FAQs

Installation Guide

  1. How to install PAD² Pattern and Marker?

    1.1 Please login to myPAD account first, then go to “PAD download Area” 1.2 Select version

    1.3 Choose the appropriate products in PAD² Installation Programs and download the installer to your local computer

    1.4 Double click on the .exe file

    1.5 Select setup language

    1.6 Select the location to be installed

    1.7 Follow the instruction to complete the installation steps

    For more information, please refer to “PAD System Installation”


  2. How to install PAD² Digitizer Manager and Plot Manager?

    2.1 Please login to myPAD account first, then go to “PAD download Area

    2.2 Select version

    2.3 Choose the appropriate products in Add On Utilities and download the installer to your local computer

    2.4 Double click on the .exe file

    2.5 Select setup language

    2.6 Select the location to be installed

    2.7 Follow the instruction to complete the installation steps


  3. How to install the PAD² AutoMark?

    3.1 Please login to myPAD account first, then go to “PAD download Area

    3.2 Select version

    3.3 Choose the product in PAD² AutoMark (Nesting Engine) and download the installer to your local computer

    3.4 Double click on the PAD AutoMark.exe

    3.5 Select setup language

    3.6 Select the location to be installed

    3.7 Follow the instruction to complete the installation steps

    3.8 Insert the green dongle key to the USB ports


  4. If I choose hardware Key licensing for my PAD² Installation Programs, do I need to install hardware Key driver?

    Yes, you have to go to “Hardware Key Drivers” to download appropriate driver.


  5. Would firewall or antivirus program prevent the registration of PAD software properly?

    Yes, although rare, your company firewall may restrict outgoing traffic by port or by site, this may prevent you from the registration and activating PAD software. Please check with your company network administrator make to allow TCP/IP traffic to our site “register.padsystem.com” using port 9128.


How to upgrade PAD software?

After you purchased a new version, please follow steps below to upgrade:
  1. Please check whether your computer hardware and operating system meet the new PAD version requirement, please refer to the latest “Operating System” |

  2. Deactivate license (This does not apply for Hardware Key users)

    2.1 Open PAD software, click “Menu” → “Help” → “License Manager”

    2.2 Select “Deactivate Now”

    2.3 Click “Confirm” to deactivate the license

    2.4 Login myPAD account, confirm the status of the upgrade online Key is “Idle”


  3. Uninstall old version

    3.1 Follow your computer’s operation, uninstall the old version of PAD software

    3.2 Then open the folder which contains the old version of PAD software program

    3.3 Delete all documents in the folder completely


  4. For installing new version, please refer to “Installation Guide

    Attention: For all 4.8 or prior versions and Hardware Key users, go directly to

    step 3 to uninstall old version.


PAD User Account

  1. Why do we need to create a PAD user account? What is it for?

    1.1 PAD user account is crucial to every existing PAD customer or new customer. To existing customer, after you create your unique user account at PAD, you can register your existing key number to our system and check whether you can trade-in your existing key to newer version of PAD products.

    1.2 To new PAD customer, you can manage your purchased license of V6 in PAD website. You can easily find out where you have installed and registered your PAD V6. And you can trace the order status.

    1.3 With PAD account, you can receive information from PAD about the latest news of PAD and its product development information through email. You may also change your password on regular basic to protect your valuable PAD license.


  2. Will I need to pay for creating a PAD User Account?

    No. It is absolutely FREE to create a PAD User Account. But you will need to pay for purchasing PAD product license.


Product Registration Procedures

  1. What is the product registration steps that I need to follow before I use PAD?

    If you are a “first time” user of PAD V6, when you completed the program installation, and click program shortcut to enter to the program. You will be asked to insert the followings:

    • Serial Number
    • User Name
    • Password
    • Computer Name

    You can retrieve the above information from your PAD user account.

    After you inserted the information correctly, you will see a message running in the middle of your computer monitor, it is called “registering”. At the same time, PAD license server will activate your license at the same time. Then, you can start to use PAD.


  2. How to register a Hardware Key?

    The Hardware Key user does not need to register, because we have already sealed the registration data into the Hardware Key. After PAD software installation, simply plug in the USB port and PAD software can be opened.

