Winautomation login with Power Automate Licence stopped working

[3TA]

Hi

As of today WinAutomation with Power Automate Licence Login has stopped working.

I have a per user Power Automate Attended RPA licence.

I have just had a windows update (Windows 10) and since then WinAutomation has asked me to log in again. When I submit my Power Automate / Azure email credential I get the following.

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AADSTS700016: Application with identifier '7afbe641-8db0-4580-96d1-b2b58538a3f3' was not found in the directory 'XXXXXXXXXXXXX'. This can happen if the application has not been installed by the administrator of the tenant or consented to by any user in the tenant. You may have sent your authentication request to the wrong tenant.

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Request Id: d8c6c13e-e816-4bab-999c-9020aca34700

Correlation Id: 34e8b54b-dc22-4f27-bfdd-348299f6bdc4

Timestamp: 2022-11-03T17:24:56Z

Message: AADSTS700016: Application with identifier '7afbe641-8db0-4580-96d1-b2b58538a3f3' was not found in the directory 'XXXXXXXXXXXX'. This can happen if the application has not been installed by the administrator of the tenant or consented to by any user in the tenant. You may have sent your authentication request to the wrong tenant.

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I checked in Azure and WinAutomation was present in the Enterprise Apps section. I tried setting the flag but it did not show up in Azure. I deleted it from there thinking it would reset when I signed in but it has not and I dont know how to get it back or restore function to WinAutomation.

I need WinAutomation to work again, I am in the middle of a business-critical development and I have thousands of hours of work in my WinAutomation database, going back since 2015. There are numerous problems moving this over to PAD which I will not go into here, but it is going to be an enormous undertaking. I need WinAutomation to function.

I have tried to get support through the Power Automate licence route but when I try to log in it does not recognize my Azure/Power Automate credentials.

Please help. 

Please advise how I can restore full functionality to WinAutomation with my Power Automate Unattended RPA licence using my Azure login details as before. 

[carlos_slim · Accepted solution]

My latest: I have a solution now. As mentioned earlier I got the license file from Microsoft, which is valid for half a year. I could not activate it however, but that had to do with the fact I was on WA release 9.2.3.5816. The Microsoft support employee directed me to https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2133567 in order to download and install release 9.2.4.5905. With this I could activate the software. So I am back in.

I repeated my question why the license is only valid for half a year. Since I bought the perpetual WA software in 2017, for which I bought maintenance each year until the WA acquisition. Instead of just simply answering the question, he asked if I am available for a Teams next week. I am, so will await what this brings. And I will post it here.

Last: I earlier emphasized using old software is a dead end at some point. Exchange, browsers, OS etc. will all evolve, so at some point WA will stop being usable anyhow. Plus all new features/connections will be in PA, so it is not a matter of IF ben WHEN. But as I have stated, and I see other forum members stating this more bluntly: WA has a much, much clearer UI, the desktop triggers (e.g. CTRL combos) cannot be used in PAD, the overview of flows is much clearer in WA (PA has no tree like structure) and lastly PA is much slower starting the processes; once a process runs I cannot see at the moment that this is slower, for sure one can see that starting a process takes up to seconds, whil WA was immediate.

[3TA]

I agree that at some point WA will stop being practically useful. But if left to happen organically that could be a good way off. Personally, I like to get the maximum return on my financial, time and energy investments.

[Bishal]

Where did you get the licenses? 1 license needs to be used in 1 machine or can be used in multiple machines?

[ApexOrigin]

Would you please post your Microsoft support ticket number? Microsoft is so big that it seems like the support people all have to reinvent the wheel to solve this problem, so it would be great if we could point them to your ticket about generating a license file.

[AgniusBartninka]

The case ID for my ticket was 2211040050001269

[3TA]

Support pledge of 1 hour is complete fantasy. Anyway, for anyone still struggling and not getting satisfaction from MS, you will find a solution off-piste. 

[MathiasRT93]

The support guy i am in contact with is of absolutely no help, and he has no desire to help whatsoever. 

Did any of you find a more viable option than going through The Power Platform Admin Support site?

[Sunny0502]

Hello i'm WinAutomation user too.

I have the temporary license file and the link that tells how to input the license file into the 'WinAutomation Setting Options'

But we failed to login the WinAutomation program.

Could you tell me how you login to the WinAutomation app program and apply to the WinAutomation option?

[AgniusBartninka]

You will need to reinstall WinAutomation and then, during installation, select WinAutomation licensing. This is done during installation, so you cannot change the licensing model without reinstalling the application.

[carlos_slim]

Latest and final update: I have a 100% solution now. After receiving the temporary key (valid for 6 months), I asked why I did not get a perpetual key, since I once bought WA: Microsoft sent a perpetual key in december 2021 (via mspowerplatform@microsoft.com), but when trying to install I got an error, and this made me subscribe to Power Automate. Rest is history. In hindsight, the error had to do with not having installed the latest Microsoft release (9.2.4.5905), becauce since I got this release installed, the problems disappeared.

