Activate your license
Where to paste the key you received by email, and what to do if the app refuses it.
Before you start
Your key arrives by email a few business hours after payment: every license is signed by hand, offline. The receipt reaches you immediately.
There is no account to create, before or after. Activating means pasting a piece of text into the app: nothing is stored anywhere but on your machine.
Do it on the machine whose fingerprint you gave at purchase. A key is bound to that machine.
Step by step
- Open Debug XML Tool.
- Go to the About window, then the "Manage license…" link.
- Paste the block you received by email into the "License key" field.
- Click "Activate".
Do not truncate the key
The key sits on a single, very long line: double-clicking it selects the whole thing. The two dashed lines around it may be copied or not, the application ignores them. Copy from the email itself rather than from a preview or a printout, which often wrap long lines.
----- DEBUG XML TOOL LICENSE -----
…
----- END LICENSE -----When it works, the app shows "License activated. Thank you!" and the License block of the About window carries your name.
Where the key is kept afterwards
Once accepted, the key is written to your disk, in your home folder:
%USERPROFILE%\.debugxmltool\license.key
Losing the email is therefore not losing the license: as long as that file exists the app stays activated, and it is the file you send back the day you move to another computer.
That folder sits outside the installation directory: reinstalling or updating the app does not erase it. Reinstalling Windows does — keep the original email.
When the app refuses the key
Four messages are possible, and they do not mean the same thing. The one you are reading tells you what to do:
The pasted text is not recognised
This text is not a license key. Paste the whole block, markers included.
Part of the key is missing — almost always because a selection stopped too early, or because a preview cut the line. The markers are not the cause: the application ignores them, present or not. Copy again from the original email, with a double-click on the key line.
The key belongs to another machine
This key was issued for another machine. Contact support with the fingerprint above to have it reissued.
This is the only message that genuinely calls for a reissue. It appears when the machine has been replaced — not when a disk or a network card has changed.
How to move to another computer
The key is genuine, but the version is too recent
Genuine key, but this version is newer than your included updates (…). The key is kept: it will be valid again on the version you own.
Nothing is lost and nothing has to be bought again: your key stays stored. You installed a version released after your twelve months of updates ended. Reinstall the last covered version and everything is back to normal.
The changelog, to find which one
The key was altered along the way
This key has been modified, or was not issued by us. Please request a new one from support.
One character was changed — autocorrect, an email client that reformats, a copy-paste done in pieces. Try again from the original email; if the message comes back, write to us with your name and purchase date.
What activation does not do
- It contacts no server. Verification is entirely local, at activation and at every start.
- It creates no account and sends neither your name nor your fingerprint to anyone.
- It sets no expiry date: an activated license cannot expire.