How to deactivate license on old devices?

[RosM]

I have a lifetime license ID and key for Malwarebytes Premium.

I recently purchased a new laptop and also have a new phone and no longer have access to the old laptop and phone. When I installed Malwarebytes and tried to activate the license on the new laptop, I received the message about exceeding the maximum installations. However when I click “Deactivate other devices” it doesn’t show me the old devices. How can I remove the licenses from the old devices when I no longer have access to them? (It is currently also installed on another laptop that we still use.)

Thanks.

[Malwarebytes]

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[exile360]

Greetings,

You should be able to accomplish this by using the Deactivate all function found on My.Malwarebytes.com as described in this support article assuming you've already set up your account there.  Once that's done, you should be able to activate your license on the appropriate number of devices, and the license for your existing installation on the laptop you still use should re-activate itself automatically the next time it goes online as long as it is within 24 hours from when you clicked Deactivate all.

You should also be aware that, at least as far as I know, there are no multi-device lifetime licenses as all lifetime licenses were/are valid for a single device only.  This means that you actually may not be able to use the single license key on all of your devices even after you've deactivated it from the old devices which you no longer have access to.  Please refer to the information in this support article for details:

A Lifetime License does not have a renewal cost as it was configured to be a 1 PC license with no Expiration date.
There is no renewal fee to maintain the license.

If you have multiple lifetime license keys then obviously you should be able to activate each one on a single device once you've reset each one using the Deactivate all function to remove the activations from the devices you no longer have, however if you accidentally try to activate a second device with the same license key it will likely display the error again.

If you have any questions about your license(s) and wish to verify the number of licenses/devices which you are entitled to you may contact Malwarebytes Support directly via the form found on this page and they will be able to look up your license keys and verify the info for you and they can also reset your licenses so that the older devices which you no longer have access to will not be using up any of your activations any more if the above method does not work.

I hope this helps, and if there is anything else we might assist you with please don't hesitate to let us know.

Thanks

[RosM]

Exile360, thank you for your reply.

I contacted Malwarebytes Support by email, and they essentially told me the same thing.

However, regarding the number of devices, when I first installed Malwarebytes years ago it allowed installation on up to 5 devices simultaneously, including PCs and Android phones. Once I purchased the license, I was able to apply it to all the devices and I’ve been doing that since then without any issues.  Previously, I had probably deactivated the license on old devices before trying to activate it on a new one, except this time I am unable to access my old PC (crashed) and phone (returned, although I had done a factory reset, which I assume deactivates licenses).

Maybe I just got lucky (I thought it was a great deal).

[exile360]

Yeah, as I recall they had a built in threshold of up to 5 installations before the license would stop activating.  That was prior to the implementation of the new licensing system though, and technically speaking the lifetime licenses were supposed to be limited to a single device (the system just wouldn't flag it/block it until you hit 5 installs/activations).  These days I don't know if they have any extended threshold on the single user licenses or not, but I do think it's changed since they implemented the new licensing system in Malwarebytes 3 with the new online activation/validation system that's in place.

[Porthos]

On 2/20/2019 at 4:47 PM, RosM said:

I have a lifetime license ID and key for Malwarebytes Premium.

Also, the lifetime licenses are ONLY good for Windows, not Android, mac etc.