What Happens When Your Software Maintenance Expires?
Software maintenance keeps your SoftwareKey products current and supported. What happens at expiration depends on how your Protection PLUS license was acquired, so here is how it works.
What an active maintenance plan gives you
- Download access to your software, including the ability to re-download older versions.
- The latest versions and updates of Protection PLUS 5 SDK, IPP3, and Protection PLUS 4 SDK.
- Technical support from our team.
Is your Protection PLUS bundled, or purchased separately?
This is the key question, because it determines what expiration affects.
Bundled into a SOLO Server subscription (current plans). On our current plans, Protection PLUS licenses are included in the monthly SOLO Server subscription. If that subscription stops, or the SOLO Server account is closed, access to Protection PLUS and your ability to use it end along with the subscription.
Purchased separately (perpetual license). If you bought your Protection PLUS license on its own (as with our earlier model, where SOLO Server was a separate monthly subscription), that license is yours to keep. You can continue using the version you have even after maintenance expires, and you can renew maintenance on Protection PLUS on its own. In this case, closing a SOLO Server account does not disable your separately-purchased Protection PLUS.
So for a separately-purchased license, letting maintenance lapse does not turn off Protection PLUS, and you can keep running the version you already have installed. What you give up is download access (you cannot download the software, including older versions, without active maintenance), updates, new versions, and support. So if you let maintenance lapse and later need to reinstall or re-download, you will need to renew first. Renewing maintenance restores all of these.
Renewing maintenance
Renewals update your existing licenses automatically. You do not download a new license file and you do not need to re-activate. Standard maintenance pricing is generally about 20% of the original license cost per year (it can vary in some cases).
Your customers' licenses are not turned off
Licenses you have already issued to your end users are not affected by your maintenance status. If you lose access to Protection PLUS (for example, a bundled subscription ends), you may not be able to process new activations, but the licenses your customers already have keep working in most cases.
Not sure which applies to you?
If you are not certain whether your Protection PLUS is bundled with your SOLO Server plan or was purchased separately, contact us and we will confirm what you have.
Want to limit new versions to active maintenance?
If you want your own customers to keep older versions but require active maintenance to install newer builds, that is an optional setup on your side. See: Limit Software Version Updates to Customers with a Valid Maintenance Agreement (companion how-to).