Re: Making Trial Version of my Software

In article <1185954973.801515.198400@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
aine_canby@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi,

I have created a simple audio compositional environment which I hope
to develop further over the coming years. I've recently finished the
mac version of this software but am interested in offering a trial
version of this software also. Therefore, I am wondering what
techniques are available to me for doing this. In other words, how can
I hide from the user were I store their installation date.

So far, I simply take a copy of the date and store it in a .settings
file. I then read this data to see how long is left. But if the user
deletes this file, they can reinstall the application and will have
another 30 day trial.

On Windows I use the registry to hide this information.

And you're under the impression that a user can't go into the registry
and delete that same information?

If you're going to use date disabling as your trial enforcement, your
options pretty much rely on simple variations of what you're already
doing. If you're worried about people unintentionally tossing that file,
just make it invisible in Finder (the easiest way is to give it a name
that starts with a period) and the odds that someone will delete it by
mistake are virtually zero.

There's no way to prevent someone from deleting it on purpose. Anywhere
you can write when running under their login, they can change, too. And
anyone who really cares will be able to find where you're writing that
information no matter how much you try to obscure it.
.

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