Switch ArcGIS License Levels on demand
As many of you have discovered, at times you can’t switch from ArcGIS Basic to ArcGIS Advanced because the radio buttons in ArcGIS Administrator are disabled:
Fortunately there is a workaround, set the license level in an environment variable first and then run ArcMap/Catalog. I’ve written 3 batch files for this here:
- ArcMap-Advanced.bat – run ArcMap using Advanced (ArcInfo) license
- ArcMap-Editor.bat – run ArcMap using Editor license
- ArcMap-Viewer.bat – run ArcMap using Viewer (Basic) license
I actually prefer the workaround to the original method: you don’t have to close all your sessions down first just because you want to run an Advanced-only tool for 5 minute job like Create Random Points, and you can run Advanced and Basic side by side at the same time.
Enjoy!
Technical Details
It’s actually dead simple: just set ESRI_SOFTWARE_CLASS environment variables to one of Viewer, Editor, or Advanced before running ArcMap (or ArcCatalog).
Set ESRI_SOFTWARE_CLASS=Advanced C:\ArcGIS\bin\ArcMap.exe
You can also set license server this way. Port number and @ are optional. IP address can be used instead of hostname:
ARCGIS_LICENSE_FILE=<TCP/IP_port_number>@<license_manager_hostname>
set ARCGIS_LICENSE_FILE=2700@ENVGEOSERVER
C:\ArcGIS\bin\ArcMap.exe
set ARCGIS_LICENSE_FILE=199.247.217.235
C:\ArcGIS\bin\ArcMap.exe
More info:
- http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/24002/opening-arcgis-desktop-on-specific-license-level
- https://support.esri.com/en/technical-article/000002010
Updated 2020-05-28: add specifying license server also