Dongle Troubles
Dongles continue to be a center of conversation, and the tone in these conversations is rarely positive. It is annoying, when you think about it, we, honest people, have to carry the burden of the dongle, meanwhile our "morally challenged" fellow man pulls a copy from the internet. There is also something positive to report about the dongle: The dongle makes the use of the program easier. You can use the program on all your computers, only the one carrying the dongle will have a working setup. Also you can have a PC at work and a Mac at home (or vice versa) and run VectorWorks on both machines with the the same license.

Dongle ID
Which dongle goes with which workstation? On the side of the dongle, in small golden letters, a number is printed. For instance: FC3BD08. The last 6 characters of this code must correspond to the last part of your VectorWorks license number. For instance: B2XMKZ-XXXXXX-YYYYYY-C3BD08. This last part of the code is unique, there is only 1 dongle, world-wide, that fits that code. If the number on the dongle is no longer legible you can retreive it using DongleIDChecker.
Windows: Install the driver first, before connecting the dongle to your computer. DongleIDChecker is available for Mac and Win.
Please expand the donwloads with Stuffit Expander for Mac or Win.

Dongle Driver
The dongle is not a standard piece of hardware. The USB dongles (other types are no longer supported) cannot be seen by Vectorworks nor DongleIDChecker if the appropriate driver is not installed. The order of installation is, especially on a PC very important. Start the installation of VectorWorks always without dongle and only connect it after the instalation process can not continue without it. If the red led in the dongle is not lit, or if it is lit but VectorWorks and DongleIDChecker still can't find the dongle, then please, install the latest drivers from the Aladdin website. Use the "Force Install" option to remove old or wrong drivers present. (See table and explanation at the bottom of this page).

Theft, Loss or Damages
The biggest problems we currently have with the dongles, are loss and theft. Insure your software licenses! We must charge you a full license for replacing a lost or stolen dongle these days. Also damage of the dongle is pricey; including shipping replacing a dongle will set you back about 60.- Pound.

Causes of damage:
-Moving a computer and bumping the dongle, sticking out of the back, against a hard object will surely cause the dongle to break in two.
-Maybe the dongle was secured against theft, but this was forgotten when the computer was picked up.
-An inattentive person seats himself next to you in a train or plane and bumps the dongle.

Theft:
-opportunity thieves take the dongle
-Burglars stealing computers won't take the time to remove the dongles, so they will be lost or simply break off.

Loss:
-There is little that can be done about loss. Carry the dongle on your keychain, or inside your wallet, but there are still no guarantees.

Solution:
To avoid the problems mentioned above (except for loss) we at Orange Dust came up with the following solution: Secure the dongle with a thin strong wire to your desk. To prevent the dongle from breaking it is important to apply all forces in the direction it comes off. This can be done by placing an USB extension cord between dongle and computer. We have some of these extension cords in stock. The cords are about 30 cm long, long enough so you can move the computer about a little, short enough to prevent people from tripping.

Buy VectorWorks from OrangeDust and you will get this dongle saving USB cord for FREE with your license.

Kind Regards
Gerard Jonker

 6 June 2007
Download the DongleIDChecker.
Macintosh (.hqx):
Windows (.zip)
Lacking a desk you can also bolt the dongle to your floor.

Click the image to see the bigger picture.
This an example image, pay no attention to the release date.
The most used driver installer for Windows
Command line installer for Windows
The installer voor Macintosh
Mac installer to be used with Terminal, not recommended.