Help Desk

How do I upgrade my Houdini licenses?

With each new Houdini release, your licenses need to be upgraded.

Overview

Houdini licenses are bound to a version. This determines the maximum version of Houdini you can launch. When a new version of Houdini is released, you need to upgrade your licenses to allow for Houdini to launch the latest Houdini version.

Active Indie and Education subscriptions are issued upgrades to the account automatically.

If you are using SideFX as your license server, there is no need to install the upgrades. Just download Houdini and launch.

If you have installed licenses locally to your computer, you must install the upgrades to the existing installed licenses.
It is not enough that you only install the latest version of Houdini; the licenses themselves need to also be upgraded.

Commercial customers are entitled to upgrades to those licenses on an active annual support plan (AUP) or rental.
If you have Commercial licenses and do not have upgrades, please contact your SideFX account manager.

Ensure that you are running at least a license server (sesinetd) at version 21.0.679 to use 22.0 licenses.

The following method applies to Indie, Education and Commercial licenses.

To install your license upgrades

  1. Go to your account drop-down menu in the top right corner of the License Administrator.
  2. Select the Login option. Use the email and password for your SideFX license account.
  3. Select Install License Entitlements and any upgrades available to the existing installed licenses on the local machine should be listed.
  4. You can either press the "Select All" button and then press Install. Or, you can manually select which licenses to upgrade by changing the quantity box from 0 to the same value as the Quantity Allowed column associated with the installed license.
  5. Once upgraded, the license version should be upgraded.

Note if a license did not upgrade please refer to the following FAQ.
You may also contact support@sidefx.com for further assistance.

The following images show how to install license upgrades:

Select Install License Entitlements:

Check entitlements

If you have upgrades available, you will see them when you go to to Install License Entitlements:

Upgrades available

You should now see your license upgraded:

Upgraded licenses