  3. Why does the license need to authenticate?

    In order to protect the Intellectual Property right issue, PAD needs do an authentication on a regular basis for all PAD legitimate licenses. For Hardware Key, it needs to connect to PAD System website every 180 days; whereas Online Key, it needs to connect to PAD System website every 60 days. The process is simple, just connect your computer to Internet (do not block the port 9128) and start PAD program, the authentication will be done automatically.

License Activation Issues

  1. What is the difference between product registration and product activation? Are they meaning the same?

    PAD product registration is different from product activation. But it is very simple to understand.

    PAD product registration:

    Please refer to “Product Registration Procedures

    PAD license activation:

    To use PAD software, you must activate the license on the computer. A license can only be activated on one computer, this process requires internet connection.

  2. When you finished your work with PAD, you can either simply close the program and leave. However, PAD has a better solution to provide.

    • Go to “Help” menu, select “License Manager”. A dialog box shows the details of the serial Number and product.

    • There have 3 options for you to manage the serial number.

      2.1 Auto Deactivate before Close: Automatically return the serial number to PAD license server when the program is closed.

      2.2 Ask Me to Deactivate before Close: A dialog box appears to ask you whether you would like to return the serial number to the PAD license server.

      2.3 Deactivate Now: By selecting this option, the serial number will return to PAD license server after the application is closed.

    If you choose to deactivate the license from a computer, you will not need to re-enter the serial number again when you would work on the same computer again. You will just need to click the program and PAD license server will automatically activate the program for you.

    Also, when you choose to deactivate the license from a particular computer, you can use the same serial number to activate software on another computer by repeating of “Product Registration Procedures” register the serial number as stated above.


  3. What if I forget to deactivate the license from my company desktop computer, can I activate the same serial number to my notebook computer in home?

    No. If you forget to deactivate the serial from your company desktop computer. You will not be allowed to use the same serial on your home computer. You only need to deactivate the license on your company desktop computer.

Reasons of license failed to activate

Failure to open the software may due to the license has been activated and not deactivated properly, so resulting a locked license situation. Below are some situations that lead to locked license,

  1. Computer system suddenly crashes
  2. Forgot to deactivate the license
  3. Reinstall operating system or PAD software
  4. PAD software version is too old
  5. Anti-virus software removes the license registration file
  6. Replicate the system to another computer using Ghost program

Methods of preventing locked license:

  1. Set to automatically return the license to PAD license server when the program is closed. Please refer “License Activation Issue
  2. Verify the license has been deactivated before reinstalling operating system or updating PAD software.
  3. Set trust PAD software in anti-virus software. It is recommended to use O.S. built in protection system.
  4. Update PAD software to the latest version regularly.
  5. Please follow the above “Installation Guide” instruction to install PAD software.
  6. Use a genuine operating system and try to install as few as possible third-party software (especially pirated).
  7. Maintain your computer running properly and check the hard drive and memory regularly.
  8. Do not Ghost the system which contains installed PAD software.

Unlock license methods:

  1. Try to recover your computer system; or connect the broken computer’s hard drive on another computer to restore PAD software, then open PAD software to deactivate the license.
  2. Login to your myPAD account to check which computer is using the license, and deactivate that license.
  3. Recover the quarantine files in the anti-virus software or set the trust PAD software in the anti-virus software (trust zone), and then reinstall PAD software.
  4. If the above methods do not help, please contact your local PAD System Distributor.

Online Key and Hardware Key Activation

  1. Is there any difference between Online Key and Hardware Key?

    Online Key and Hardware key are using different registration procedures. Please refer to “Product Registration Procedure


Operating System

  1. What is the system requirement to run PAD System V7.0?

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Applications

  1. Does PAD System support multiple languages?

    Yes, you can go to Menu, choose Options>Preference>General, then select Preferences. And choose the language you like.


File Compatibility

  1. Can PAD read other CAD system native file?

    PAD supports the concept of open standard instead of proprietary file format. Thus PAD is committed to use open standard file format such as DXF to exchange data. Although PAD could read other system native file directly, the result is usually not satisfactory. Though there are file converter provided by other parties including from Pad System, the result cannot be guaranteed.


  2. What is the quality of importing a DXF file to PAD, will the shaped of piece change or information lost?

    PAD can import DXF as good as the other system can export them. Should you find the import result of PAD is not satisfactory, please first ask the file owner to check its DXF. A simple way to check is to use the software to import the file which it exports. If the result is acceptable, so will be in PAD. If not, PAD would have difficult to make it better.