Background

NVivo license keys are generally specific to the NVivo licensed versions, with the exception of NVivo 14 and 15 (through version 15.3 only).

NVivo 14 licenses can be used to activate NVivo 15.3

Errors When Attempting to Activate a Version with a Version Incompatible License Key

If you are licensed to use NVivo 13/R1, your license key will start with NVP20 and the error you will receive on a newer version will be the following:

If you have an NVivo 14 or NVivo 15 license key and you enter it into NVivo 13 (2020 R1), you will receive this error (referencing NVivo 10):

Solution

Make sure you have downloaded the correct version of the NVivo software from my.lumivero.com