Installation and Upgrade > Installation and Configuration Guide > Using the PTC Solution Installer > Before Using the PTC Solution Installer > Windchill Licensing
  
Windchill Licensing
Windchill requires a valid license to run in the system. The license contains all your Windchill entitlements. Windchill users are entitled to a license through license group membership. The access to the entitled feature will be limited to the count of purchased licenses.
There is no limitation to the number of servers such as Test and Development, that can be set up but each Windchill instance requires its own license file.
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• Licensing is exempted for Windchill PDM Essentials, Windchill Arbortext Content Manager and PTC Pro/INTRALINK 11.X.
• Licensing is exempted for Remote File Servers
Retrieving and Managing License
Licenses can be retrieved and managed in online mode or manual mode, as described here:
• Online mode
◦ Enables automatic retrieval of license using PTC Solution Installer during installation or from the License Management utility in Windchill after installation.
◦ Automates the license management lifecycle.
◦ Manages the license subscriptions and any changes in license entitlements automatically. Every 24 hours Windchill synchronizes with PTC backend system and checks for any changes in license entitlements.
For more information, see the section “ Importing Windchill License” in Entering Administrative Settings.
• Offline or Manual mode
Use this mode when your Windchill instance operates in offline mode or unable to communicate with PTC backend system.
◦ Provides the ability to retrieve license manually using License Management utility in Windchill after installation.
◦ Provides the ability to manage license subscriptions and any changes in license entitlements manually.
On successful activation of your license, the license features purchased are displayed in the License Informationtab of theLicense Managementutility in Windchill. 
Administrators are required to add users to the respective license group in order to entitle the users to a license.
License Validation and Shutdown Behavior
Upon start-up and every 24 hours, Windchill synchronizes with PTC backend system and checks for valid license. If the license is invalid or the subscription term has expired, then Windchill shuts down. A grace period of six hours is provided by PTC before shutting down the Windchill instance. In the case of cluster environment, Windchill will shut down in all the nodes. Administrators are presented with notification message before shut down.
Retrieving License Using Windchill License Management Utility
You can import a license manually after installation using License Management utility in Windchill. Use the following procedure to manually activate your license key through PTC Support Site at https://support.ptc.com/apps/licensePortal/auth/ssl/index. If the license is not imported within 6 hours after startup, Windchill will shut down.
This procedure is based on three high level steps:
1. Obtain the host ID for a Windchill instance from the License Management utility in Windchill.
2. Download the license file using the host ID from the License Management portal on PTC Support Site.
3. Upload the license file to the License Management utility in Windchill to activate the license.
Only administrators can perform this procedure.
1. Log in to the PTC Support site on a web browser using your PTC credentials or by creating a new account.
2. Under Home or Windchill tab, click Manage Licenses.
The License Management page opens.
3. In the PTC product family list, click PTC Windchill > PTC Licensing Tool.
The License Management Portal page opens.
4. Under the ThingWorx / ThingWorx Navigate / Windchill section, select Windchill as a product from the drop-down menu.
5. Enter the host ID as displayed in License Management utility for which you want to retrieve license in the Enter Device ID text box.
6. Click Retrieve to download your license. The license file will be downloaded to a browser default location with all your Windchill entitlements.
7. Navigate to License Management > Settings tab in Windchill.
8. In Settings tab, click Import license from a file.
9. Click Browse to locate and upload the license file that was obtained from PTC License Management portal.
10. Click Process Capability Response to activate your license.
The license is activated in Windchill system and a new record is added to the table in the License Information tab. See Viewing License Information for more details.