OpenVMS Hobbyist License Question

From: Seth J. Morabito <sethm_at_loomcom.com>
Date: Fri Oct 27 01:55:56 2000

On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 01:24:19AM -0400, THETechnoid_at_home.com wrote:
> I am at the Decwindows logon after having logged on as SYSTEM and can go
> no furthur as the login says I have no licence. The OpenVMS 7.2 pack I
> got in the mail gave no information to speak of keys.

There are two separate license applications you can request through
the Montagar website. One is for the OpenVMS operating system itself,
which I assume you have loaded onto the system. Just getting the license
in the mail isn't enough, you need to actually load the license into
the system. For a VAX, you will need to load the VAX-VMS license PAK.

You will also need to load the DECwindows Motif license PAK. You get
this license by requesting the Layered Products Licenses from Montagar's
website. On the license request page, there is a pull-down menu that
says "License Type:". You can choose "OpenVMS VAX", "OpenVMS Alpha",
or "Layered Products". I assume you've already chosen "OpenVMS VAX"
for the VAX-VMS license PAK. Good. Now you need to choose "Layered
Products" to request the layered products licenses.

There are a bunch of layered products licenses. I don't know what they
all are. The one you want to load on your system is "DW-MOTIF".

Unfortunately, to get yourself back to a state where you can load the
licenses, you need to get VMS to load without going into DECwindows.
The quickest way to do this is run the system console on the serial
line and attach a terminal. That way the terminal becomes the OPA0:
device and you can use it to log in as SYSTEM to do system maintenance
(like loading the DW-MOTIF and VAX-VMS licenses as needed).

If you DON'T have a terminal, you're not completely out of luck. Damn,
I don't remember exactly how to do this, but you can do a conversational
boot (which is done with a flag of /1 I think, so you'd do something like

>>> B/1 DUA0
 [or whatever your system disk is]

Then you'll find yourself at the SYSBOOT> prompt. Issue the commands

 SYSBOOT> SET/STARTUP OPA0:
 SYSBOOT> SET WINDOW_SYSTEM 0
 SYSBOOT> CONTINUE

The system should continue to start up without DECwindows. Log in as
SYSTEM and load your licenses. Finally type

 $ RUN SYS$SYSTEM:SYSGEN

to get to the SYSGEN> prompt. At the SYSGEN> prompt, type:

 SYSGEN> USE CURRENT
 SYSGEN> SET WINDOW_SYSTEM 1
 SYSGEN> WRITE CURRENT
 SYSGEN> EXIT

And then reboot. I _think_ this will work, but I'm not 100% certain,
as it's been a while since I did any of this stuff!

To load a license, log in as SYSTEM and type

 $ _at_SYS$UPDATE:VMSLICENSE
 [I think... it's been a while]

and follow the prompts. Fill in the appropriate questions with the
appropriate fields from your license PAK. It's menu-driven.

Anyway, I sure hope this helps. Good luck, and happy VMSing!

-Seth
Received on Fri Oct 27 2000 - 01:55:56 BST