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The main reason this happens is because you are trying to apply a Maxwell Render V1.x to a V2.x install. The license format has changed between these versions - the V2.x licenses are a simple text file whereas the V1.x licenses where in .dat format. Make sure that when you are trying to add a license to Maxwell Render, you are adding the info from the license email you received from Next Limit. If you have not received this email, please check your Spam folder or request a license by contacting salesdesk@nextlimit.com specifying your purchasing info (Name/Company name, email used for purchasing).

For further information about licensing Maxwell Render, please see Licensing in the Documentation section.

This is related to the system environment variables. This error message shows up when you are trying to load Maxwell Studio without a layout. This happens because you had a previous version of Maxwell Render installed in another path and your MAXWELL2_ROOT environment variable has not been changed correctly when you installed a new version. This means that the software is still referenced to the old path. It’s easy to resolve this issue. Revise the MAXWELL2_ROOT environment variable and update the path, rewriting the new installation path in the corresponding window.

It has come to our attention that the installer is apparently having difficulty satisfying the prerequisite of finding MAXWELL2_ROOT on some installations. The installer has always required this, but it seems that the Maxwell installer may be setting MAXWELL2_ROOT only at the User level. So, if you get an error during the installation, indicating that Maxwell Render could not be found, or Maxwell Render doesn't start, please edit your machine's Environment variables, adding a System Environment variable called MAXWELL2_ROOT, which points to your Maxwell Render directory, and another called MAXWELL2_MATERIALS_DATABASE environment variable pointing to your material database folder (usually inside the Maxwell2 installation folder).

The two environment variables should be:

• Name: MAXWELL2_ROOT Value: C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell 2 (or the location of your Maxwell install if different from this default one. If you installed Maxwell 32bit on a 64bit system, the install path would instead be C:\Program Files (x86)\Next Limit\Maxwell 2
  
  
• Name: MAXWELL2_MATERIALS_DATABASE Value: C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell 2\materials database (or the location where you installed the Material Database, if different from this default location)

The System Environment variables are located in the lower box, as seen here:

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Environment variables may be accessed from:

Windows XP

- going to the Start menu 
- right-clicking 'My Computer' 
- clicking 'Properties' 
- going to the 'Advanced' tab 
- clicking 'Environment variables'

Windows Vista

- going to the Start menu 
- right-clicking 'Computer' 
- clicking 'Properties' 
- in the dialog box, clicking the 'Advanced System Settings' link
- clicking 'Environment variables'

Windows 7

- going to the Start menu
- right-click 'Computer'
- choose 'Properties'
- click 'Advanced system settings' on the left hand side of the window that opens
- in the window that opens go to the 'Advanced' tab and click the Environment Variables button.

This can happen if you have installed Maxwell as a certain user, but then log in to Windows as another user, and the license file is not available also for this user. When you license Maxwell, it copies the license.txt file to C:\Users\<user that installed Maxwell>\Documents\Maxwell. What you can do in a multi user environment is instead to copy the license.text file to the Maxwell install folder in Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell 2 and set it to read-only. This way when Maxwell starts up it won't be able to copy the license.txt to the currently logged in user folder and will be available for all users.