Automatically release a license that has stopped responding

Summary

Instructions provided describe a configuration change that automatically releases a license after a period of inactivity. This releases licenses which have stopped responding but does not affect users who are currently running ArcGIS.

Note:
This article pertains to ArcGIS versions 8.x, 9.x, and 10.0. Later versions of ArcGIS may contain different functionality, as well as different names and locations for menus, commands and geoprocessing tools.

Procedure

To automatically release a license which has stopped responding, create an options file with the TIMEOUTALL feature.

1. Open a new notepad document and type the following, where 1200 is the number of seconds after which the license is reclaimed.

Code:
TIMEOUTALL 1200

2. Save this file as ARCGIS.opt in the C:\program files\esri\license\arcgis9x folder.
3. Restart the License Manager service or reboot the computer.
4. The options file is now in effect. With this setup, after a period of 1200 seconds of inactivity, any licenses that have stopped responding are automatically released.