STEP Tools License Keys

Some STEP Tools, Inc. products require a license key to run. To request a key, fill in the key request form at http://www.steptools.com/register Your request will be handled by our support staff and a key will be sent to you via electronic mail.

The key request form asks for the following information:

Name and Organization (required)

These personal identifiers will appear in your license key.

Email Address (required)

Your key will be sent to you via electronic mail, so be sure that this is a valid mail address.

STEP Tools License Number

This six-digit number (#10xxxx) is on the cover letter included with your software and on invoices. We use this to connect your order to our records. If you do not provide this, we have to look it up and that could take some time.

Product (required)

Host Type (required)

The software product you need a key for and the type of computer you are using the software on (Windows, Solaris, Linux, etc.)

Host Identifier (required)

Find the host identifier of the machine where you installed the software. There are several ways to get the host identifier. On Windows, our packages normally install the ST-License Key Browser on the Start menu. This tool displays the machine host identifier and any installed keys. If you do not have it for some reason, you can Download the Key Browser (440k) and install it separately.

Most STEP Tools products also include the stshowkeys command line tool. You can run this from a command shell as follows:

    C:\> stshowkeys
    CPU identifier for this machine:
       Host type ..... Intel/Windows NT/9x
       Host ident .... 9287f739
    
    License Information ----------------
    No licenses found

E-mail lists

The st-announce mailing list is a low volume list for announcements from STEP Tools, Inc. We post a weekly newsletter containing items of interest to the STEP community, as well as information about major happenings such as product releases, new services, or improvements to our web site.

The st-users list is an open mailing list for discussion about the use of STEP Tools products. This is an unmoderated list open to anyone who uses or is interested in using any of the software tools that we provide. STEP Tools employees do monitor and participate in discussions on this list, although it is not an official support channel.

Installing License Keys on Windows Systems

On Windows systems, license keys for STEP Tools products are kept in the Windows registry. Your key will be sent via electronic mail as a ".stkey" file attachment, which is actually just a registry export file. Simply unpack the file and double-click on it to load the information into the registry.

After you install the license, you may verify the license with the ST-License Key Browser or the stshowkeys command line tool. These programs search the registry for all STEP Tools product license keys.

    C:\> stshowkeys
    CPU identifier for this machine:
       Host type ..... Intel/Windows NT/9x
       Host ident .... 9287f739
    
    License Information ----------------
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\STEP Tools, Inc.\ST-Developer\7.0]
    User name ............ Dave Shabotnick
    User organization .... Foobar International
    License serial ....... 17d4-72956629-274a99b7-484
    Licensed package ..... ST-Developer v7.0
    License type ......... Single CPU/Node-locked
    Host CPU type ........ Intel/Windows NT/9x
    Host identifier ...... 9287f739

Installing License Keys on UNIX Systems

On UNIX systems, keys are kept in a special license key file. The file $ROSE/system_db/license contains the license keys for all STEP Tools products installed on your system. To install a license key, append the license key text to this file.

    # Sample STEP Tools license file
    # License keys are series of hex digits beginning with a $. 
    # Lines beginning with a hash are ignored.
    #
    $e2c6081885 e2030f93cc 0bcd8919e7 e3c68c120a a3dc8c296b d4a2b8354a
     d4f4bf2c02 d4ffb57e51 cef5bd7e49 82f2e82900 80ebb82042 d7d2cc176f
     e382ed6e53 86e6df707e 82a4e36c18 8dafef730f f68686185f b092c94812
     c392e37774 8fb5931d05 dc84831872 fd86941846 b092a14c7e 86b5f84832
     82a5e77908 84a3ac7e44 8cb4ac5d78 ad8fcd5b05 c3c38e1827 e3c6ad1d24
     e3c68c1800 cbc3fc0f4a e3c6a51d2c 7cbfb86aa0

If your system administrator prefers to keep keys elsewhere, set the $ROSE_LICENSE environment variable to indicate the new location of the file:

    setenv ROSE_LICENSE   /usr/local/common/step_keys

After you have added the license, you may verify the license with the stshowkeys tool. With no arguments, the stshowkeys program looks for an installed key file. It can also be given a filename argument to check the contents of a specific file.

    % stshowkeys
    CPU identifier for this machine:
       Host type ..... Sun SPARC/Solaris
       Host ident .... 7234799f
    
    License Information ----------------
    User name ............ Dave Shabotnick
    User organization .... Foobar International
    License serial ....... 17d4-7234799f-31fa4d1c-484
    Licensed package ..... ST-Developer v7.0
    License type ......... Single CPU/Node-locked
    Host CPU type ........ Sun SPARC
    Host identifier ...... 7234799f
    Usable on this host: YES