06: How do I make the Grace Period licensing pop-up go away?

This article explains the PolicyPak CSE Grace Period and Grace Notification.

If your users are getting a pop-up saying “This computer’s license for PolicyPak has become unavailable” like what’s seen here, this means that your license has either:

Expired
Been removed
Transitioned to a different / less-licensed configuration

However, there is a grace period put in place so policies don’t peel off and PolicyPak stops working across any PolicyPak component.

You need to resolve or understand your licensing issue.

Note: Please read this KB all the way through since the pop-up expression has changed in more recent versions of PolicyPak CSE.

Note: PolicyPak plans to update this pop-up in future CSE versions to express what the license concern is.

Again, this pop-up could ALSO occur also if you transition from one type of licensed state to a different type of licensed state. For instance, you may encounter the Grace Period or Grace Pop-Up where a license file doesn’t contain the same components you did from your previous license file. Or if you were using PolicyPak Cloud and one component was unlicensed (on-purpose or inadvertently.)

For instance 1: LAST year you had PolicyPak Enterprise Edition and THIS year you now have PolicyPak Professional, and are only licensing, say, PolicyPak Least Privilege Manager.
For instance 2: LAST year you were using all the components in PolicyPak Cloud, but this year you asked us to turn off one or more components or otherwise didn’t renew the same as last year.
For instance 3: DURING your trial period, you trialed Enterprise Full. However, you ended up purchasing just PolicyPak Least Privilege Manager.

Typical resolution is to get an updated license file (or PolicyPak Cloud adjustment) from Netwrix Renewals which covers the components you wish to cover and timeframe as per your agreement.

Then implement the license file.

Here is how to implement a new license: https://kb.policypak.com/kb/article/1080-how-to-install-universal-licenses-for-new-customers-via-gpo-sccm-or-mdm/
Here is how to troubleshoot a new license: https://kb.policypak.com/kb/article/1078-how-can-i-tell-how-a-machine-is-licensed-by-gpo-mdm-or-xml-file-and-also-know-for-what-components-it-is-licensed/

How to change Pop-Up Behavior (previous CSE versions before 24.4)

In previous versions of the PolicyPak CSE, the pop-up occurs automatically for all the situations expressed earlier.

However, you can forcefully stop the pop-up from occurring with an ADMX setting which affects CSE before 24.4. That being said, when you use this ADMX setting you also FORGO / Eliminate the grace period for ALL UNLICENSED COMPONENTS.

Therefore you want to be sure a license file is in place, covers the timeframe you expect, and all the components you expect to be licensed… before performing this step.

The ADMX setting which applies to CSE versions BEFORE 24.4 is named "Explicitly turn off licensing pop-up when PolicyPak license transitions to expired."

Note: This will immediately stop Unlicensed components from operating in CSE versions 24.4 and earlier, thus forgoing the grace period for unlicensed components. For versions before 24.4 of the CSE, there is NO METHOD where the GRACE PERIOD will continue WHILE turning off the Grace Period NOTIFICATION.

How to change Pop-Up Behavior (modern CSE versions equal or later to 24.4)

In recent versions of the PolicyPak CSE, the pop-up will not occur automatically for ANY of the situations expressed earlier.

We changed this behavior to avoid very large customers getting end-user pop-ups if the license transitions from licensed to partially-licensed (for instance, dropping a particular component from use.)

Therefore the new implementation is:

The Grace Period automatically starts if a machine transitions to unlicensed or partially licensed. Grace period remains at 30 days and is non-configurable.
The Pop-Up is NEVER shown to end-users unless the new ADMX is Enabled (opted-in) and configured and number of days value is set to show the pop-up.
Non-Licensed and Partially-licensed state will ONLY be noted in Windows Events. (And, of course, the output of the PPUPDATE command.)
Events will be written to the local event log explaining what is occurring.

To configure the ADMX setting to ENABLE the broadcast of a pop-up, locate the “Show licensing warning pop-up when any/all PolicyPak license transitions to expired” like what’s seen here.

Then, once the policy setting is configured to Enabled (meaning that the Pop-Up is now possible to be shown), after that, your options are:

Days: How many days to show the pop-up before grace period ends. (Must be set to >=1 day to make pop-up possible.)
License Usage: When should the pop-up be shown?
- If set to ALL LICENSES, the pop-up only appears when ALL the licenses have expired (and ALL components transition from LICENSED to UNLICENSED.)
- If set to ANY LICENSES, the pop-up appears when there is a least ONE expired license among all other valid licenses (and a component transitions from LICENSED to UNLICENSED.)

TIP: This setting doesn’t need to be configured for all end-computers if you don’t want to. You could craft delivery of the policy setting, for instance, such that only a sub-set of computers were enabled for a pop-up if desired. So instead of getting 100% of users informing you of a licensing concern, maybe you configure and targe the Enable pop-up policy for 10% of your computers.

Expected Events due to licensing concerns

All versions of the CSE which have the Grace Period will also produce Events to the local event log.

Those events are:

Event 230: Licenses found on the machine are all valid.
Event 231: Licenses found on the machine are not all valid.
Event 232: There is No PolicyPak license found on this machine
Event 233: License has become unavailable or has become unlicensed (only available in CSE versions equal or later to 24.4)

Therefore, a PolicyPak admin must make a decision if to show the pop-up (automatic for older CSEs) or opt-in to a pop-up (for newer CSEs). Or you can rely only upon Events which you can forward to some kind of processing system and take action upon.

Note: There is not yet an Event ID specifically for when a machine transitions to a less-licensed state. That will be coming soon.

The event IDs to expect on end-point systems and specific examples can be seen here.

Event 230: Licenses found on the machine are all valid.