As described in this article on general software activation, arivis Vision4D is protected by a 3rd party license management software. This license management is based around the concept of keys that grant users access to the software and specific features thereof. The key or license can come in a 2x2 major distinctions.

First, licenses can be either

• Soft licenses (SL) use software keys that are generated from, and attached to, a specific computer, or
• Hard licenses (HL)  which have the keys embedded in a USB "Dongle" that can be manually moved from machine to machine as needed

And in either of those cases, the license can also be

• Fixed, where the license is only available on the machine where it is located, or
• Floating (network), where the license is attached to a specific computer but distributed out  to clients on the same network

Hard keys do not require activation as the license is already activated on the dongle when shipping, but soft licenses must be activated to lock the key to the user's computer. Network licenses need only be activated once, on one computer, which from then on serves as the license server. Floating licenses may require some additional configurations on both servers and clients to permit the distribution of the license (see below).