I will stay subscribed to WA, since I still plan to migratie, but I like the fact that I can do it at my own pace, with probably a better migrator (see what improvements to the migrator are on the road map here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/softomotive-migrator#process-robot-ac...) and with a further developed PAD version that brings uw hopefully more on par with WA.

Last remark: I found the help I got from Microsoft very helpful. Excellent even. While I was certainly not expecting this, since they are a huge organization and seeing how they handle pulling the plug out of the Exchange connector etc. But the reply was fast, they solved my problem and they seriously seem to take my feedback into consideration.

All the best everybody.

[thepla]

Hi, I use WA ver 6, for compiler.  Im getting an oops message below.

I think it's because Winautoation website is down. My console works but triggers stopped. When I go to debug there is a delay for first line.

I tried to install lic file I received last year. It says wrong machine. I guess if I ever have a machine failure I am out of business. I'd go to there WA Power Automate but I have some robots that are on many clients machines and cannot installl POwer Automate on their systems and can't pay monthy on their system

Is there any workaround to wrong machine or compiling a robot? Maybe a fix for Oope message?

Thanks

[thepla]

To clarify, I downloaded WA6 on a new machine and did theire lic file and it says wrong machine.

[YuHash]

Hi, thanks everyone for valuable info. I've been using WA with Attended RPA license, signed-in with Microsoft account and do not have the license file.

(We start using WA only after MS acquisition of Softomotive. Still in the middle of migration to PAD.)

So, from what I understand from the above discussion, there's no way for this MS account authentication method to work again, right? And the only way is through activating the license file given to the customers of Softomotive time...unless MS change their mind to recover the Azure authentication entry?

Please let me know if you know any way to get the Azure authentication working. Thanks!

[ApexOrigin]

"So, from what I understand from the above discussion, there's no way for this MS account authentication method to work again, right? And the only way is through activating the license file given to the customers of Softomotive time...unless MS change their mind to recover the Azure authentication entry?"

Bottom line, Microsoft is reneging on their written commitment to provide access to WinAutomation indefinitely as long you pay your PAD subscription. They locked a lot of people out of their WinAutomation console without any warning, and now they are saying if you ask nicely they will give you a 6 month temporary license, but that's all. No more access after the license expires.

I was locked out for almost 2 weeks before Microsoft support finally sent me the temp license. Locking someone out of their WinAutomation console is like the landlord locking you out of your apartment with your kids, pets, and all your stuff still inside, even though you have always paid your rent. I put years of work into my processes, and they do business critical operations and I was locked out for 2 weeks. Now they are tell you that you'll be evicted in 6 months.

Very shady business practice, because there is no doubt this was planned even though they didn't give any warning, and Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves.

[AgniusBartninka]

I was actually contacted by a former Softomotive rep. currently working at MS last week after I had posted the same request for a license file the 3rd time (every time for a different client). They came back saying that the reason for this mess is the fact that the entire infrastructure that was used by WA was taken down some time in October-November and the licensing servers went down along with it. 

But they did agree that clients that had previously purchased a perpetual license of WinAutomation from Softomotive were eligible to actually have perpetual licenses. And they would have been able to download the license files that they had been told to download back in December 2021 had the servers where those files were being stored not been taken down.

So, they asked me to provide a list of clients that we serve that had purchased WinAutomation initially. I gave them a list of 4 clients and received a perpetual license file for each of them. So, at least this works.

We will anyhow migrate all of those clients, but at least we now have some more time to do it, as some of those legacy projects are a bit tricky.

[Theplaman]

Thanks for update. If they are reading maybe someone can reach out to me.  I did download my perpetual license. It cannot install on any computer but one it's linked to.  I did get a call from Microsoft and they claim their goal is not to put us out of business but I am not sure I agree.  I have compiled was on several clients that run via windows task scheduler. Ms want 150 per month for that functionality for every one of my customers which is over hundred more per month than I collect.  If my computer fails I'm out of business.

Please someone from wa explain how my perpetual license can be transferred, if needed.  A six month bandaid just prolongs being out of business.

[Theplaman]

Btw I am thepla above but I can't figure out how to login and get to community.

[ApexOrigin]

"I was actually contacted by a former Softomotive rep. currently working at MS last week after I had posted the same request for a license file the 3rd time (every time for a different client). They came back saying that the reason for this mess is the fact that the entire infrastructure that was used by WA was taken down some time in October-November and the licensing servers went down along with it. "

Thanks for posting that. It confirms what I thought that Microsoft knew they were taking down WinAutomation and purposely didn't let their paying WinAutomation customers know in advance causing many to have long outages of business critical processes.

Absolutely disgusting. I won't be recommending any Microsoft products going forward, and I will look for ways to reduce our spend on Microsoft products.