InDesign Server license fails after VM move

Last updated on Jun 2, 2026

Resolve Adobe InDesign license deactivation using Provisioning Toolkit to auto-relicense on VM startup.

Moving an InDesign Server virtual machine to a different host, datastore, or disk location can cause the licensing system to detect it as a new machine and deactivate the license.

InDesign Server deactivates after a virtual machine is moved

When this happens, InDesign Server may start, initialize, and then close without an error message.

To avoid repeated manual activations, configure the virtual machine to automatically reactivate InDesign Server when the guest operating system starts.

On a computer with internet access, open a command prompt or terminal.

Navigate to the folder containing the adobe_prtk tool.

Generate a provisioning file with the appropriate command for your platform.

Windows: adobe_prtk --tool=VolumeSerialize --generate --serial=YOUR_SERIAL_NUMBER --leid=V7{}InDesignServer-12-Win-GM --provfilepath=C:\path\to\output

macOS: adobe_prtk --tool=VolumeSerialize --generate --serial=YOUR_SERIAL_NUMBER --leid=V7{}InDesignServer-12-Mac-GM --provfilepath=/path/to/output

Copy the adobe_prtk tool and the generated prov.xml file to the VM.

Create a startup task using Task Scheduler (Windows) or launchd (macOS).

Configure the startup task to run this command when the operating system starts: adobe_prtk --tool=VolumeSerialize --provfile=/absolute/path/to/prov.xml

Restart the VM. Confirm that InDesign Server launches successfully and remains licensed.

Note

Replace YOUR_SERIAL_NUMBER with your actual InDesign Server serial number. Update the file paths to match your environment.

The generated provisioning file only needs to be created once and can be reused each time the VM starts.