This article provides a tutorial on transferring a legacy Zemax softkey license from one machine to another. This process requires your source and destination machines have internet access.

If you are using Ansys-licensed versions of Zemax software, see Ansys Zemax licensing overview and guides instead.

Authored By Don Dickinson

To follow the instructions in this article, you will need:

• A Zemax legacy license (serial numbers L1XXXXX or T1XXXXX) that is not a physical red or green USB license. You can identify your license type using the guide located here: How to identify your legacy Zemax license.
  
  
• OpticStudio 15.5 to 24.1.

Notice: Online transfers are no longer available

As of Jan 2025, the legacy Zemax license transfer and activation server was shut down. This is because the company no longer sells this license type. If you attempt to transfer a online in the Zemax license manager, you will get an error message. 

From now on, please follow the steps in "Activate or transfer a softkey license on a machine without internet access."