From how I understand it Jim, it works similar to that, except that there is no hardware dongle and you need to get a seperate unlock code for each new machine you install it on. You don't even need to call them, because you can handle it all straight through the website. Although you do have the option to call them and handle it that way. And if you don't have internet access from the PC you are installing Poser on? JOY! JOY!