Preventing illegal distribution

[snekkis]

I'm trying to prevent distribution of my solution I'm finishing. I have a installer that require a serial and have put the same serial call when they open the solution for the first time. The solution is then set and is not calling for the serial the next time. There is no limit, to my knowledge, that it is just to copy that serial set solution over to another machine and use it with great success.

I thought about a step and hoped for a Status() parameter that could give an unique machine ID into a field for any kind of verification formula in a startup script, but could't find one.

Maybe there is some other workaround?

Thanks,

[SteveB]

If your're looking to copy protect your solution from being installed on more than 1 hard drive you can purchase a professionally-made technique that requires your users to go to a web site and get a unique serial # that I believe is based on their disk serial #. There was a thread in the last few days about a company in England that offered this technique. I don't favor it because I distribute my kiosk on CD and I like more than 1 person to be able to install it (I give users a 30 day trial, after which the software stops running) from the same CD.

Alternatively, you can build your own by using one of the following: the Crypto Plugin (free) that will return the user's disk serial # and encrypt it. You can get the plugin from Protolight Software (David McKee site may be www.protolight.com?). Once you have the disk ID, you'll need to build a set of scripts that check the disk Id everytime the user starts the solution. However, if they can gain access to the fields involved with the copy protection, you're dead in the water.

You can also get the disk id (I believe) from the Troi File plugin or from WinBatch if you're running on Windows exclusively.

Steve

[snekkis]

Thanks, Steveinvegas!

Protolight site:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/9327/