What is the best way to license InstallAware packaged SW?

[NothingButNet]

Hi,

I've been looking at some of the documentation on your great looking product.

A serial number / username / company validation process is mentioned in addition to the ability to require a website validation.

For a small ISV, what is the recommended software licensing approach for packages created with InstallAware?

I would like to be able to track the number of installs for a given serial number to reduce the chance of fraud, but allow updates to occur automatically.

Software licensing is a new topic to me and I'm struggling to understand the options, cost of the options and best practices.

I'd guess that licensing approaches work by using a serial number as a public key to decrypt some key DLL or critical resource, but it's only a guess.

Could you point me in the right direction and elaborate on the best practices for an ISV using InstallAware?

Many Thanks,
Rich

[CandiceJones]

Hi Rich,

I would suggest that you build your work off of the Serial Validation sample, and/or the Online Authentication sample.

You will need to write an ASP/PHP/or other similar dynamic web page, which connects to a database and stores/queries the install count for a given serial.

Your InstallAware installer will then call this webpage, and proceed with the main install or deny access, based on what the webpage returns.

You should always choose to trust the user in ambiguous situations, such as when the webpage cannot be reached due to lack of Internet connectivity.

If you put your actual application files inside an online web media block, and encrypt that block with a custom key, you will be making sure that nobody can access your protected application files as long as the first phase of live validation does not succeed.

Hope these ideas get you started!