RH7: Licensing stoppet working

[Veritas1984]

I installed RoboHelp 7 on a clean win server 2003 and I get this error when I launch RoboHelp HTML/RoboHelp for Word:
"Licensing for this product has stopped working. You cannot use this product at this time. You must repair the problem by uninstalling and then reinstalling this product or contacting your IT administrator or Adobe customer support for help."

On my RoboHelp box, a ticker says: "Upgrade. This upgrade version will install only if you are a licensed user of a previous version of this software product"
Does this mean I need to have a earlier version of RoboHelp installed to make the upgrade?

[JainVivek]

Win Server 2003 is not a supported platform for RoboHelp. Do you see the same issue on Windows XP or Vista?

[Veritas1984]

RoboHelp 7 works fine on XP...
when I open roboscreencapture on 2003 server, all the menues are displayed with ??? ???.

So the conclusion is: RoboHelp is not ready for windows server 2003.

[Peter Grainge]

As Vivek has explained, WinServer is not a supported platform. RH must be installed on the user's PC and not on any server. That is both a licensing and a technical requirement.

Yes the message means you have only paid the upgrade price so the installation will check for a previous version and not install unless it is found or you can supply the licence number.

[iakovosjam]

RoboHelp 6 worked just fine on Server 2003, so I persisted and found a way to get version 7 to work.

For some reason the FLEXNet Licensing Service does not get installed, so you have to copy the files from an XP or Vista installation and put in the registry keys for the service.

These are the files needed:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\FLEXnet\adobe_00080000_tsf.data
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Macrovision Shared\FLEXnet Publisher\FNPLicensingService.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Macrovision Shared\FLEXnet Publisher\fnp_registrations.xml

Then copy the registry keys from this location on an XP or Vista installation:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet|Services\FLEXNet Licensing Service\

After doing this and restarting the server I was able to get past the error message and enter in my license code. So far I haven't had any other problems with the software. I was able to open up my V6 files, convert them to V7 and make edits to them.

[Peter Grainge]

Please don't post any questions if you have problems with RH7 using it this way. It's up to you but installing to a server is, as I understand it, a breach of the licence.

[iakovosjam]

If that's the case, I'll take down my post. It is not my intention to do anything that breaches my license. When I talked to Adobe Technical Support about the problem, they just said that RH7 was not tested for Server 2003. They never mentioned the fact that I could be breaking my license agreement. They even offered me several suggestions for getting it installed, including this KB Article:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb401528

All of the development that I do is over Remote Desktop on Server 2003 machines (so that it can be done from any location), so this lack of functionality makes RoboHelp unusable for me.

[Peter Grainge]

Leave it for now. I am only saying that is my understanding. It was always the case with previous versions. I'll see what I can find out. If the situation has changed, then no sense in removing the post.

[iakovosjam]

Although this gets RH7 to run on Server 2003, it is very buggy. Every time you close the program it causes an error. It does not effect the .chm output though. Personalized settings sometimes aren't saved. We'll eventually get a cheap PC on our domain just for RH.