upgrade

Moving an application to a higher standard, in either of two ways:

• By moving to a more recent release (in FlexNet Manager Suite, releases are called versions)
• By changing to a more powerful edition (such as upgrading from Standard to Pro or Gold).

There are two paths to achieve an upgrade, which should be kept distinct while using FlexNet Manager Suite:

• Your license for the current (original, or previous release) application may include an upgrade right, most commonly if the license is purchased under a volume purchasing agreement or is subject to a continuous maintenance (or support) agreement. In this case, the upgrade is available at no additional cost.
• When you do not have such a right, you may still purchase a separate upgrade license. This relies on you owning a qualified prior version (specified with the upgrade license), and normally requires that you replace the installed prior version with the later version. Occasionally, an upgrade allows continued use of the prior version on the same machine for reasons of backward compatibility (some versions of Adobe Photoshop are licensed that way). More often, this right to “downgrade” (use the older version as well as, or instead of, the newly licensed later version) will depend on other conditions, such as a maintenance agreement.