How to Monitor Pro-E Licenses with FlexLM

Pro/ENGINEER, commonly known as Pro-E, has been one of the most widely used parametric CAD software programs in the mechanical and manufacturing industries for years. Developed by PTC, it was later integrated into the Creo platform, but it continues to be used by many companies on legacy projects or as part of established workflows.

Like other PTC products, Pro-E also uses FlexNet Publisher (FlexLM) to manage floating licenses. Effective license management is essential for ensuring availability for users, preventing operational disruptions, and optimizing software investments.

1. Monitoring tools: lmutil

To start monitoring Pro-E licenses, you need to configure the official lmutil utility provided by Flexera. This tool is available for Windows and Linux systems.

Preliminary Steps

1. Download lmutil from the Flexera website. Use a version that is compatible with the License Manager used in your environment.
2. Retrieve the license server settings: The Pro-E license file specifies the host name and port of the license server. The required format for commands is porta@nomeserver.

2. Check the available licenses

To find out how many active Pro-E licenses there are, use the command:

lmutil lmstat -i -c porta@nomeserver

For a three-server cluster (high availability), specify all three:

lmutil lmstat -i -c porta@server1;porta@server2;porta@server3

or, in a Linux environment:

lmutil lmstat -i -c porta@server1,porta@server2,porta@server3

Sample Output

Feature           Version   #licenses  Expires        Vendor
proe_basic        33.0      30         31-dec-2025    PTC_D

In our example, there are 30 licenses available for the Pro-E base module, which expire on December 31, 2025.

3. Check the licenses in use

To find out who is currently using the Pro-E licenses, you can do the following:

lmutil lmstat -S proe_basic -c porta@nomeserver

Here is a possible output:

Users of proe_basic:  (Total of 30 licenses issued; 10 licenses in use)
  "proe_basic" v33.0, vendor: PTC_D
  floating license
    user1@DESIGN01 (v33.0) (SERVER/27000 1114), start Wed 07/17 08:30
    user2@CAD-PC03 (v33.0) (SERVER/27000 1115), start Wed 07/17 09:05

4. Automate Monitoring with Observer

If there are multiple design teams in the company that use Pro-E, manual monitoring can become difficult to manage. Observer is the ideal solution for automating the management of floating licenses.

With Observer, you can:

• Monitor Pro-E and Creo licenses in real time
• Receive automatic notifications about capacity limits or deadlines
• View detailed reports with charts and analyses by department
• centrally manage multiple servers and multiple FlexLM vendors

Observer connects to the License Server, collects structured data, and displays it in a web-based dashboard, with reports that can be exported to Excel and PDF for auditing or usage analysis.

Although Pro/ENGINEER has been replaced by Creo, many companies continue to use it in production environments and for strategic projects. Properly monitoring licenses is essential to avoiding bottlenecks and maximizing productivity.

Request a free demo of Observer now and find out how to simplify Pro-E license tracking in your organization.