Table of Contents
Manually deleting a license when you cannot deactivate
30. April 2025
Table of Contents
Activation keys for Fotoware partners issued after June 2015 cannot be deactivated using the activation wizard. The process will fail if you attempt to run the Windows or Mac activation wizard to return an activated product key. Because partner keys provide access to the entire Fotoware suite of products, the activation must always be deleted when a computer is "retired".
Note: The Fotoware Application Activation Wizard has been superseded by the fwlicensetool for managing activations. For information on how to obtain this tool and use it to manage software activation from the command prompt, see Command line activation of Fotoware applications using fwlicensetool.
Tip: Although this topic describes deactivating partner keys, the following procedures can also be used to remove a customer's retail keys that cannot be deactivated because they have been replaced in a license fulfillment.
There are two ways to remove an activation when the activation wizard fails:
Deleting trusted storage
Deleting trusted storage is the quick and easy way to remove all Fotoware activations on the machine.
Trusted storage files are stored in:
- Windows: C:\ProgramData\FLEXNet
- Mac: /Library/Preferences/FLEXnet Publisher/FLEXnet
The file you need to delete is typically called something like fotoware_xxxxx.tsf.data
Deleting the file removes all valid activated keys on the system.
Note: Other software vendors also use the FLEXnet activation scheme - including Adobe.
ONLY delete the fotoware .data file from this folder and leave all other files. Deleting other files will break activation for other software on the computer.
Selectively removing a single activation
If several product keys have been activated on your system and you want to remove only the Fotoware partner key, follow the three steps below.
Step 1: Make a dump file to find the Fulfillment ID of the key in question:
Windows
Select Windows-R to open the Windows Run dialog and type the following command to run the Fotoware Activation Wizard and create the dump file.
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fwappactwiz -dump all |
Save the file on your desktop and open it.
Mac OS
Open the Terminal (in the Utilities Folder - press Command-U to open it). Then type the following command:
"/Applications/FotoStation Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/Fotoware-Activation-Assistant" -dump all
Save the file on your desktop and open it.
Step 2: Find the correct Fulfillment ID
The dump file typically looks something like this:
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In the example file above, the Fulfillment ID is seen on line 6, starting with FW-FID-
Step 3: Delete the activation using the Activation Wizard
Windows
Copy this string to the clipboard. Then hit Windows-R to open the Windows Run dialog and run the activation wizard with the -delete parameter, making sure to use the correct Fulfillment ID from the dump file:
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fwappactwiz -delete FW-FID-005358-BB4579-DBE621-E0DE41-C73C13-0C06BD |
Mac OS
Execute the following command in the Terminal utility, making sure to use the correct Fulfillment ID from the dump file:
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"/Applications/FotoStation Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/Fotoware-Activation-Assistant" -delete FW-FID-005358-BB4579-DBE621-E0DE41-C73C13-0C06BD
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