Does reinstalling the OS count as transferring the MATLAB license?

Hi,

If I reinstall my Ubuntu 16.04 OS on the same hardware (same computer, same disk), will it count as transferring the MATLAB license? I read that transferring can only be done twice a year. After reinstalling Ubuntu, will I have to activate MATLAB again, or will it recognize my MAC address automatically?

If reinstalling does count as transferring, would manually copying the files work?

Thanks, Pieter

[Pieter Pas]

Anyone?

[José-Luis]

Probably easier to call customer service.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

Reinstalling with the same hardware will not count as a transfer unless somehow you change the system's understanding of what the "primary" Ethernet card is (which gets to be a tricky topic in newer Linux).

Answer 2

[Mandar Patwardhan]

Reinstalling Ubuntu on the same hardware (same computer) does not count as a license transfer. You will just have to reinstall and activate MATLAB.

[Esha Swaroop]

What if I repartitioned my hard disk on a dual boot system? Would that be looked at as different hardware? I don't know how to use my matlab license on the new ubuntu that I installed while repartitioning.

[Walter Roberson]

MATLAB for Linux has, as best I recall, always used only MAC address as the license keys, never hard drive serial number or file system ID.

What has changed over the years on MATLAB for Linux has been the list of ethernet device names it looks for, and the order it looks for them. This was especially necessary to support the consistent device naming changes for newer Linux.

To be explicit: dual booting, even with a different operating systems, is considered to be the same host for MATLAB "transfer" purposes, as long as the same ethernet MAC is still the one picked up. However, if one of the alternative boots is to MS Windows to run a version of MATLAB from long enough ago (a few years now), then you could run into the problem that old enough MATLAB for MS Windows keyed off of the hard drive serial number.

Also note that if you reinstall MATLAB, whether for reasons of repartitioning or dual booting, you might need to re-run the activation client to pull down a license file; as long as the MAC stays the same this will not count as a transfer.