The following support solution provides instructions for determining whether a proxy server is in use in your environment. It also shows where to obtain and enter any proxy settings needed to enable Bentley products to activate.

Background

For security and performance reasons, many companies require client machines to access the Internet through a single point of contact known as a proxy server. Because the majority of users activate their Bentley products using Bentley's online license server, known as Bentley CONNECT SELECTservices or selectserver.bentley.com, they must be configured with any proxy settings in order to activate.

Steps to Accomplish

Determine whether a proxy server is in use

Not all companies use a proxy server to access the Internet. The following steps can be used to determine whether Internet Explorer on a client machine is configured to use a proxy server:

1. Click on the Windows Start menu.
2. In the menu (Windows 7 or 10) or Start screen (Windows 8) that appears, type the following:
   Internet Options
3. Select Internet Options in the search results that appear.
   Windows 7:
   
   
   Windows 8:
   
   
   Windows 10:
   
4. In the Internet Options window that opens, click on the Connection tab.
5. Click on the LAN Settings button in the lower right corner.
6. Locate the Proxy Configuration section at the bottom of the window that appears.
7. Confirmed whether the check box labeled "Use a proxy server for your LAN" is checked. If it is, note the values in the Address and Port fields as they will be needed later.
   
8. Dismiss the dialog box, and close the Internet Options window.

Configure Bentley products to use proxy settings

If proxy settings were found, perform the following steps to examine and update the proxy settings currently used by Bentley products:

1. Open the License Management Tool included with any Bentley product on the machine. For many products such as MicroStation, it can be accessed by opening the product and selecting License Management from either the Utilities or File menu. Other products may provide a Start menu shortcut.
2. In the License Management Tool that appears, select Options from the Tools menu.
3. Click on the Proxy Configuration tab.
   
4. Ensure that the check box labeled "Use a proxy server for your connection to SELECTserver" is checked.
5. In the Proxy Server field, enter the Address value noted earlier. Then add a colon character followed by the Port value noted earlier. For example, if the proxy was named proxy.company.com with a port of 8080, the Proxy Server field would be populated with the following value:
   proxy.company.com:8080
6. The proxy authentication settings at the bottom will be revisited if needed shortly. Click the OK button to save changes for now.

Many proxy servers require users to identify themselves or authenticate before providing access to the Internet. To determine whether authentication is required, ensure that the Activation Status tab is selected, and then select "Send Logs Now" from the Tools menu. Verify whether any product licenses shown in the Activation Status tab change to Activated. If none do, perform the following steps to enable proxy authentication as well:

1. Select Options from the Tools menu.
2. Click on the Proxy Configuration tab.
3. Place a check in the check box labeled "Proxy server requires authentication."
4. Enter Windows login credentials in the fields below.
5. Click the OK button to save changes.
6. Select Send Logs Now from the Tools menu again.

If products still fail to activate, create a post in the Licensing and Activation forum for further assistance.