I tend to reformat my computers a lot for work purposes (software testing). My question is, how does Avast licensing works ? Will i be able to activate Avast as many times as i want, as long as i don’t exceed the number of computers ? Or will it be blocked after a while ?
I’m asking as, for example, with Norton or ESET i’m able to manage my licenses and can literelly reformat my computer every day and won’t have a problem. However with G-Data, each activation counts and i was stucked with a “too many activation” error in the past.
This is the first time i’ll be using Avast, so i just wanted to know how licensing worked.
side question: wouldn’t it be simpler to just use Hyper-V virtualisation and virtual machines with a known saved state (e.g. updated monthly with WU), instead of re-installing everything from scratch every time? unless it’s OS or device drivers development, but even then, it’s easier to just restore a previous drive image.
Hyper-V is already built into Windows 10 Pro, you just need to tick a few checkboxes in appwiz.cpl → turn windows features on or off and you have a virtual machine engine to play with.
After you configure and install them, you can even run multiple VMs in background, as auto-starting server processes, without having a graphical console.
So it should be all good ? Also, in the event i would change my computer and my license got blocked, would Avast unblock it ?
I’m asking as i change my computer every year, and i reformat a lot. So if i purchase a 3 years license, i don’t want to be stuck with a useless license.
It shouldn’t get blocked, if you follow the point/s in note 2 below.
If you dispose of your old system, uninstal avast first or wipe it, before installing avast again on the new system and applying the license you should be fine.
You can see your activated devices from the Avast Online portal and de-activate a computer in order to free up that license again so it can be reactivated = https://my.avast.com/en-us/
Also, if you uninstall Avast before you format, then it would remove its activation from the online portal automatically provided you are connected to the internet at the time of uninstalling it.