distributing a license with PDA

Question

 

Hello,

VS 2005

WM 5.0 & WM 6.0

I am creating some software and don't want the software to be installed on any other PDA devices.

I can give it to the customer, but how can I avoid the customer from installing it on other PDAs.

I think I need to create some license so that the setup I give them will not be able to install if it has already been installed on another PDA.

Which is the best practice when it comes to distributing software and to avoid the customer from installing on many PDA?

The customer will have to buy 1 license for each PDA they want the software installed on. However, the customer could easily pay for 1 license and install on many. This is what I am trying to avoid.

Many thanks for any advice,

Steve

Answer 1

Hi

 

This is just a suggestion.

 

Get the IMEI of the device from the custormer. Modify you software installation in such a way it continues the installtion only the IMEI of the device is matched wiht the IMEI given by the Customer.

 

Check the below code to get the IMEI

http://www.peterfoot.net/RetrieveIMEIThroughTAPI.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/APISP/html/sp_extapi_linegeneralinfo.asp

 

Hope this helps

Answer 2

Hi,

 

steve1_rm wrote:

I am creating some software and don't want the software to be installed on any other PDA devices. I can give it to the customer, but how can I avoid the customer from installing it on other PDAs. I think I need to create some license so that the setup I give them will not be able to install if it has already been installed on another PDA.

 

You might like to take a look at the following thread - https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1972801&SiteID=1 for some ideas on one technique to implement licensing within a .NET Compact Framework application.

 

As a follow on Alex Yakhnin also posted some notes on how to lock down the license files to a particular device on this blog posting "How to tie up the license to the device id." which is available at http://blog.opennetcf.org/ayakhnin/PermaLink,guid,099ce865-1ed5-467e-b2b1-29037598512c.aspx

 

A similiar technique could be used for native (C and C++) applications.

 

Hope this helps,

Christopher Fairbairn