Page #205 (Appendix A: Installing Microsoft Office Visio 2007)

Activating a New Installation of Visio 2007

After you install Visio 2007, you must activate it within the first 25 starts of the program. Activation is a method for ensuring that you've installed a certified Microsoft product, not an illegal copy, in accordance with the software license. When you activate Visio 2007, you can also register the product, but you don't have to. Microsoft prefers that you register your copy of Visio 2007, but, in fact, the only information you need to provide when you activate Visio 2007 is your country or region.

The Microsoft Office Activation Wizard starts automatically the first time you run Visio 2007. To activate Visio 2007, follow the instructions in the wizard.

The wizard generates a hardware identification number that becomes the unique fingerprint for your configuration. You only have to activate Visio 2007 once (unless you rebuild your computer), but you must activate it to continue using the full functionality of the product.

Note 

If the Microsoft Office Activation Wizard is not running, you can start it by choosing Help, Activate Product.

Failing to Activate Visio 2007

If you don't activate the product, the 26th time you start Visio 2007, it enters what Microsoft calls Reduced Functionality Mode, during which you can open and close existing drawing files, but you can't edit or save them or create new drawings. The following key features are shut down during reduced functionality mode:

• Open and Save You cannot use the Save command to save changes to an existing drawing. You cannot use the Open, Insert, or Save commands to import or export files.

• New You cannot create a new drawing.

• Stencils You cannot open stencils or drag shapes from a stencil.

• Editing You cannot use the Cut, Copy, Paste, or Paste Special commands, which also disables linking and embedding features.

• Custom Properties You cannot use the Properties command.

• Windows You cannot open any anchored windows (Pan & Zoom, Custom Properties, Size & Position, and Drawing Explorer).

In addition, the following advanced features are disabled:

• Macros You cannot use the Macros command to run or create macros and add-ins.

• Show ShapeSheet You cannot use the Show ShapeSheet command.

• Automation The Visio 2007 automation model is disabled.

• Event handling No Visio 2007 object will call an event-handling procedure provided by client code.

• Application object registration An unlicensed instance of Visio 2007 won't register itself as the active Visio.Application object.

• CreateObject The class factory of an unlicensed Visio 2007 program won't provide an Application object in response to the CreateObject("Visio.Application") function.

• Add-ins An unlicensed instance of Visio 2007 won't load or run add-ins (or "addons," as Visio 2007 refers to them).

No existing Visio 2007 drawing files are changed as a result of the reduction in product functionality; you just can't make changes.

To restore full functionality, run the Microsoft Office Activation Wizard, which appears automatically each time you start Visio 2007 when reduced functionality is in effect. If you are not yet in Reduced Functionality Mode, you can also choose Help, Activate Product to start the wizard.

Inside Out 

Understanding the Activation Wizard

The Microsoft Office Activation Wizard in Visio 2007 is part of a larger set of features associated with the Mandatory Office Activation Wizard. Together with some other activation features, this technology is aimed mainly at supporting alternative methods of licensing of the Microsoft Office System. However, in Visio 2007, only the antipiracy features are implemented. Mandatory Office Activation Wizard technology helps prevent product piracy by recording the unique combination of a hardware ID and product ID. The same product ID cannot be used to activate more than two hardware IDs-which means that you can't activate Visio 2007 on more than two machines at once unless you purchase additional product ids.

Activating Visio 2007 on Terminal Server

If you log onto Windows NT with administrator privileges and install Visio 2007 on Terminal Server, you must activate Visio 2007 before any clients can run it. If users attempt to run Visio 2007 before you have activated it, the users will see a general failure message and Visio 2007 will shut down.