Product activation is the act of authenticating a product for entitled use.  Most Bentley applications are equipped with several behavioral states to support product evaluations, the activation process, and offline use.  The behavioral state, or Activation Status, can be found in the License Management Tool.  Below are the various states and their definitions.  For more information about Activating your product, see Product Activation.

Trial

• This mode of behavior is the application's evaluation period. The trial mode of behavior must be opted into by the application, so some applications may not yet support this behavior. 
• Trial mode is only reached when an application has NEVER been activated. 
• Once a trial mode is expired, proper Product Activation is required in order to continue using the program.
• The exception to this rule would be certain Structural Products, such as RAM, STAAD, and AutoPIPE, that will always show with a "Trial Expires" status. Please view the following list of affected products.

Activated

• An application is activated when it is properly licensed, which is most commonly achieved by connecting to a valid SELECTserver that has a license for the application.

Offline

• Offline mode occurs when an application has been disconnected from SELECTserver for more than 2 days but less than the activation period (up to 30 days in most cases). 
• An application can run in offline mode if its license server cannot be found. The application will run as if activated, providing more than enough time to resolve any unintended disconnection.
• For more information on this offline mode, see Disconnected Mode.

Disabled

• A disabled state is reached when an application has been disconnected from SELECTserver for too long (exceeding its activation and offline modes).  
• An application can only reach this state if it has first reached an activated state.  
• In its disabled state, an application generally runs for a short period of time and then stops. For example, the disabled state for MicroStation runs for 15 minutes and then times out.

Expired

• An application will reach its expired state only when the Trial period has lapsed and the product has not been activated.
• An application can only enter this state if it has NEVER reached an activated state.
• In this state, the application will not run.

Checked Out

• A product license is made available to a machine until a specified expiration date. During this time, the product will activate without requiring communication with SELECTserver.
• Checked out licenses are typically used for extended use apart from an Internet connection or for non-SELECT users.
• The activation status will display how many days remain before the license expires. Once a license expires, the product must activate by posting usage or by checking out the license again.
• Checked out licenses do not stop other machines from using the product, they simply ensure that the machine the license is checked out to, does not have to have a connection to SELECTserver.

Pre-activated (superceded by Trial mode)

• The pre-activated period begins with installation and ends after a defined period (such as 30 days) or with activation, which ever comes first. During this period, most applications run in full-functioning mode, with no limitations applied to their activated state.