Activating trial licenses with Thales Sentinel

Sentinel LDK is a third-party licensing solution used to manage licenses for certain editions of the UFS Explorer software. This licensing solution allows the software to be executed in an evaluation (trial) mode for a limited period, enabling users to assess its functionality before purchasing a full commercial or corporate license. This guide describes how to activate a trial license for UFS Explorer and its components.

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Prerequisites for trial license activation

The public Trial License is issued in the form of an offline machine-unlocked software-based license (Sentinel SL). It can also be issued in the form of a machine-locked license upon request. In both cases, you will need to install Thales Sentinel Runtime Environment in order to activate the license.

If Thales Sentinel Runtime Environment is already installed on your machine:

  1. Make sure that RTE is version 10.12 or later. You can update it to the minimum required version using the installation files available on our website.

  2. Install the UFS Explorer software. As part of this process, the required vendor library will be installed on your system to support license activation.

If you don’t have Thales Sentinel Runtime Environment installed:

  1. Download and install the UFS Explorer software. The required vendor library will be installed automatically.

  2. Start the software and install Thales Sentinel Runtime Environment using the Software license manager for Sentinel keys.

  3. In case the procedure doesn’t work as expected, you can download and install RTE using the installation files from our website.

Automatic activation of a Demo license

  1. Start the UFS Explorer software. If there is no active license, the Software license manager for Sentinel keys will pop up.

  2. Select the "Start your XX days free trial period" option and click "Next". Please note that this option is not available if your license has expired.

  3. This must load and activate the Trial License automatically. If this option doesn’t work, make sure that the Sentinel LDK version 10.12 or later is installed and our vendor library is available in your system (it is checked and installed or updated each time you install or update the UFS Explorer software).

Manual activation of a Demo license

The Software license manager for Sentinel keys supports the activation of the license files provided by the vendor. Upon your request, we can generate a custom Demo License file for a specific PC. Please see Requesting an Offline License for more details.

Activation of Demo licenses for plugins

Additional modules (plugins) for UFS Explorer Technician are bundled with their own Demo licenses. If there is no active license for a plugin, the latter can’t be loaded, and the following message will pop up on the software startup:

Sentinel License is not avaialble

  1. To activate the license, click "Software Activation and License" in the software:

    License activation tool location

  2. Then, click the "Manage license" button, and the License Manager will pop up:

    License manager dialogue

  3. First, select "Apply a new license or license update" and then "Import a V2C file provided by the Vendor":

    License manager dialogue

  4. Choose a Trial License file named plg_*.v2cp that is stored in the "trial" subfolder of the software installation folder and activate the license.

    License file location

After the UFS Explorer Technician software is restarted, the plugin will launch in a trial mode.

Last update: Feb 19, 2025

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