1. NiceLabel Help Center
  2. Licensing and Activating NiceLabel
  3. How NiceLabel licensing works

Counting licensed printers

All NiceLabel multi-user applications track the number of printers in use in the Licensed Printers list, sorted by printer name. If nobody uses a printer for seven days,NiceLabel automatically removes this printer from the list. This frees up a printer seat for another printer.

To create a unique ID for each printer, NiceLabel uses a combination of:

  • Printer model name. The model name is hard-coded in the printer driver. Users cannot change this name.

  • Printer location. How the printer is connected to your computer is irrelevant for license counting. NiceLabel 10 either identifies the printer by:

    • IP address for network printers

    • Location + port if the printer is connected locally

Note

When you use License key activations, NiceLabel requires opening ports 6772 on your computer, and 6773 on your on-premises Control Center installation server to ensure uninterrupted sharing of multi-user licensing information. When you start any NiceLabel application, the NiceLabel Proxy Service sends broadcast packets to these two ports and receives replies from all other NiceLabel applications in your labeling environment. (Does not apply to Control Center activations introduced in 2019.2).

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Note

Printer Model names are hard-coded in the printer driver. You can't change these names. Printer Names are editable and do not affect printer counting.

Note

If you access a printer from more than one local port, this counts as multiple printers. If you switch from one local port to another (for example, from LPT1 to USB) and print, this counts as multiple printers.

LPR printers

Each LPR printer consumes one printer seat.

Shared printers

  • In NiceLabel V10:

    NiceLabel counts shared printers based on the server name the printer is shared on and the shared name. For example, if you install a shared printer from \\myServer\mySharedPrinter on multiple computers, it consumes one license seat. If you install the same shared printer on a client computer using a server alias, like \\myServer.myDomain\mySharedPrinter it consumes another seat. If you print directly to this printer on the server where it's shared, it also consumes a separate seat.

  • In NiceLabel V2019 and V2017:

    A printer counts as a single printer when:

    • Multiple computers use the same shared network printer’s IP address.

    • Another workstation also shares and uses a locally connected printer.