Need to know where I have installed my licensed copy of Lightroom 6

[Peter Weld]

I just bought a new MacBook Pro, and I installed Lightroom 6 on it—but I got a message saying that I had already reached my limit on the number of computers on which I could install Lightroom 6 and that I would have to deactivate Lightroom 6 on another machine within 30 days in order to go on using it on the MacBook Pro.

Well, I beg to differ: I have Lightroom 6 on my iMac at home and on my iMac at work, but I'm pretty sure I've never installed it anywhere else, and I think the license allows me to install it on three machines. Is there any way to get a list of the machines on which my copy of Lightroom 6 has been installed? My user profile has a list of the serial numbers of all the different versions of Lightroom that I've bought over the past decade, but that's not quite what I need.

[Alfred_Pennyworth · Accepted solution]

The license allows for 2 activations not 3 so the message you are getting is correct. Sorry

You can install on more than 2 but you will need to change the activation about as needed to use it on more than 2 as the message is saying.

[Peter Weld]

Thanks, Alfred Pennyworth. What do you mean by "you will need to change the activation about as needed to use it on more than 2"? Or is this something of questionable legality?

Oh, and one other question: if I do need to buy another license to install Lightroom 6 on a third machine, can I still buy a license to Lightroom 6, or have we reached the point where Lightroom CC's subscription model is the only option?

[Jim Wilde]

You can install LR6 on as many computers as you like, but you can only USE it (by activation) on any two of those computers at any point in time. However, there's nothing to stop you deactivating on one of the current two in order to activate on a different computer, which is what Alfred was referring to.

[Peter Weld]

Thanks for clearing that up for me, Jim. I'd somehow always thought that activation and deactivation were things you did once each: when you installed software on a computer and then when you were ready to erase the hard disk and get rid of the computer. So you're saying that I can activate, deactivate, activate, and deactivate Lightroom 6 as many times as I want, whenever I need to use it on another machine?

[Jim Wilde]

Peter Weld wrote:

So you're saying that I can activate, deactivate, activate, and deactivate Lightroom 6 as many times as I want, whenever I need to use it on another machine?

That's my understanding, though I haven't tried to test it of course. Whether there's a limit to the number of times you'd be able to keep doing that deactivate/activate procedure, I couldn't say. It was really designed to facilitate easy activation on a third system after deactivating one of the existing two, it probably wasn't intended as a means of easily keeping Lightroom running on three or more systems on a more or less permanent basis.

[Peter Weld]

Thanks, Jim. I don't think I'll try it either, but I guess my only alternative is to buy another license for Lightroom 6 if they're still available.