What difference does the choice of FIK make?

We have three different File Installation Keys available to us, one Individual, one Designated, and one Concurrent.

I think I understand (in general terms) how the choice of FIK affects the install process, e.g., I read somewhere that if you don't use the Concurrent FIK the licensePath variable will be ignored. (Is this still true?)

What I'm unsure of is whether / how the choice of FIK affects the behaviour of MATLAB after the installation is complete.

Some examples / specific questions:

If we are using Login Named User (by setting enableLNU to Yes) does it make any difference whether we use the Designated or the Individual FIK?

Is it safe to silently install MATLAB using the Designated FIK and then manually install a network.lic file to tell MATLAB to use our concurrent licence server?

Is it safe to silently install MATLAB using the Designated FIK and then run the Mathworks Software Activation client and choose an Individual licence to activate?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/93105-what-are-the-lm_license_file-and-mlm_license_file-environment-variables-and-how-do-i-set-or-check-fo

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/134753-how-do-i-force-matlab-to-ignore-the-lm_license_file-environment-variable

LM_LICENSE_FILE and MLM_LICENSE_FILE environment variables are checked first no matter what kind of license has been installed. The only exception is if you use the -c flag when you start MATLAB.

If you have a license file environment variable, then the indicated sources will be checked in order to try to find an available license that can fulfill the product request. If there is no such environment variable or if there was no available license in any of the paths listed there, then the default license paths will be checked.

If I recall correctly, the license files stored in the MATLAB installation directory will be checked for first. Those include Designated Host licenses and Trial licenses. If those are not found (or no license is available on them) then the user-specific licenses will be checked.

Hmmm, now that I write it down, I am left with some doubts about the order. I know though that:

• unexpired trial licenses grant access to everything listed in the trial, even if the user has installed more specific licenses
• expired trial licenses have been known to interfere with the rest of the search, with people being told the trial has expired even though they installed more specific licenses; the trial license may have to be deleted
• if the user has a user-specific toolbox license stored, then that will be used in preference to a network license.