Software Deployment

Hi rodina,

If u just want the corresponding registry entry to b deleted then u can just exclude that specific registry after setupcapture is over.

If a vendor is that well on top of their licensing I doubt there is a way around it at all - let alone an easy way.

We have a few apps here which setup licensing based on things such as HDD serial number and network card MAC address etc and there is not usually anyway around it with packageing - leaving the users (or an IT guy!) to get it activated once it's installed.

This will be the case whether you install it manually or repackage the product install into an MSI and deploy it centrally. Network licensing is the way forward but if the vendor doesn't offer it then I guess you are stuck...

Regards,
Rob.

If you can figure out how the license is tied in, then you're 95% of the way there. You can always make a custom action to reproduce it, VB Script, JScript, etc. Then again, the license stuff is often so difficult to reverse engineer (by design) that it is more cost effective to do it manually. If you can figure out exactly what you need to do, congratulations. It's usually not as simple as it appears.

A few ways to try:

Take snapshots of the licensing process on several different machines. This will tell you what remains static and what is machine specific.

Use a Win Spy utility to see all the WMI calls processed by Windows during the licencing step. You'll get a haystack of data with a needle sized solution buried in it.

I can second what Viking and MSI said. If it's set up like that, you really don't want to mess about with repackaging it. I've tried it, believe me. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Hardly ever worth the time it takes. Most of these types of apps don't have tons of users anyway so it's not a real big deal to do a manual install.