Avid Knowledge Base

• If a Support Contract Customer is upgrading to 4.0/8.0 from a Dongle or a software license, they follow the upgrade procedures as described here:
  • Software Licensing Upgrade Process for Support Customers
• If a Support Contract Customer is upgrading to 4.0/8.0 from a software license on a new system, the Versioner will not auto-populate the upgrade Serial Number, as there will be no license files on the system to prompt the Versioner. They can either:
  • Install the upgrade on the previous system and acquire the serial number via the Activation Process on that system;
  • Contact Customer Support, who will look up their System ID in the Versioner (via our Software Licensing Management Tool) and provide them with their 4.0/8.0 upgrade Serial Number
• If a Support Contract Customer is upgrading to 4.0/8.0 from a software licensed version that was never Activated, they must activate the original license first, deactivate it, and then they can activate and run the upgrade. There are two options for doing this:
  • Install 3.5/7.5, activate it using the System ID and Serial Number they received upon purchase, deactivate it the license through the software, and then uninstall the software. They can then install the upgrade and activate it.
  • Activate the software via activate.avid.com, contact Customer Support to have them manually deactivate the software and then provide the upgrade serial number for 4.0/8.0 from the Versioner, and then install the upgrade and activate it.
• If a Support Contract Customer has a new purchase of 4.0/8.0, they must activate their software using the Serial Number they were provided upon purchase. The Versioner will not activate their software. The Versioner is designed for upgrading systems; the Serial Numbers it contains are Upgrade Serial Numbers, meaning they are looking for a previous license (either an attached Dongle or an Activated Software License for a previous version of software) to upgrade from. If no such license exists, the upgrade will fail. The Serial Number they are provided upon purchase must be used to Activate their license.

Some other things to remember are:

1. The Versioner needs to read the System ID of the system you are upgrading from either an attached dongle or the Software License files from the previous installation. That means that you can not delete the license files from the previous installation.
2. Serial Numbers within the Versioner are UPGRADE serial numbers � they need a license to upgrade from. That can either be a Dongle or a previously Activated Software License for an earlier version of software.
3. If a customer forgets to Deactivate their 3.5/7.5 license, 4.0/8.0 will allow them to Activate and run on the same system. If they are installing 4.0/8.0 on a new system, the Activation will fail. The previous version needs to be deactivated if they are not installing the upgrade on the same system.
4. If a customer purchased 3.5/7.5 and never Activated it, they will not be able to Activate 4.0/8.0. Upgrade Serial Numbers � either purchased or in the Versioner � require the previous Software License to be Activated before it will upgrade the license.

For more information on Upgrades, Downgrades, or Crossgrades, click here.