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Product
Trials: Questions and Answers
How flexible is your software protection solution?
The main objective
in obtaining software protection is to sell your software, so it is
not surprising that the feature developers request most is a highly
flexible and secure software trial. Below are five (5) questions you
can ask yourself to ensure your copy protection solution is highly flexible:
| 1. |
Can
you control the length of the trial and if so, how?
Many solutions have only one option or allow you to set the
parameters just once for every situation. CrypKey offers complete
flexibility to set and adjust trials based on days or the number
of runs.
CrypKey
Instant* allows you to set a specified number of minutes of
run time. These features are extremely easy to set or change,
even by non-technical staff. |
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| 2. |
Can
you allow a client to have multiple trials on the same PC?
Most products identify the specific PC and once the trial has
expired, do not allow another trial period. This is fine if you’re
trying to fend off those that will try to trick the copy protection
by changing its date and clock settings, but how does this benefit
your honest, paying customers?
CrypKey-protected applications can very easily be configured to
allow up to 32 trials on any given PC. They may include:
- an extended
initial trial or second trial;
- trials
of additional options or features; or
- trials
for upgrades or different features.
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| 3. |
How
do you support trials for Options and Levels within our software?
This illustrates the frustrations developers are frequently frustrated
trying to allow existing and potential customers to try out or
“‘turn on” new levels and different options
or versions.
- a single,
easy to distribute trial version. One can then provide the
appropriate key to unlock whichever trial the customer wants;
- an extended
try or second trial.
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| 4. |
What
happens if my end-user or customer wants to back up his system
or reformat his drive?
CrypKey permits you to configure every version, option and level
of your software into a single, easy to distribute trial version.
You can then provide the appropriate key to “unlock”
whichever trial your customer wants.
CrypKey’s easy license feature uses basic security technology
to your advantage and will allow a customer to back up, restore,
reformat or reinstall software on the same PC without having any
problem with the license key. This saves your customers the hassle
they don’t want and keeps you from spending too much time
managing unnecessary support issues. |
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| 5. |
My
end-users are often very mobile. Can they transfer their license
between PCs while still protecting my software from being copied
during the transfer process?
Most copy protection solutions don’t support more than one
PC once the software is installed and authorized. This used to
be an advantage of the more expensive hardware, dongle-based security
solution (move the dongle, move the license).
CrypKey’s industry-first floppy transfer feature continues
to lead this process with the introduction of CrypKey eTransfer,
which uses a simple but highly secure process that allows your
end-users to transfer a license key from one authorized system
and onto any type of media. This completely disables the software
on the old system but lets the end-user take the license and install
it onto another PC with the unlicensed software installed. Done
in a highly secure manner, you can be confident that if your customer
has paid for a single license, and that only one user can run
your application at any given time.
CrypKey takes this concept to the next logical level and now eTransfer
also works in conjunction with Casper eRegister, Casper eCommerce
or Casper BlackBox. (Note: Developers must either have Casper
installed on their server or subscribe to a hosted Casper service
to make this feature available to their end-users.)
CrypKey eTransfer allows the end-user to “park” a
license on a Casper server and then download it from that site
from any PC with an Internet connection. This is especially attractive
in retrieving software authorization while at home, from a hotel
room or a remote or field office. *Not
available with CrypKey SDK |
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