# Software Update Maintenance Period

Cognex sets a software update maintenance period on each USB security key, which enables the key to validate VisionPro based on the release year for that version. For example, your USB security key can be programmed to validate any version of VisionPro released in 2019 or 2020 exclusively.

The software update maintenance period appears in a description of the security key you can view using the Cogtool utility or from within your vision application, as described in the topic VisionPro Licenses. The following is an example of a software update maintenance period between January 2018 and December 2019:

SWUP: {2018.1-2019.12}

With this maintenance period, the security key will work with any version of VisionPro released between January 1st, 2018 through December 31st, 2019, indefinitely.