iLok deactivate licenses

[J_R]

iLok

I’m replacing my C-drive.

I’ll need to redownload my Ableton Intro and reinstall plugins I have
I’ve been told I need to “deactivate licenses in iLOK”.
I understand nothing about iLok.

Looking at iLok License Manager, I notice that apparently I (thankfully) have (only) 7 licenses.

iLok Manager does have a 'Support' tab, but nothing in it relating to my situation. iLok does not provide any way to contact technical support.

Questions:
1) Why do I need to deactivate my iLok licenses?
2) How do I deactivate my iLok licenses?
3) How do I reactivate my iLok licenses?
4) Do I need to contact all the software companies relating to those ‘licenses’?

Thanks

[Richie Witch]

Not sure I understand why you need to deactivate your iLok licenses. A couple of years ago, I upgraded from Win 7 32 bit to Win 10 64 bit, and installed a new C: drive to make the transition cleaner. I reinstalled Live and all my plugins, along with everything else on my computer. I didn't have to deactivate my iLok licenses, they just transferred over once I reinstalled the iLok manager and logged into my iLok account.

Why do you think you need to deactivate them?

[fishmonkey]

it's a good idea to deactivate licenses if you change anything on your computer that the licensing systems use to generate the computer "fingerprint", as different plugin manufacturers have varying limits on how many systems one copy of their plugins can be activated on.

with local iLok licenses, there is no way to deactivate an iLok license when you no longer have access to the system, which is a real pain sometimes, so it's best to deactivate the licenses and then reactivate them again on the changed system when possible.

in iLok License Manager, select all the plugins on the Local machine, right click and select "Deactivate". this frees up the activations. you don't need to contact the plugin manufacturers — they are paying iLok to handle the licensing for them, that's the whole point.

[J_R]

Thank you, this is very helpful.