Toolboxes and extending Software Maintenance Service

Not a question but a word of warning, so that others don't get bitten by this issue like I just got.

I had been using Matlab R2017b plus some Matlab Toolboxes (TBs). When the Software Maintenance Service expired, I extended it by another year for Matlab but only for three of those TBs, on the assumption (wrong, as I now know) that the other, non-updated TBs would of course also still work with the newer R2018a and following Matlab releases.

However, R2018a after installation recognized only the three updated TBs, and did not let me import or copy the other non-updated ones from R2017b.

After discussion with Support it now turns out that this is actually as designed:

• TBs from older Matlab releases will not co-operate with newer Matlab releases.
• If you want to keep using all your TBs with a newer Matlab release you must extend the (expensive, IMO) Maintenance Service for all of them. (Or must still also keep the older Matlab release "alive".)

This info can in fact be found here in the Matlab Answers, but it's not easy to discover. (I had looked for such information, but missed this specific, over five years old thread; and was only made aware of it by Support). I was unable to find a respective warning on the Mathworks web pages.

Hence this post, just to help others avoid this "surprise".

[Walter Roberson]

I know that several of us have posted this restriction in responses over the years; the regular volunteers all know this. But it is true that those discussions are not necessarily organized in any particular way. I have not tended to bother to tag license related issues the way I sometimes go through and tag some of the technical topics like steganography.