Security Compliance

Valid ARM license shows as trial or evaluation

This article explains the reason why sometimes a valid ARM license may show as a trial or evaluation license in the license information in ARM Config.

First published date

9/21/2026 12:19 PM

Last published date

9/21/2026 12:19 PM

Overview

  • Sometimes a valid ARM license may show as a trial or evaluation license in the application and all the related limitations will apply. 
  • Reactivating the license in the application will fail with an error and may change the status from trial to properly activated, temporarily until the next ARM Server or ARM-Service restart.

Product section

Access Rights Manager

Cause

This is usually caused when the ARM service account is not set as a local administrator on the ARM Server or if the account logged in when activating the license does not have administrative privileges on the server or if explicit limitation on the registry are forced due to a group policy.

Resolution

To resolve this, perform the following:

  1. Set the ARM service account as a local administrator and log in as that account on the ARM Server to perform the activation.
  2. Check if any registry limitations forced from a group policy do apply in this case and make a temporary exclusion for the ARM Server machine or for the user, depending on the configuration.

After doing the above, restart the ARM-Service on the ARM Server. This will fix the license activation and keep it active even after a restart of the ARM Server or ARM-Service.

  • If the trial/evaluation status does not change after the restart, perform the activation again using the license key from the Customer Portal. You can do so in ARM Config > License information and server status, or via the SolarWinds license manager application installed on the ARM Server.