The free three-year Student licenses that you can get at the Autodesk Education Community have some restrictions. First, you cannot use them for commercial purposes. If you try to load assets created with the Student version into the Commercial or Educational Institution version of Softimage, you’ll get this warning:

---------------------------
Autodesk® Softimage® 2012
---------------------------
This file was created using a Student Version of Softimage. Use of this data by an educational institution or for commercial purposes is a violation of your Softimage License Agreement.
---------------------------
OK   Cancel   
---------------------------

Also, you cannot batch render Student-version scenes:

// INFO : Student Version created file will not be loaded in batch mode
Failed to load :   Error code: 8004000C.
// ERROR : 2000 - Failed to load :   Error code: 8004000C.
//
// WARNING : 3030-FILE-OpenScene - Command was cancelled.
OpenScene(null, false, true);
Command failed, returned -2146827065
// FATAL : Could not load scene to render.

Tip – In a Softimage command prompt, you can use printver to check whether a scene was created with the Student version:

%XSI_BINDIR%\printver -l  C:\Users\Stephen\Documents\Test\Scenes\Scene_from_Student_version.scn

This Scene is a Student Version
This Scene was built with version: 9.5.184.0
History (from oldest to newest)
9.5.184.0::Regular Save
End of History

If you need to batch render assets from a Student version (for example, if students used the Student version at home to do their homework, and now want to batch render with the Educational Version), then try this:

1. Start Softimage with a commercial or EDU Institution license.
2. Load the scene (that was saved from the free Student version). You will get a warning:
   This file was created using a Student Version of Softimage. Use of this data by an educational institution or for commercial purposes is a violation of your Softimage License Agreement.
3. Create a new model and move the assets under the new model.
4. Export the model.
5. File > New.
6. Import the model.