Discovery Subscription license – Command line options

[FAQ]

Through Windows Command prompt, you can execute different commands associated with subscription licensing like activating, deactivating, viewing licenses, etc. Please find below the steps to execute these commands:

1.    Launch the Windows Command Prompt from the start menu by typing “cmd”.  Right click the Command Prompt application and select Run as Administrator.

2.    In the command prompt, type in:

For version 2021R1 and later:

cd C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\v211\licensingclient\winx64

For older versions:

cd C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\Shared Files\Licensing\winx64

(this is the default installation directory of Discovery products. If you have installed it at a different location, enter the appropriate path where ansysls_client.exe is present)

3.    Once in that directory, run the following commands:

Activate license:

ansysls_client.exe -ActivateLicenseEntitlement < ActivationID >

This command can be used to activate license on your machine. In above command, replace < ActivationID > with your activation id. You can find the activation id in the txt file that you receive or from your Discovery Account page under Manage Subscriptions section.

Deactivate license:

ansysls_client.exe -DeactivateAllEntitlements

This command deactivates all the active licenses assigned to you. After deactivating licenses, you will be prompted to sign in when you launch any Discovery product. The license can also be deactivated by clicking “Release” button under license details from your Discovery Account page under Manage Subscriptions section.

Refresh licenses:

ansysls_client.exe -RefreshLicenseEntitlements

This command refreshes license subscriptions on that machine. If Discovery products are not launched for more than a month, execute this command to refresh the license.

Get Device ID:

ansysls_client.exe -GetDeviceId

This command returns the subscription device ID for the current system and user. You can also view the device ID from your Discovery Account page under Manage Subscriptions section and the subscription license activated on that machine.

Show licenses:

ansysls_client.exe -ShowLicenseEntitlements

This command returns the list of all active subscription licenses for this system along with its start and end dates.