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Tutorial: Activating a Perpetual License

Overview

This tutorial is designed to demonstrate the features of Instant Protection PLUS 3 using the distributed Demo Application. The Demo Application may be provided by SoftwareKey in order to experience our licensing system in action without needing Instant Protection PLUS 3 installed.

Important

You can download the Demo Application here. It is a .zip file that contains an EXE and two image files.

For those who have Instant Protection PLUS 3 installed, the protected Demo Application can be found in the Instant Protection PLUS 3 installation folder. By default this is:

At install, a shortcut to the Demo Application is added to the SoftwareKey Licensing System folder in the Windows Start Menu. The Demo Application is a standard 32-bit native Windows application created with Microsoft Visual Studio.

What will this tutorial show me?

The Demo Application is already protected using Instant Protection PLUS 3 to demonstrate many features. By completing this tutorial you will:

Launch the Demo Application executable. If you have Instant Protection PLUS 3 installed, you may launch the application from the Windows Start Menu under SoftwareKey Licensing System / Instant Protection PLUS 3 Demo Application

At start up, the application will show a splash screen if the demo_application_splash.bmp file is present in the same folder. Showing a splash screen is one of the options that can be configured when protecting your application.

Once the splash screen has been shown, the initial licensing dialog window is displayed.

This is the first licensing dialog window your customers will see. Clicking the Purchase Demo Application Online link will open the browser to the SOLO Server shopping cart with the product already in the cart. The SOLO Server shopping cart appearance may be customized to match the appearance of your website. You can preview the default shopping cart Purchase link if you are logged into SOLO Server.

The image on the left of the dialog is displayed if the ip_prodlogo.bmp file is in the same folder as the application. This image may be easily replaced with your own logo.

We don't want to evaluate the application in this tutorial, we want to activate it! We will do just this in the next tutorial step.

What can be customized on this dialog?
  • The logo image on the left of the dialog window may use a logo image created by you, or omitted altogether.
  • Anywhere you see "Demo Application" will show the name of your product.
  • The options to Purchase, Activate, or Evaluate the application may be omitted.
  • The evaluation expiration. If you allow an evaluation of your application, you can specify the number of days and/or the number of times someone can run your application.
  • The "Go To Website" link URL. This can also be removed altogether.

Go ahead and click the Activate Demo Application button.

You will now be presented with new options.

We are only going to demonstrate the online activation method in this tutorial. When protecting your own application, you can choose which activation methods your customers may use. For example, you can only allow manual activations if you only want to allow your customers to activate by phone or email. Any activation options you disable will not be shown on this dialog.

What can be customized?
  • The "Click here for support" link URLcan be changed or removed.
  • Anywhere you see "Demo Application" will show the name of your product.
  • Any of the activation options may be omitted. If you only want to allow online activations, you can do so.
  • The logo image on the left of the dialog window may use a logo image created by you, or even omitted altogether.

Click the Activate Demo Application Online button. You will see the following dialog window.

You are probably asking yourself, "What is a License ID and how do I get one?" Each license generated in SOLO Server has a numeric License ID and alphanumeric Activation Password. The License ID and Activation Password need to be provided to the customer so that they can activate your application. SOLO Server will validate the License ID and Activation Password they enter and activate your application. If you use the SOLO Server shopping cart, the entire process is completely automated without the need for you to be involved!

Now we need a License ID and Activation Password.

What can be customized?
  • The "Where is my License ID?" link URL can be changed or removed.
  • The "Click here for support" link location. Or remove the link.
  • Anywhere you see "Demo Application" will show the name of your product.
  • The logo image on the left of the dialog window may use a logo image created by you, or even omitted altogether.

In order to create the test license we will need, we must login to SOLO Server's test author account.

Open this login link in your browser:

Use the following credentials to login to the SOLO Server test author account:

User ID: test

Password: test

Once logged in you will be taken to the SOLO Server Author Home page. While there is a lot to explore in SOLO Server, for this tutorial we only want to create a test license so we may activate our application.

What is a SOLO Server author?

Our customers who use SOLO Server to manage their product's licensing are called "authors" or "SOLO Server authors". When using SOLO Server you will see the "author" term used throughout the product and documentation.

As a SOLO Server author, you will need an easy way to test your application's licensing. We have added this ability with "test licenses". A test license works just like a real license except all test licenses are purged from the system at the start of each month. In addition, no fees are applied to creating or activating test licenses. Creating a test license is extremely simple.

In the SOLO Server menu select Cutomers / Add a Test License.

A list will be shown with all the products available for adding a license. Select the Instant Protection PLUS 3 Sample Perpetual/Non-Expiring License from the list. Click the Add New Test License button.

Click OK on the informational pop-up.

You have just created a test license in SOLO Server!

With this license, we now have the License ID and Activation Password we need to activate our protected application. While we manually created the license in this tutorial, SOLO Server authors using the eCommerce feature would have the license created automatically when the customer purchases. The customer would then receive the License ID and Activation Password by email as well as having it shown in their browser at purchase.

Leave this browser window with the license information open as we will want to get the activation information used in the next step.

Customers and licenses in SOLO Server

Customer records in SOLO Server contain contact and registration information about your customer. Each customer record is assigned a unique Customer ID generated by SOLO Server.

A license record contains all the data for activating a product. Each license record is assigned a License ID and Activation Password by SOLO Server. A license record is always attached to a customer record, and a customer record can have multiple licenses attached or even no licenses.

Note: When you created the test license, a customer record was automatically created for you with the test license attached.

Now we are all ready to activate the application.

Enter the License ID and Activation Password from the license record in SOLO Server into the application's activation dialog we had left open in step 2 then click the Continue button. Optionally, an Installation Name can be specified.

The application will communicate with SOLO Server to validate the license and process the activation.

Congratulations! You have just activated the application with a perpetual license.

If you will be continuing on to the next tutorial, you should leave your browser open showing the license information in SOLO Server as we will use this to deactivate this license.

Click the Continue button on the activation dialog.

What can be customized?
  • The text "The activation was successful." can be changed to any text of your choosing.
  • The "Click here for support" link URL can be changed or removed.
  • Anywhere you see "Demo Application" will show the name of your product.
  • The logo image on the left of the dialog window may use a logo image created by you, or omitted altogether.

When we created the test license, an unregistered customer record was created in SOLO Server. After activation, Instant Protection PLUS 3 detected the customer had not registered their information and the registration dialog is shown.

What options do I have for customer registration?

Allowing registration with Instant Protection PLUS 3 is entirely optional. There are many options for registering such as requiring registration before allowing the user to run the application, or opening the customer's web browser to a registration web page rather than use the registration dialog. More options can be found in the Customer Registration Options topic.

What can be customized?
  • The "Click here for support" link URL can be changed or removed.
  • Anywhere you see "Demo Application" will show the name of your product.
  • The logo image on the left of the dialog window may use a logo image created by you, or omitted altogether.

Tutorial Completed

For your next tutorial, we suggest  Deactivating a License Remotely which will use the test license we created in this tutorial.

Optionally, you may return to the Tutorials Overview and select a different tutorial.