Digital Workshop

Is there a way within Opus 5.5 to have a publication that's burned to a cd expire after 365 days even after it's unlocked?

Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I'd like to send out a CD to clients that have SLA's (service level agreements) with me. After 365 days or so, if they don't upgrade to the latest version per the SLA, I'd like to deactivate the old on them. I figure that's the easiest way versus ???

Thoughts on this topic, I'd love to hear them...

Thanks,
Dawn

Dawn,

I may have misunderstood what you are trying to do, but it seems that you should be able to achieve this in 5.5.

Does this do what you want?
1. Don't unlock your pub.
2. Under the Security Tab, select: Run from CD-ROM only.
3. Optionally choose: Check for CD-ROM name and add the name of the CD.

This ensures that the end-user cannot install your pub, and you would not distribute a set-up file.

4. Select: Evaluation and Days to timeout after publication is first run and choose the number of days. 365 days is the maximum in v5.5.

As I understand your post, that should meet your requirements unless your client runs the CD on a different computer. Because the details of the date first run and the evaluation period are stored on the computer (not the CD), changing to a different computer every 365 days will give the client another maximum evaluation period.

How do you react to the idea of providing your client with a positive reinforcement to renew your SLA? I would do this by adding desirable features that are only available after renewal.

Are you aware that v6 of Opus allows you to have an evaluation period of up to 2000 days?

I hope this helps, but I'm sure my suggestions are too simple to give you what you want

Hi Dawn,

I provide a license file with my publications. Although, I don't use a time limitation, I can reason that it would be easy enough to add an issued date that would cause the program to time-out after a specific period of days.

Mack

Mackavi - would you be willing to attach your license file for me to download and view? I'm intrigued with the concept and would truly appreciate it.

Sentosa - thank you for your suggestion the only issue I have is the client doesn't want to have the CD in the drive. So I believe I need a different method and it would have to be something within the publication??? Possibly something with the install date and timeout days... I'm just not quite there yet. That's why I believe Mackavi's license file may be the answer.

Question with the license file, do you need administrative rights to the PC? Where does it write too?

Please reply back, this is good for me to work through. Thanks so much for your feedback.

Dawn

PS - I wasn't aware of v6 with 2000 days timeout, I figured it went up but wasn't sure of the timeframe...

Hi Dawn,

There really isn't much to see with the license file, it simplY contains several lines of text that are used to generate a serial number.

For example (because the program is for schools)

School Name
School LEA & DFEE number
Serial Number

The software simply reads the information from the file and stores it in the registry (so yes you'd need admin rights for this but it could simply exist as a file on the system).

When the program is run, it uses the School Name and LEA & DFEE number to to calculate the serial code and compares this to the registry.

This means that school have to have a valid license code but also stops them installing software (by my company) that they've copied from other schools.

Mack