Making a DEMO Version...?

Hello,

I've just finished my program and im thinking of a good secure way creating a demo. by this i mean not just having disabled features if code is invalid.. but actually removing the features so that the Demo is a separate EXE than the final one.

If they want to buy it, theyll need to download the final.

Does any one have a good way of storing a 15 Day trial limit..?

A good mechanism..? Not just registry.. but on the HD as well..?

...there are commercial products available for this purpose. If you write your own, someone will certainly be able to defeat it.

And if the version you release is "feature-crippled" do you need to care about a time limit for the crippled version?

http://www.activelocksoftware.com/

this is free and open source i use it has many kind of locks like bios lock mac address lock etc etc

Actually there is a better way. You make a boolean variable like Full_Version, you make a bunch of If statements to certain features you want to lock. If Full_Version is True, then it can execute your features. If False, then it'll be disabled.

Put a value in the registry that counts the days down from the day it was first open. There are two ways you can do this. 1) Through API's like these:

VB Code:

ublic Declare Function RegCreateKey Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias "RegCreateKeyA" (ByVal hKey As Long, ByVal lpSubKey As String, phkResult As Long) As Long
 
Public Declare Function RegOpenKey Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias "RegOpenKeyA" (ByVal hKey As Long, ByVal lpSubKey As String, phkResult As Long) As Long
 
Public Declare Function RegDeleteKey Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias "RegDeleteKeyA" (ByVal hKey As Long, ByVal lpSubKey As String) As Long
 
Public Declare Function RegCloseKey Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias "RegCloseKey" (ByVal hKey As Long) As Long

2) Using VBScript to read/write to the registry.