Help with EVRSI Activation on 64 bit System

[SolarNinja]

Good day to you all. There is a lot of information on this topic, but so far it has proven difficult to get good information. I am looking to find a way of using the EVRSI activation method to get RSLogix 5000 v16.04 - v20 installed on my laptop with an OS that can handle all 8gb of installed RAM.

I purchased a copy of RSLogix v20.00.00 about ten years ago. The license is good for every version up to v24, but only for one machine. Which is fine, I am just one person. I used a master disk to activate it, and never bothered to transfer the license as I had the Activation certificate with the serial number and the product key.

Note: v20.00.00 is the LAST version of RSLogix 5000 that can be activated by a master disk with EVRSI activation.

Well, my programming laptop is no longer functional, so I am working on getting RSLogix installed on another machine. The machine I was using before was a Dell with a Celeron processor and 4gb of RAM running Windows 7 64 bit. I got another Dell of the same model, only this one has a Core 2 Duo 9800 processor and 8gb of RAM, also running Windows 7 64 bit. My problem is that when I go to activate it I get the message, "Master Disk Activation not available with 64 bit systems", or something of that nature. I don't know how the heck I was able to activate v20 on my 64 bit system 10 years ago.

First, let me say that I am a Bona Fide purchaser of this product, and have a legitimate license. However, since I never transferred the license, and the company that sold the program to me cannot be located, I cannot get any help from Rockwell. They want to charge me $400 for a TechConnect subscription which I really do not want to pay. Which is why I am looking for help. The way I see it I have three options:

1. Install Windows 7 32 bit, then the RSLogix 5000 versions that I want. Copy the license files. Install Windows 7 64 bit, then the RSLogix 5000 versions that I want. Then overwrite all the license files with the ones copied from the 32 bit Windows 7 installation. If the EVRSI method uses the HDD serial number as the ID for the license then I think that may work...but I don't know what piece of hardware in the computer the EVRSI activation attaches to the license. What do you folks think, will this work?

2. Bite the bullet and just use a 32 bit OS. I don't like that idea.

3. Use a VM running under a 64 bit OS? If I install a 32 bit OS in a VM running inside a computer running a 64 bit OS, will the 32 bit VM be able to address all 8gb of RAM? If not, seems like I would be better off just using a 32 bit OS.

4. Option X - There is one other option, which may be what I did ten years ago, and I'm not sure it will even work, and if it does it may be the only time I can do it, and that is to activate it with FT online via Rockwell's servers. As I said, my license is only good for one machine. IT may be that I have already used it, or the previous owner already used it, and it will not work at all. Or, if it DOES work, it may be the only time that it does, and if I screw up the installation somehow I may not be able to use the FT activation again. Does anyone know if after a number of years Rockwell allows for single computer licenses to be activated again?

Obviously I want to go with option one and just get RSLogix running on a 64 bit OS. Can anyone think of a way to do this somehow? Any other way than the options I listed above? Any insight is MOST appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

[georg_demmler]

Hello,

there is a compatibilty list of Rockwell - and until Version 20 the OS is only XP32bit. You can try Win7 32bit. And the best way is to take a VM. And what is the problem to work with 32bit. if you install your Rockwell SW to dont write such a long
story. If the laptop has problems - you take another one take your VM and that's it.

I work a long time with RWView and it runs only unter XP 32bit - and no problem.

Hope this helps.

[SolarNinja]

Hello,

there is a compatibilty list of Rockwell - and until Version 20 the OS is only XP32bit. You can try Win7 32bit. And the best way is to take a VM. And what is the problem to work with 32bit. if you install your Rockwell SW to dont write such a long
story. If the laptop has problems - you take another one take your VM and that's it.

I work a long time with RWView and it runs only unter XP 32bit - and no problem.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply Georg!

I wanted to use a 64 bit machine because I wanted to take advantage of all the system resources(RAM). I finally figured it out. Master disk activation works fine on 64 bit systems for versions 16, 17 and 18, but starting with 19 it gives you a message, "Master Disk Activation not available on 64 bit systems".

Well, by some miracle, I got v20.00.00 activated WITHOUT FactoryTalk Activation Manager. I started with a clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and then fully updated it. Nothing else, not even antivirus. I then installed RSLogix 5000 v20 just to see if maybe it would activate if I installed that first. I still got the error message.

I then wanted to see if earlier versions would activate with a Master Disk on a 64 bit machine, just for verification. I installed v16.04 and v17.01. They both activated just fine in a 64 bit environment with a master disk.

For some reason, and I am not entirely sure why, I decided to re-install v20. So I used the Add Remove Programs feature in Windows to uninstall v20, then reinstalled it.

Now here is the miraculous part...at the end of the installation it did NOT ask me for ANY kind of activation. I was like, "WTF?". So I tested it. I configured drivers in RSLinx and opened RSLogix 5000. I did not receive any kind of message telling me that the software was operating as a trial. I then connected to my PLC, uploaded the stored program to my laptop, modified it, then downloaded it back to the PLC. A trial version would not have let me do this.

I then installed v18.02 and v19.01. When I installed v19.01 it DID ask me for activation, and said it had to be done with FactoryTalk. I never use v19, so I wasn't too worried about it. I re-checked that v20.00.00 could connect to and modify the program in the PLC and I was able to.

I'm not sure how the activation happened for v20, but it did.

And Georg, let me tell you...RSLogix 5000 seems to run very well, and very fast on this 64 bit system.

Hopefully this information helps someone, and thanks for reading!