If the components are not activated on a machine, trying to use any of the components on that machine will cause a box to appear that will contain the NODEID of that machine.

Once you have obtained the NODEID of the machine you should be able to easily activate the product on that machine.

Do I need any special software for product activation?

No. During the product activation cycle you will be taken to our website and supplied with a .reg file to download. By double clicking on that REG file after download the activation information will automatically be added into your local machine registry.

My computer is behind a firewall, will this be a problem when activating my software?

This shouldn’t be a problem at all. The activation process is web based, as long as you can get to our website you shouldn’t have any problem. If you have difficulty connecting to our website please read the FAQ ‘I do not have an internet connection’ below.

What about privacy? What information is required to activate my machine?

To activate your software the only thing you will need to supply is a valid Serial Number, Key and NODEID. These are the only things that we require in order to validate a user and allow activation. In addition, the NODEID is a one-way hash so it would be impossible to learn any kind of information from it. By not gathering any information other than this 4D Payments completely protects user privacy.

I do not have an Internet connection on the machine where I would like to install. How can I activate my product?

There are several ways to activate the product without a valid Internet connection on the machine where the product will be installed. The first step in doing this is finding the NODEID of the machine where the product should be activated (more info). After doing this you can do one of the following:

  1. Go to the page http://lic.4dpayments.com/lic/ from a different machine and fill in the form with the appropriate information. Upon completion you will be able to download a valid REG (.reg) file. Take that REG file and copy it to the machine without a valid connection. Double-Click on the REG file on the machine and the appropriate key will be installed in the registry.
  2. You can email support@4dpayments.com and request a valid REG file for the machine where you are attempting to install the product. Please include the NODEID of the machine where you would like to install the software, as well as your serial number and key.
  3. If none of these are possible please call our customer support for additional options in order to activate the product.

What if I would like to transfer the software to another machine?

If you move the software to a machine with a different machine name, or transfer the software to another machine, you must fax us a “notice of transfer”. This fax should include your signature and a statement declaring that the software has been completely removed from the machine where the software previously was installed. Please include in this fax the NODEID of the new machine where the software will be activated (more info).

When I build a compiled application, will I have to activate my license on all of the machines the application is distributed to?

No, absolutely not. When building compiled applications, activation is only required for the development machine where the license is installed. When an application is compiled on a machine with a valid activated license, the licensing information is built into the application so there is never runtime activation.