If you run a large pool of Autodesk network license or multi user licenses you sometimes find that users are not able to use their specialised software.  A lot of users have asked if there is a way to reserve specific licenses for specific people.  Yes there is.  You can create an Options file which allows you to reserve a specific license either for an individual or for a group of people.

With the options file you are able to do the following

• Allow the use of features
• Deny the use of features
• Reserve licenses (make licenses only available to certain people or groups)
• Restrict the number of licenses available (if you have 10 autocad licenses you can state that only 3 are available to a group)
• Control the information logged by the log file
• Enable a report log file
• Set a timeout for licenses issued

To create an options file open up notepad  or any text editor (not Microsoft word) and name it adskflex.opt.  Save this file in the same location where the license sits.

To create a group you can type out something like this

GROUP cad1 mickey donald mowgley

What you are doing here is creating a group called cad1 and in that group you have assigned mickey,donald and mowgley to be the users.  This is their user names on their computers.  You can also use the IP addresses of the computers.

To reserve a license for an individual or group you would type out the following.

RESERVE 64300ACD_F GROUP cad1

This is telling the licensing system to reserve the AutoCAD licenses to the cad1 group.

Another cool feature is setting the timeout of a license.  This is useful because how many times have you tried to access a license but it was not available.  You then discover that the license in question is in use by another user but they have gone offsite and forgot to close the program so that the license was available to other users.

So just in those options you can quickly see how useful it is to create an options file to more easily control what is happening with your network/multi user licenses.