I have a 2021 classic license and have just installed it onto a new Windows laptop. I thought all was going well until I received an email the following day from Trimble informing me that I have hit my license activation count threshold.
The last time I used it, several years ago, it was on an old laptop which I no longer have. I used to use SketchUp professionally, but I’m now semi-retired and only wish to use it for occasional small personal projects which is why I can’t justify paying for a current subscription.
In short, I had forgotten to remove the license from my old laptop before I uninstalled SketchUp. This means that if I have an issue with this new laptop I will not be able to use the ‘bonus’ activation.
Trimble included options in the email describing what I could do about this. Because I do not have access to my old laptop, and I do not want to sign up for ongoing subscriptions, the only option remaining for me was to follow a link to Trimble Support and request a license count reset. However, even though I am a registered licensee of SketchUp Classic, but not a current paid up subscriber, Trimble has decided I do not have access to any support.
Does anyone know a way I could reset my classic license count without having to pay for a current subscription?
That email comes when you do a third activation, which means you have SketchUp 2021 installed on two other computers. Perhaps you still have one of those two?
I will send you a message with the activation details, which might help you to know what other machine you have SketchUp installed on.
Thanks a lot, Colin, for the activation list history.
I have checked my other physical machines which I have had this license installed upon. One, a MacBook, still had the application installed, but I had remembered to remove the license. The other machine, a 15 year old Sony Vaio, is possibly one of the active copies of the license. However, this machine was at a point when it would no longer fully boot up with Windows 10, so I had no choice but to wipe it and install linux so it could still be a useful machine. I think I had removed the license because the machine wasn’t running very well with Win10, but not completely sure.
I remember trying out SketchUp on a Windows 10 VM on my Intel iMac, and again on a Windows 11 VM on my M1 MacBook. I’m reasonably sure I had removed the licenses there, but I’ll check again.
Thanks again, I’ll let you know what I find.
One thing you could try, if your Linux setup is able to run Windows apps, you could install SketchUp and add the license. As it’s a machine that already had the license, it should go in ok. Then do a remove license, and it should free up one activation.
I think I’m stuck though, because after reviewing the dates of the other applications again, the earliest activation in 2021 would have been installed on my employer’s laptop. I won’t bother you with why my employer wouldn’t cover the cover the cost and ownership of the license, but I had that license on their laptop for a few years before several of us were ‘trimmed’ from the company’s payroll with our laptops removed from our access with minimal warning. So this is likely to be where the first activation was lost.
The second one, 2024, might still on an old Win10 VM file I just found on my old iMac, but the VM has become corrupted for some reason and won’t open without going through the ‘this is a new machine’ process; maybe because the MacOS as well as VMware has been upgraded since the last time it was used.
Anyway, based upon what I just learnt from you where an activation is tied to the physical machine, I will spend some time both with my old laptop and the old VM, as there’s a good chance that one of them is responsible for the second activation in 2024.
If I’m unsuccessful I’ll try the support link you sent through earlier.
I’ll let you know the result one way or the other, but it probably won’t be for a few days now, thanks.
I just thought I’d quickly try the support link now in an attempt to save myself a lot of time, but unfortunately I see the same response I received before posting here.
