Demo CD for Vision Appliation

[ST1]

I'd like to send out a (free) demo disk with an application designed with the vision development module.  Since the applicationdemo CD requires a vision run-time engine (RTE), it will automatically stop after 30 days (which works well in this case since its demo software).  But a savy customer could just purchase the RTE from NI and activate the trial version. So I'd like to require them to use one of the specific serial numbers from the RTEs that I purchsed from NI to activate the demo CD.  Is there a way to do this or some other way to protect the trial version?

Thanks in advance...

[NAKeel]

The license file doesn't run in LabVIEW, so there is no way to programmatically restrict the use of a runtime license.  However, you have some options for restricting use of the software.  You could use a timestamp function and restrict access after 30 days.  You could implement a password protection that activates after 30 days as well.  I recommend trying to use LabVIEW to ensure that your customers cannot activate your VI without buying the software from you.

Nick Keel 

Applications Engineering 

National Instruments

[wbadry]

You can also use a tricky method. Write a value in registry that is updated each time where user is running your demo. You can check the date everytime from the saved registry value and if user manipulates date you can suspend your program or make it expire noramally after 30 days :manwink:

Cheers