License enhancements

PowerBuilder licensing mechanism has been improved in the following aspects:

  • (Online and offline license) Starting from PowerBuilder 2019 R3, one user account can log into more than one version on the same machine simultaneously, just like logging into the multiple instances of the same version.

    Previously, if your user account has been used to log into one version (say 2019 R2), then this same account cannot be used to log into another version (say 2017 R3) on the same machine, unless this account is logged out from 2019 R2 first. While in 2019 R3 and later versions, the same account can be used to log into more than one version on the same machine simultaneously. For example, if you have installed and logged into 2019 R3 successfully, and then if you installed 2021, you can automatically log into 2021 using the same user account of 2019 R3, without needing to log out from 2019 R3 first.

  • (Online license only) You can now start and log into PowerBuilder IDE by specifying your user account and password in the command line parameters. The command line mode can only work with the online license.

    You can directly specify your user account through the command line parameter. For example,

    pb190.exe /AC test@appeon.com /PW xxxxxxx /RC N /ALS N /SOE Y

    /AC -- User Account.

    /PW -- User Password.

    /RC -- Remember Credentials (Y or N), default is Y. /RC is always Y when /ALS is Y. Therefore, the /RC value will be ignored, if /ALS is set to Y. This parameter takes effect only when both /AC and /PW are set.

    /ALS -- Auto Login at Startup (Y or N), default is Y. This parameter takes effect only when both /AC and /PW are set.

    /SOE -- Sign Out on Exit (Y or N), default is Y. This parameter takes effect only when both /AC and /PW are set.

    You can also specify a file (that contains your user credentials) through the command line parameter. For example,

    pb190.exe /LIF c:\test.ini

    /LIF -- The full path to the license login initialization file which contains your encrypted password and other login settings. The file is created by an independent tool (%AppeonInstallPath%\PowerBuilder [version]\Tools\LoginIniFileCreator.exe). You can specify the user account, the password, the login settings, and the file path in this tool. The password will be encrypted in the generated file to protect your login credentials. (If you want to copy the tool to other places, make sure to copy the executable file as well as the msvcp100.dll and msvcr100.dll files under the same folder).

    Note

    If a user account has already successfully logged in (and not logged out since then), then only its user name and password will be authenticated when specified in the command line; the other settings (such as Auto Login at Startup, Sign Out on Exit, Remember Credentials etc.) specified in the command line will be ignored.

  • Offline license are not allowed to be activated in the Windows Server operating system any more.

For more information, refer to the Appeon License User Guide.