3rd Party License Keys After Erase and Reinstall of os.

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Level 1

9 points

3rd Party License Keys After Erase and Reinstall of os.

I erased the hard drive on my iMac, and then reinstalled Monterey 12.1. I then downloaded and reinstalled Malwarebytes. I was surprised that as I went through the steps to set up Malwarebytes again on this computer, I was not prompted to enter the license key. I thought that would have been wiped out with erasing the hard drive. I checked my account in the Malwarebytes app, and my license key is there. How is that possible if I didn't enter it?

Thank you.

iMac 21.5″, macOS 12.1

Posted on Dec 27, 2021 9:45 AM

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Answer 1

steve626

Level 6

11,501 points

Dec 27, 2021 10:56 AM in response to A_Mozart

If you are using iCloud keychain it might be stored in there and would have become automatically available again after you logged in with your Apple ID.

Also, if you migrated over your files from your previous setup, the license key was probably migrated back over and was seen when Malwarebytes was run again on the new setup.

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Answer 2

A_Mozart Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 27, 2021 11:11 AM in response to steve626

I did the erase and reinstall out of frustration with repeatedly getting a red badge notification in System Preferences about my appleid that required me to enter the appleid password, my user log in password, and then a 3rd password that I had no record of, and so I had to keep agreeing to the scarily worded deletion of end-to-end encrypted data. I purposely turned off everything I could for iCloud before doing the erase and reinstall hoping that might fix the red badge notification issue.

I saved to a thumb drive only the files that I created and wanted to keep, so didn't do migration of anything related to Malwarebytes.

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Answer 3

etresoft

Level 9

51,038 points

Dec 27, 2021 12:39 PM in response to A_Mozart

A_Mozart wrote:

So the unique license key I received from Malwarebytes for my account with Malwarebytes is part of macOS 12.1 and so got reinstalled when I reinstalled the OS?

No. It is not part of macOS 12.1. But if you restored from Time Machine, then anything you had on the computer before will be restored. Sorry if that was confusing. I had just typed another reply to someone where I had to explain this unfortunate detail. Time Machine is NOT helpful to uninstall software.

No one here knows the details of how your computer is setup or what options you have enabled. Malwarebytes could be using keychain entries or communicating with its own servers. There is no way to tell. You would have to contact them and ask.

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Answer 4

Dec 27, 2021 12:40 PM in response to A_Mozart

A_Mozart wrote:

So the unique license key I received from Malwarebytes for my account with Malwarebytes is part of macOS 12.1 and so got reinstalled when I reinstalled the OS?

Best ask MalwareBytes for the details of their software licensing implementation. We can speculate. The product may well check your Mac against a licensing database on their server. Or the license is stored locally and was picked up by the backup. Or a combination of these. Or something else entirely.

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Answer 5

A_Mozart Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 27, 2021 12:52 PM in response to MrHoffman

I erased the ext hard drive with disk utility, and disconnected it from the iMac before starting on the erase of the iMac and reinstall of the macOS. I did not, and have not, reconnected the ext HD, so a Time Machine back up is not in play in my situation.

I thought that maybe Malwarebytes identified the iMac somehow (serial number, ip address, or something else), but wasn't sure. I sent them a question yesterday, but their response time is slow and in my experience doesn't address the question asked. I always have better luck with Apple Community, and thought this might be something that can occur with 3rd party software from a variety of companies.

Thanks everyone for your interest in my question and for the replies you posted.

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Answer 6

Dec 27, 2021 1:22 PM in response to A_Mozart

If I understand this correctly… Your concern here is that a normal sequence involving normal tools has a normal result, and somehow doesn’t crater? Which led to asking unrelated-to-the-app folks details of why this normal sequence had normal results? Probably because the vendor didn’t want to deal with the costs of receiving support calls from folks encountering the error you seem to expect to encounter here, and matched the cached license version of the license against one or more of the MAC addresses present or against the serial number or such, either locally or with the assistance of data stored on a remote server.

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Answer 7

etresoft

Level 9

51,038 points

Dec 27, 2021 1:59 PM in response to A_Mozart

A_Mozart wrote:

I thought that maybe Malwarebytes identified the iMac somehow (serial number, ip address, or something else), but wasn't sure.

I think Malwarebytes has a trial mode of their premium subscription. If so, pretty much the only way to implement that would be to report your serial number as being in trial mode and then disallow it once your trial mode ends. They could use that functionality to re-enable a paid subscription too. I'm just speculating.

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Answer 8

A_Mozart Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 27, 2021 2:07 PM in response to MrHoffman

Precisely. Very perceptive. Very helpful.

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Answer 9

etresoft

Level 9

51,038 points

Dec 27, 2021 12:27 PM in response to A_Mozart

A_Mozart wrote:

I did the erase and reinstall

That's what it does

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Answer 10

A_Mozart Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 27, 2021 12:35 PM in response to etresoft

So the unique license key I received from Malwarebytes for my account with Malwarebytes is part of macOS 12.1 and so got reinstalled when I reinstalled the OS?

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3rd Party License Keys After Erase and Reinstall of os.

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