KB3005 - Troubleshooting License Issues

KB3005 - Troubleshooting License Issues

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to explain in technical detail how to workaround when the license for PowerShell Pro Tools won't install


(figure shows how an Ironman Software license file should appear in a text viewer)

Affected Products

  1. PowerShell Tools for Visual Studio
  2. PowerShell Pro Tools for Visual Studio Code
  3. PowerShell Module
  4. PSScriptPad
  5. PowerShell Packager
All iterations of PowerShell Pro Tools are affected. Please see the PowerShell Pro Tools Downloads page for the most up to date list.

Symptoms

One or more of the PowerShell Pro Tools products indicate an unlicensed status even though you have installed one.

Visual Studio 2022
 

Visual Studio Code

PowerShell Pro Tools PowerShell module (Merge-Script)
 
 
PSScriptPad

PowerShell Packager


Background/Root Cause

Although Ironman Software products always install correctly on a freshly installed system, there can occasionally be health issues or restrictions on a particular Windows workstation and/or its user profile folders which may prevent the normal installation or operation of the software from occurring.

Procedure

1. Browse to your profile's %APPDATA% folder. This is typically located in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming. See figure 1 below.

2. Create the "PowerShell Pro Tools" folder in your %APPDATA% if it does not exist. Herein "the folder". See figure 1 below.

(figure 1)


(figure 2 - alternate view of figure 1 from File Explorer)

3. If the folder did not exist and you created it (as per figure 1) then at this point you should try again to install the license and check that it is recognized. Most likely, this was the only needed step. The root cause was that PowerShell Pro Tools was blocked from creating its needed folder in the %APPDATA%.

4. If the folder already existed, then you need to continue through the rest of the steps.

5. Copy your license file to the "PowerShell Pro Tools" folder (i.e. the folder that you created in Step 2)

6. Rename the license file from *.txt to license.lic[1] See example below.


(figure 3 - an animation showing the renaming of a license.txt file to license.lic)

7. Start the affected PowerShell Pro Tools application and confirm that the license status is now valid.

8. If you are still not able to install the license and you have not raised a case already, please raise one by using the 'Contact Us' on https://ironmansoftware.com.

You can also try reading your license file with Read-IronmanSoftwareLicenseFile available at https://github.com/ironmansoftware/awesome-powershell-universal

[1] Be sure you have enabled file extensions in File Explorer


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