New user here, maybe a dumb question, but I need a solution to a license issue.

Hardware is a new-old-stock RouterBoard 133, obtained still in the anti-static plastic sleeve.

When I connect to the board using Winbox, I am confronted with a "No license found" dialog and warned that the OS will fail in 15 hours. If I export the key, I get a text file with a long string of characters, which will not "paste" or "import" back into the board using the utility.

Elsewhere on the Mikrotik site, I read that RB products have an "embedded" license.

Here's the question: Do I need to purchase a key to get this board working or is there something addtional that I need to do to get Winbox to accept the key that the board already seems to contain?

Also not having much luck figuring out which version of OS I have here.

Thanks for any help that can be offered.

Contact your dealer. They should have the resources to issue you a license.

Thanks for the reply. In my case, the "dealer" is a small rural ISP that has gone out of business. The person who I am dealing with is very busy and not responsive to my repeated telephone calls. Rather than hound him, I thought I'd try and get things working on my own.

I have been going back and reading previous posts here in the forum to try and learn more. One post I read said that if the S1 button was pressed, then a backup bootloader takes over. Could this be what is causing my problems? Is there a quick fix, or am I going to have to learn all about Netloader?

In that case, email support@mikrotik.com and explain the situation. They should be able to help. They always have!

OK, (sigh), I typically have very little luck getting any quality attention from average tech support services, especially on legacy devices.

For what it's worth, I fooled around in Winbox, using the terminal feature and found that my RouterOS version is 2.9.50, which probably makes this board a creaky dinosaur unworthy of use. Maybe it's not too late to dust off the old Linksys firewall and see if there is any new firmware available for it....

why such bad comments without even trying?

actually to restore your license, you need to register a free account on mikrotik.com, in there click on "request key" and your lost routerboard license will be returned to you. then just copy and paste.

Hi Sharkey. This is why I use Mikrotik. I also got tired of non-responsive tech support from other companies. No bad tech support here. I see you got an answer from normis within 2 hours on the forum. I think that is a quick response.

OMG, that actually worked!

Thanks for responding, normis, I had read your similar advice in another forum post and even visited the "work with keys" section of the main site after registering, but couldn't understand what or how it was supposed to work, that I could obtain a key that was already allotted to another account.

Somehow, I grasped the idea that the Software ID would identify the license, and after that, the rest was easy. I don't think I could describe to someone else how to do it, but my board is working now and is licensed to level 4. Yay!

Now all I have to do is figure out how to configure it and put it to use. That's what long, cold winter nights are for. I'm sure that I'll be back with more annoying questions.

Thanks to you both for taking the time to help a n00b.