Licensing Question

[Phxflyer]

This is/was not a problem but just me trying to understand a little more how MB licensing works.

On Tuesday I finally decided to uninstall Aomei Backupper, a backup program I quit using in January because it was causing too many problems for me to consider it reliable. I have been using Macrium Reflect since then with no problems. In any case, when Macrium was supposed to run a scheduled backup Tuesday night, it threw a major VSS error and failed to perform the back up. So obviously the Aomei uninstall removed something that was critical for the VSS to work. I contacted Macrium and they quickly answered with several things to try to fix the problem. None worked so I decided to just do a system restore from an image taken Monday night. The restore went quickly and all is well.

This brings up the question with Malwarebytes. When I opened the MB program, it showed I was running the "free" version and not the Premium version. I tried to reactivate it but it said I had used both my licenses. I went to account management, deleted the one aimed at my PC and then performed the activation again and it successfully showed I was now using the Premium version. So all is well with that. So I was wondering what MB is looking at to determine that I was not using the same PC? I restored the image to the same drive, there were no component changes and the image was barely 36hrs old. In fact, during the restore, since I was using the same drive, I saw Macrium saying it was checking for changes (to the C partition) and then performed the restore in under 3 minutes (160G of data). So what didn't MB like with the restored version? Why did it not recognize the PC as the same as before? Again, this is just a learning lesson for me about MB. Thanks for any clarity to this situation.

[Malwarebytes]

***This is an automated reply***

Hi,

Thanks for posting in the Malwarebytes 3 Help forum.

 

If you are having technical issues with our Windows product, please do the following: 

Spoiler

If you haven’t already done so, please run the Malwarebytes Support Tool and then attach the logs in your next reply:

NOTE: The tools and the information obtained is safe and not harmful to your privacy or your computer, please allow the programs to run if blocked by your system.

1. Download Malwarebytes Support Tool
2. Once the file is downloaded, open your Downloads folder/location of the downloaded file
3. Double-click mb-support-X.X.X.XXXX.exe to run the program
   • You may be prompted by User Account Control (UAC) to allow changes to be made to your computer. Click Yes to consent.
4. Place a checkmark next to Accept License Agreement and click Next
5. You will be presented with a page stating, "Get Started!"
6. Click the Advanced tab on the left column
   
   
    
7. Click the Gather Logs button
   
   
    
8. A progress bar will appear and the program will proceed with getting logs from your computer
   
   
    
9. Upon completion, a file named mbst-grab-results.zip will be found on your Desktop. Click OK
   
   
    
10. Please attach the file in your next reply. Before submitting your reply, be sure to enable "Notify me of replies" like so:
    
       

Click "Reveal Hidden Contents" below for details on how to attach a file:
 

Spoiler

To save attachments, please click the link as shown below. You can click and drag the files to this bar or you can click the choose files, then browse to where your files are located, select them and click the Open button.

 

One of our experts will be able to assist you shortly.

 

If you are having licensing issues, please do the following: 

Spoiler

For any of these issues:

• Renewals
• Refunds (including double billing)
• Cancellations
• Update Billing Info
• Multiple Transactions
• Consumer Purchases
• Transaction Receipt

Please contact our support team at https://support.malwarebytes.com/community/consumer/pages/contact-us to get help

If you need help looking up your license details, please head here: https://support.malwarebytes.com/docs/DOC-1264 

 

Thanks in advance for your patience.

-The Malwarebytes Forum Team

 

[Phxflyer]

Oh, and just something to add that makes this more puzzling to me. 

I built a new PC in August. My old system was using a Samsung SSD, formatted MBR as the boot drive. My new system is using an NVMe M.2 drive as the boot drive. Macrium allowed me to format the M.2 drive GPT , create the EFI boot partition, create the 128MB MSR partition and then restore just the OS partition C partition to the drive so what I now have is a fully functioning GPT, UEFI bootable drive. After doing all this, using a new motherboard and memory, my MB Premium version was still intact and did not revert to the free version. But just doing this last restore, it did revert to free. I don't understand what's happening.

[AdvancedSetup]

We use various different technologies to verify system licensing.

Thank you

Ron