The best way to protect it, for me, is not to. Notice that Microsoft (and other companies in its class) don't bother with copy protection. It's easier to have some "registration protection" instead. For an ecommerce framework I did, it was not protected at all, but it must make an HTTP connection every 30 days to my web server to get a hashed key to operate for the next 30 days (I have a different key for each month embedded in the exe). If the connection can't be made to renew the key, the software complains and quits. Now, this is ecommerce stuff where the expectation is that the desktop app will always get to the net in 30 days anyway, but with something you are selling shrinkwrap why not make it 60 days or so?

If it is a consultant-class app, where you are doing a specific solution for a specific customer, when you compile the app make sure their name is strategically placed (in reports, in the splash screen, etc). They are much less likely to give your custom software to a competitor, but if they do it'll have the original client name in it.







>I have some applications written in vfp7 on the market. So far, I didn't implement any protection in it against copy.
>I wonder about the best way to protect it ? Using disk serial number and/or cpu serial number seems to generate a number that I can use to provide a key number seems good but I see a problem when the application is installed on a multi-user site. I don't want to provide a number for each individual pc. I would rather provide the number once. Is it possible to get a number from the server? Or maybe use the server IP number ? Or something else...
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>Any suggestion ?
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>Thanks
>Eric