I need help on Piracy Issue ! 1

[hiptino]

I've just successfully packaged a Retail Application, that I developed using VB, on a CD.
I've installed it for couple of retail outlets at some fees.
But I did not release the CD to them. They used to call me when there is need for reinstallation.

The software is getting popular, there are more demands, and these customers want the CDs. Likewise I don't want phonecalls in the night.
I'm afraid of bad guys pirating the software(I know I can't stop 'em, even Microsoft can't).
But how do I reduce the piracy?

The software really cost me time, material and money to develop.

Please no suggestion is trivial.

 

[petermeachem]

I made an excellent copy protection system for a programme I wrote a while ago (a long while!). Part of it prevented the programme file being copied from machine to machine. This was fine on win98, but nt objected strongly to the way I was extracting machine specific information from the disc. (I'm being vague on purpose). Does anyone know how to do this? Peter Meachem
peter@accuflight.com

 

[snorkle]

I have a question for jmarler, or Alt255. I haven't tried any of the ideas you're bringing up. When it does work on 98, can that be viewed through filemon? or does it show up invisible to filemon.



-richard

 

[jmarler]

I would guess that since you are bypassing the OS (using the BIOS interupts) that FileMon would not know about it. - Jeff Marler B-)

 

[Alt255]

Jeff, the floppy I refered to in my earlier post was modified under NT Server using Interrupt 13h, functions 00h (reset disk system), 02h (read sectors) and 03h (write sectors). There were no violations or errors.

Are you using a custom HAL?

Did you try part of the QB code in faq204-53 or have you converted the calls to Assembly?

Alt255@Vorpalcom.Intranets.com​

 

[jmarler]

No, I am using the standard HAL that NT installs with no changes. I have tries inline assembly in Visual C++ in a console application and then I tried actually just writing "pure" assembly in MASM . . . I still get a violation error. - Jeff Marler B-)

 

[Alt255]

This is rather strange... the interrupts work as advertised on my test NT machine (a frankenstein 200mhz Pentium with SP6).

A colleague agreed to try it on some of his NT machines. He must have a great deal of trust in my code because he immediately ran it on his company's PDC (a Gateway ALR8200, coincidentally running SP6). He informed me that the first execution appeared to leave the floppy unchanged (no errors). He ran it again with "My Computer" open and received a "Cannot obtain exclusive lock on drive... try again later" error. He closed My Computer, tried again and the program executed without error, making the required changes to the boot sector.

Mmmm... what version of NT are you running?

If interested, I can send you a copy of the NT test application (with QB source code). It only reads the floppy boot record and then writes back to it, changing the value of the total sectors field to indicate a non-standard disk size.

I'm not sure why Interrupt h13 isn't working for you. It seems to work fine (conditionally) in a QB45 app.

Alt255@Vorpalcom.Intranets.com​

 

[Tinman]

There is a small app that comes with vc++ that is used for developers of activex dlls and other com components to generate a guid(global unique id), in registry notation.
it is what microsoft used to use for thier keys. I know I used to use the same thing to generate keys. Just add it to the install script and burn it onto the cd so you don't need the web site. But also having a web site to submit registration information to is a good added item. Put somewhere in you code if they don't print to mail in or email in the registration to shut off after a period of time.
Chad
tinman@thelandofoz.org

Tinman,

Welcome to OZ.

 

[jmarler]

Alt255,
If you want to mail me what you got, send it to jmarler@winternet.com. This is the last post I am going to place on the Int 13h issue in this thread as I think that it is straying from the original topic. if it continues to be an issue, I will probably start a new thread on the topic in the appropriate forum. Thanks for your help. - Jeff Marler B-)

 

[Guest_imported]

I don't know how this is done but I've seen 2 ways to keep a CD from being copied.

1) Create 2 files on root that are actualy 1k but report being 649meg each yet these files are needed in the install of the program

2) Label the disk with over 11 characters. Burning software will not let you create a CD with over 11 caracters and when trying to copy a CD with over that, it will report the CD is an invalid format.

How the above is done I would love to know.

Also (sorry I'm a newby) I tried making a bootable CD (for use with ghost) and while creating the CD, it asked for IO.sys (I don't remember the exact file) I pulled the file from a floppy. Now the CD reports it is 1.44meg, however all 650 meg is there. Can this be used to protect your software from copying?

I find all your posts enlightening but some of them I think are forgeting, what if the customer needs to reinstall the software for any reason?

- Chris Van