Digital Formation, Inc.     Technical Document #1004


Subject: Re-establishing lost diskettes for two (2) site transfers of keyless security, or recovering the sequence

Product: All Digital Formation Products

Last Updated: February 22, 1999


Overview

This document describes how to re-establish the diskettes for doing a transfer of a license between two computers, or to recover the sequence if you forget where you are in the sequence. See Technical Document #1001 (Tech1001.htm) for specific instructions on this sequence. A frequent problem when doing the two-site transfer is to get lost in the sequence, or for the diskettes to get lost. If one of the sites has a valid license, but you keep getting error messages when trying to transfer the license, this document will describe how to get back to square one and make the transfers work again. If the diskettes get lost in the middle of a transfer, so that neither site has a valid license running on it, there is NO WAY TO RECOVER THE LICENSE. Once you have done a Transfer Out successfully, the license has been moved to the diskette temporarily, and cannot be recovered in any way, except by doing a Transfer In from the site that did the Register Transfer. This document will only describe how to re-start the transfer procedure when one license is still valid, but the diskettes seem to be out of sync for doing transfers.


Details, Possible Messages

There are several different messages you may encounter when trying to do transfers. This document will address the most common ones.

  1. If you are trying to Transfer Out to a diskette, and the message is:

    Registration File Not Found (Receiving Site Must Register First)

    then you have probably inserted the wrong diskette into the drive for transferring the license. The current diskette does not have the registration file created by the Register Transfer function. If you are sure you have the correct diskette, then the Register Transfer function was not done, so you will need to go to the unlicensed site and do the Register Transfer to the diskette first.
  2. If you are trying to Register Transfer to a diskette, and the message is:

    Target Directory Already Contains Registration File

    then you have already done the Register Transfer function, and the diskette is ready to receive a transfer from a licensed site using the Transfer Out function.
  3. If you are trying to Register Transfer to a diskette, and the message is:

    Source Directory Already Contains Registration File

    then you have already done the Register Transfer function, and the current site is ready to receive a transfer from a licensed site using the Transfer Out function.
  4. If you are trying to Transfer In from a diskette, and the message is:

    This Site Has Not Registered for a Transfer

    then you have not yet done a Register Transfer and subsequent Transfer Out, so this site is not yet ready to receive a license. When you do a Register Transfer, you prepare a diskette for receiving a license, and prepare the unlicensed site to receive the license. This message tells you that the current site is not yet prepared to receive a license.
  5. If you are trying to Transfer In from a diskette, and the message is:

    Site and Source Registrations Do Not Match

    then you have tried to Transfer In using a different diskette than the one you used for the Register Transfer function. When you do a Register Transfer, you prepare a diskette to receive a license, and prepare the current site to receive that license. The preparation ties the diskette to the current site for the transfer, so that a license cannot be 'stolen' from the diskette, or improperly transferred to the site from another diskette.

Details, Possible Solution

If you receive any of these messages, and you are unsure where you missed a step in the transfer process, it is possible to forcefully undo all the steps and start over.

  1. Check that one of the sites has a still valid license, and that the software runs properly. If you cannot get either site working properly, without worrying about transferring the license around, then you will need to contact Technical Support. This document cannot help you in this case.
  2. Assuming one site has a valid license, reformat the two (2) diskettes you have been using for the transfers. This ensures that no spurious registration files will be available on the diskettes.
  3. On the UNLICENSED SITE, verify that no registration files are present. These will be files with a REG extension, in the BIN directory of the unlicensed product. Execute the following two (2) commands from a DOS prompt in the BIN directory, to completely remove all registration files:

    attrib -r -h -s *.reg
    del *.reg
  4. Restart the transfer procedures from the very beginning, see Technical Document #1001 (Tech1001.htm).

Conclusions

Transferring a valid license between two sites is somewhat complicated, and it is easy to get lost in the sequence, or forget to perform a step. By noting the exact messages that are given, you can usually determine which step was overlooked, and get the sequence back in order. However, if the time comes when you cannot seem to get the sequence to work again, this document has shown that you can completely remove all traces of the sequence and restart from the beginning.


Copyright © 1999 Digital Formation, Inc.
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