>Could you please tell me how should I protect my app?
>It is hard for me to leave V-Foxpro. But, I will, if I have to.
>I dont mind to pay fee for any advice about this after we made it's consultation-agreement.

Busu,

There is a slight misunderstanding. What you saw in my message was an excerpt from a Web site that will reverse-engineer dongles (to show that dongles aren't fool-proof)... the note regarding "extra information" was theirs (soft-key.com), not mine. Sorry.

My personal feeling is that MS should be more pro-active in helping us protect out apps; unfortunately, the MS "reps" have made it clear that it is not on their agenda.

If you don't mind extortion, you can always pay off ReFox for the privilage of "branding" your app to prevent decompilation by ReFox (though I do not know how secure it is).

Alternatively, you could start putting some of your logic into FLLs; ie. C code. If you have special license/time lock code, it would be more secure in the FLL, as long as some other key logic components were included in there also (so that the FLL in question could not easily be "bypassed").

You might also consider a general migration to Delphi, for example ... supplementing your existing VFP code with Delphi DLLs that were also secured (similar to the FLL scenario).

Perhaps some Visual dBase components might also be worth considering, since it's xBase and I'm not aware of any current VdB decompilers.

If you were to use Crystal Reports as your report writer, then that would be another way to distribute "run-time only" components; ie. no simple way for someone else to modify your reports).

In summary, a complete switch from VFP to another development platform would probably be difficult and take some time; you could however consider implementing some key/future components in a language that compiles to machine code so that getting at your "source" is that much more difficult, particularly when it comes to modifications and support.

If you develop software for resale, then you have the choice of what language to use; in which case, (MS) VB, C# or VC++ would be the last of my choices. Consider the Borland compilers first, in terms of productivity.

(My 0 cents worth).

Gerry.