Registration Keys...

[savage]

Hi all,
I am hoping to sell a few noddy components I have created very cheaply. Can anyone suggest any ways of generating Registration Keys for the components?

I was thinking of getting the users to enter the Key and their names into some special properties in the component. Any other suggestions?

PS. They are not game related components. Actually one is a SourceSafe plugin for the Delphi IDE. The current ones on the market are way too expensive, so I created a cheaper alternative.

[LP]

If it's a plugin DLL, you can generate key based on some hardware specs and user name. An example: add hard-drive's serial number to user's name, then take a hash of this string and use it as a key. Just an idea though and you may want to add some extra information like user's registration ID (so you can determine the user for a given key).

[tux]

i wouldnt use the hard drive serial, that can be changed easily.

use multiple thinsg, like windows PID (should be unique on every install if its legitimate copy) and cpu info etc etc

[LP]

i wouldnt use the hard drive serial, that can be changed easily.
How do you exactly change hard-drive's serial number? If you say it's very easy, then perhaps few lines of Delphi code may suffice :)

[tux]

http://www.codeproject.com/system/change_drive_sn.asp

not delphi though



and heres a delphi one with a load of code, dunno if it works, dont want to try it ;)


http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Programming_Languages/Delphi/Q_11438118.html

but yes ok, doesnt look easy. but its possible ;)

[technomage]

Hi Dom

Check out http://www.bsdg.org/resources/turbopower.html there are a whole load of excellent components for various things from the old Turbo Power guys, this includes OnGuard which is shareware keys and lockbox which is encryption. I've used the LockBox stuff and it is excellent, the OnGuard stuff is great too, it allows you to define time limited applications, shareware etc.

Dean

[savage]

Hi Dean,
Thanks for the suggestion, I keep forgetting what great stuff Turbo Power has released. I think I will make use of OnGuard and the Encryption library.

Dom.