I'm trying to understand how the licensing works with Mathematica 14.1 -- I look at my account info and it says this license has 2 controlling and 4 computing processes maximum.

So when I start up Mathematica on a macOS 15.1.1 system (Mac mini M2 Pro with 6 high performance cores and 4 efficiency cores) I see there are now two WolframKernel processes started when looking at the Activity Monitor window showing all processes on the system.

So I then created two pre-defined kernels in the Evaluation/KernelConfigurationOptions menu and named the kernels - kernel1 and kernel2.

I then created a new notebook with one line

PerfectNumber[22]

which I then assign kernel1 to and then run it.

I then look at Activity Monitor and see another WolframKernel process has now started and is using 100% of the cpu/core it's been assigned to.

So the first question is why didn't one of the already existing WolframKernel processes start handling this notebook?? Exactly what could I have done differently to prevent the third WolframKernel process to have started and instead one of the already existing WolframKernel processes to be using a CPU core to run? Is there some way to find out which WolframKernel process is being used on a particular running Notebook??

But, if I then click on the "About Mathematica" menu, I see all the info about Mathetica as expected, and then try and click on the "Copy" button to copy the license number to the paste buffer, but I get a popup error window about the number of licenses has been exceeded. But I thought the number of WolframKernel processes limit was 4 - so why the error??

Have I exceeded the Controlling limit of 2 or the computing limit of 4? Are WolframKernel processes able to be both a controlling process and a computing process?? From the Activity Monitor window how can you differentiate between the two?

What exactly does Mathemitica consider a "controlling" process and what is considered a "computing" process???

I was hoping to be able to have four notebooks able to be running at the same time and each of them being assigned to a different core cpu processor. Is this not how things are supposed to work??

Thanks...

-bob