Date & Time Problems

[khanjan_a2k]

Sup Programmers,
I have been testing my program, and I realized that if any of my testers lend the program to other people, then the amount of customers would probably decrease for me.
I need to create a code that checks if lets say 1 month has passed since the program was first opened. I will create a little password window to reset the timing to 0 days so I can reuse it. The only problem I have is that what If someone starts the program and 1 week later gives it to another user, would the start date still be the same? Would this 1 month free trial thing still work?
And the main problem is that I don't know how to store dates, and work with them. So could someone please help me with this code. Remember I need to make sure that after an amount of days, including time, even if it is one minute past the 30 day period, the program either deletes itself or, loads a blank form that has a message to buy it.

Khanjan
Your help is extremely appreciated.

[lerroux]

try to put your trial period date data in a textfile... after installation, i guess you can create a BAT file to create the file... then, everyday, let your app compare the system date from the date in the textfile... afterwards, you know wat to do...

[khanjan_a2k]

But how do I collect the date when the program was first opened and store it in a text file? I am totally new to dates and stuff.

I have no clue what a BAT file is.

How about this, I can just create three files.
1) Month
2) Day
3) Year

Then I can use their names to check my dates by seperating each time section and matching them. Is it possible? Sounds weird to me.

Is it also possible to make the program delete itself?

[d3gerald]

aside from creating a BAT file, you can also create a text file using vb to store such information.

[khanjan_a2k]

But can someone please help me generate a code for this???

[poison6feet]

I hope this will be of your use http://www.activelock.com/

[pnish]

You could do something like this:

Option Explicit
 
Dim RegDate As Date
 
Private Sub Form_Load()
    '
    '   Read the registry to get the install date
    '
    RegDate = GetSetting("MyApp", "Licence", "InstallDate", 0)
    If RegDate = 0 Then
        '
        '   App hasn't been run before (on this machine)
        '   So write the current date & time to the registry
        '
        SaveSetting "MyApp", "Licence", "InstallDate", Now
    Else
        '
        '   Check whether more than 30 days has passed
        '
        If DateDiff("d", RegDate, Now) > 30 Then
            MsgBox "This prog has expired"
        End If
    End If
    
End Sub

Note that this is very simple to bypass. You only need to either delete the registry entry or modify the date stored there for this code to be useless. It will work OK for non tech-savvy users though.

[Andrew G]

Instead of making the program expire after 1 month. Why not make it after 10 minutes/ or any other short time. That way if someone does pass it on to anyone else. It won't be much use as it will only work for 10 minutes before having to close it, and re-eopen it to reuse it.

[da_silvy]

Please search the forums next time! I think this question's probably been answered ~twice in the threads available on this forum's index!

If your program is useful, a simple registry date check isn't going to stop that many people. The registry would be the first place i'd check for a datestamp if I wanted to keep using a program.