HDD or Dongle alternative machine ID

Owned by Roman Villandry
Last updated: Apr 25, 2023

When activating a license, it is locked to a MachineID of the PC it is installed on (Or the server in the case of an SBS license), this is based on the MAC address of the PC.

If the PC has multiple network adaptors or is using a virtual server (In the case of SBS licenses) then the MAC address can change, causing the license to become invalid.

There are two solutions for these situations:

  1. Use a USB license dongle that will act as the MachineID (it may not work on virtual servers)

  2. Use an alternate method of generating the MachineID that is not based on the MAC address

Click here to go to our Download resources page for a utility that will generate a MachineID based on the HDD ID of the Windows installation, this should not change unless you reinstall Windows.

We recommend using the “4- MachineID Exchange Utility (Alternative - HDD based)”

When you run this utility, it will give you a MachineID starting with 4-xxxxx.

Visit our License Activation page and enter your license details along with this new MachineID.

Once activated, this will give you a license file to download, download and save it to your PC.

Now run and choose to activate CardExchange again and this time, choose the advanced option and browse to the downloaded file.

This should stop any issues related to the PC's MAC address from changing.