Rhino8 licensing problem

Hi Everyone,

I’m developing a Windows Service that launches multiple background instances of Rhinoceros using Activator.CreateInstance. Each Rhino instance is encapsulated in its own process (outside of the Windows Service), and we are unable to switch to Rhino.Inside for this project.

During testing on our development machine, which is licensed with a CloudZoo team license (see Rhino CloudZoo licensing), the service can successfully launch and manage multiple Rhino instances concurrently, with each instance running as expected.

However, when we deploy the service to the customer’s staging machine, where Rhino is licensed with a Single Computer license, only the first Rhino instance launched by the service works correctly. Any additional instances fail to start, and manually launching Rhino.exe while a background instance is active produces the following error:

“Rhino cannot start because your license is already in use by another user on this computer.”

It seems that CloudZoo licensing allows concurrent instances in a way that the Single Computer license does not.

Is there a known workaround to enable multiple background instances on a system licensed with a Single Computer license? Would switching to a CloudZoo license be necessary to manage multiple Rhino instances simultaneously?

Thanks in advance for any insights or solutions you can provide!

Rhino - Licensing

Rhinoceros 3D: Choose from three ways to license Rhino: Cloud Zoo, Single-Computer, or Zoo.