Managing License Keys with Active Directory
It is possible to use Active Directory to automatically add and remove PDF-XChange license keys based on Security Group membership. You can also use Active Directory to add and remove PDF-XChange license keys automatically, based on the security group membership of users.
Note that there is is no Active Directory policy in the templates that is specific for this purpose - one simply uses Active Directory to run a script as required. The script will call the XCVault licensing utility that is installed by default with the software and that is used that to manage keys.
You can set up policies that run a script to apply a key or remove a key when appropriate in order to apply the license based on OU or Security Group membership in Active Directory. One approach is to have different log-on scripts for licensed and unlicensed users. For example, you could set up OUs and groups for "PDFX Licensed Users" and "PDFX Unlicensed Users". Users in the licensed group could run as follows:
@echo off
reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Tracker Software\Vault" >nul
if %errorlevel% equ 0 (
echo "a license key exists- do nothing"
) else (
echo "a license key does not exist - add the key using XCVault"
"%programfiles%\Tracker Software\Vault\XCVault.exe" /AddKeyData PVP90-hdlpqaGHkHSikhDrvchnLFj+mpHASPzxQq2TkBVtG2beAtLhZwyO9Rfui98Aj9c3DXG3tCsKw+/lbp3LRtWsShCuOQVxmb2VJbplqUrefTmMHWG8Inpr03b7Rj86peEurwjTaCan0PSr8Clomgq4ZhJ3VL/LsMJ8uv3tG2beAtLhZwyO9Rfui98Aj9c3DXG3tCsKw+/lbp3LRtWsShCuOQVxmb2VJbplqUrefTmMHWG8Inpr03b7Rj86peEurwjTaCan0PSr8Clomgq4ZhJ3VL/LsMJ8uv3KPoLUSuyML3sjrEBbvo/mkg=
echo "Activate the newly installed key..."
"%programfiles%\Tracker Software\Vault\XCVault.exe" /ActivateKeys
)
Users in the unlicensed group could run as follows:
@echo off
reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Tracker Software\Vault" >nul
if %errorlevel% equ 0 (
echo "a license key exists- remove it"
REG DELETE "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Tracker Software\Vault" /F
) else (
echo "a license key does not exist - nothing to do here"
)
These processes result in simply adding a key to the user registry in cases where there isn't one already there, and deleting the entire vault reg key when you no longer want them to be licensed.
Note that you can remove keys by deleting the user's entire "vault" registry key, as detailed above, or by using XCVault with either the /RemoveKeys or /Cleanup. Additionally, you can apply PDF-XChange Editor's Active Directory Administrative Template policy to "Hide All Licensed Features" from the Editor GUI for the users that will have access to PDF-XChange Editor without a license.