CT&A/PatchTool ACTIVATION-

DEACTIVATION

Click to go to a sub-section:

Activation Deactivation Reactivation Offline activation Offline deactivation Consult the FAQ page for questions related to activation.

Activation

Following your purchase of of a new license of CT&A or PatchTool, you will receive an e-mail confirming the transaction; this e-mail also contains your Product Key. This key is valid only for the program for which it was purchased. This key is valid for both the Mac AND Windows versions! When the program is not activated, the following dialog is shown each time the program is started; please copy the Product Key you received in this dialog. This dialog can also be opened with the “Help/Activate…” menu command. After the Product Key is entered and you click on the “Activate” button, the following activation agreement dialog opens: If you know that you DO NOT have an Internet connection, you should still click on the “I agree !” button; the program will try to communicate with the activation server and will open an offline activation dialog if the communication fails. Offline activation and deactivation is discussed later in this page. You can check if your program is properly activated with the “About CT&A…” or “About PatchTool…” menu. Note: No personal data is used to generate the fingerprint. The activation server will also record network related data from where the request comes from. The activation server is managed by a third-party provider. Note: If you have an Internet connection and activation fails, you may need to unblock some specific communications ports used by the program. Activation requires that ports 80 and 443 be open. Please consult your company’s network specialist for help.

Deactivation

If you wish to use the program on another computer, you must first deactivate the computer on which your key is being used. To deactivate, select the “Help/Deactivate…” menu command; you will get the following dialog. When deactivating, you have the choice to erase or not the Product Key. As indicated in the dialog, erasing the key is recommended if you temporarily installed the program on a customer’s computer. You would similarly erase the key if the program was installed on a computer which will foreseeably not be used with the program in the future. On the other hand, if you intend to reuse the program on this computer soon or on a regular basis, you should just deactivate without erasing the key. If you know that you DO NOT have an Internet connection, you should still click on either the “Deactivate and Erase” button or the “Deactivate” button; the program will try to communicate with the activation server and will open an offline deactivation dialog if the communication fails. Offline activation and deactivation is discussed later in this page. Important: If your Product Key is valid for one (1) license, it is your responsibility to deactivate a computer before activating another one with the same key. BabelColor cannot remotely deactivate a computer, so make sure your first computer is deactivated before moving to the second computer.

Reactivation

When you re-activate a computer on which the key was not erased, you get the following activation dialog. This dialog is the same which appeared when the program was installed and not activated, except that the first characters of the Product Key are now shown, with the last characters hidden. The last characters are hidden for theft protection, to prevent a casual user from copying the key. However, you do not need to replace the interrogation points (?) with the correct values to reactivate; just click on the “Activate” button. As you see, you can use the same key to activate the program on many computers. Please note that you can only simultaneously activate a number of computers corresponding to the number of licenses assigned to the key; if you purchased one license, then you can activate one computer at a time. Important: If your Product Key is valid for one (1) license, it is your responsibility to deactivate a computer before reactivating another one with the same key. BabelColor cannot remotely deactivate a computer, so make sure your first computer is deactivated before moving to the second computer.

Offline activation

If you do not have an Internet connection and you want to activate the program, you should still click on the “I agree !” button of the activation agreement dialog. Following a communication check, if the absence of Internet connection is confirmed, you will see this dialog: As mentioned in the dialog, a service fee is required for each offline activation. This fee covers the time to manually process the request and set the activation server. The activation fee can be purchased online on the BabelColor purchase page. The fee is not required to view the offline dialog, which is shown below and which appears when you click on the “Show offline dialog” button. The first step is to save an “Activation request file”. The default location proposed by the program is the “BabelColor” folder located within your “Documents” folder. If using CT&A, the file name will start with “ActivationRequest-CTA5_” followed by the first characters of your Product Key; if using PatchTool, the file name will start with “ActivationRequest-PT5_”. As indicated in STEP-2, you must send the file to BabelColor. We will verify that you purchased the activation service fee and we will generate an “Activation file” by e-mail. You can now close this dialog; the program will start in evaluation mode, with limited features. Please allow a few working days to complete the process. Hint: When you receive the “Activation file” which is simply named “ActivationResponse.xml”, place the file in the “BabelColor” folder located within your “Documents” folder. This is the default location the program will use when opening it. To perform STEP-3, you should redo the activation process from the beginning, either by starting the program or with the “Help/Activate…” menu command. When you get to the offline activation dialog, load the “Activation file” by first clicking on the corresponding button. You will get a confirmation message once the “Activation file” is processed; you can also check if your program is properly activated with the “About CT&A…” or “About PatchTool…” menu. Important: When you receive the “Activation file” you should use it promptly since this file is valid for a few days only. However, please note that the activated program has no expiry date. Transferring a license from an offline computer Transferring a license requires deactivating the first computer and activating the second computer. To deactivate a computer activated offline, you have two options: • If the first computer is still not connected to the Internet, you must do an offline deactivation. • If the first computer now has access to the Internet, you can deactivate online. To activate the second computer you also have two options: • If the second computer is not connected to the Internet, you must do another offline activation. • If the second computer has access to the Internet, you can activate online.

Offline deactivation

If you try to deactivate using the “Help/Deactivate…” menu command and there is no Internet connection, you get the following message: The offline deactivation dialog is shown below: The “Deactivate/Save Deactivation file” button will be enabled when the missing characters of the Product Key are replaced by their correct values. You will find the complete key in the e-mail you received when you purchased the software. This procedure insures that a casual user will not deactivate the program by mistake. Important: In fact, the program gets deactivated when you SAVE the “Deactivation request file” after pressing the “Deactivate/Save Deactivation file” button; this gives you one last chance to cancel deactivation. However, even if the program is deactivated, the deactivation process is not completed until you send the “Deactivation request file” to BabelColor. Note: While there is no fee required to perform the offline deactivation, we strongly recommend performing the deactivation online if you can temporarily connect the computer to the Internet, since this could save you time. The deactivation options are the same as those available when you deactivate with a live Internet connection. Erasing the key is recommended if you temporarily installed the program on a customer’s computer. You would similarly erase the key if the program was installed on a computer which will foreseeably not be used with program in the future. On the other hand, if you intend to reuse the program on this computer soon or on a regular basis, you should just deactivate without erasing the key. If using CT&A, the “Deactivation request file” file name will start with “DeactivationRequest-CTA5_” followed by the first characters of your Product Key; if using PatchTool, the “Deactivation request file” file name will start with “DeactivationRequest-PT5_”. Once the “Deactivation request file” is saved, you get a message confirming deactivation; the message will also specifically mention that the Product Key was erased if you selected this option. You should now send the deactivation request file to BabelColor to complete the offline deactivation process. Important: It is mandatory to send the “Deactivation request file” to BabelColor if you intend to ACTIVATE another computer OFFLINE with the same Product Key. We will not issue a new offline “Activation file” for the same Product Key if we do not receive first the “Deactivation request file” from the previous computer. However, nothing prevents you from deactivating ONLINE if you can connect the computer to the Internet; this is equivalent to a complete offline deactivation procedure.