mlapworth

Yes, I think we'll try to do that.

OK, I thought that might be the case. Is there anywhere else I could copy the info to that could be accessed by all users? If not, I could always put it in a "registration" folder in the current user's documents folder, or copy it to the HKCU section of the registry.

Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate the time taken to ive me your considered responses. I agree with what you say about the honesty of schools / technicians / IT staff in UK schools, and I have had no problem with selling a version that didn't need registering at all. BUT what I am trying to do now is come up with one version of the TaskMagic exe files that can work as a single user, 10 user or site licence version, and that can be used for the UK as well as for other areas where I am told that trusting in the honesty of schools and their employees is not a good idea. I could carry on with the same setup in the UK as I have always had, but this would necessitate separate versions of the exe files, and I'm trying to make things simpler (for me at least ). "One potential issue I can see with item 2 in your list is what happens if staff want to use Task Magic on a computer that isn't always connected to the school network e.g. their school issued laptop which they almost always take home with them? Despite the program having been successfully registered previously, Task Magic will not work because it won't be able to find the registration data on the network." - My idea was that either (i) laptop users would install the software separately to their laptops directly from the installation CD, registering their copy directly via the internet, or (ii) whenever the TaskMagic programs are run on any computer, they will look in the specified location for the reg details, and if the same details are not already present on the local machine, the details would be copied to the local machine (to the all users directory, for example, or to the registry). Would that be feasible? This would mean that the reg info should always be present on the local machine. My idea is that there will be a splash screen - a bit like the one suggested by Arthur - which will say who the software is licensed to and what type of licence it is.

OK, so I've realised I can make an msi and keep all of the files and folders outside the msi, unpackaged, so that the whole thing can be copied to the end user's computer, modified as necessary and then installed. (I didn't know this was possible - - I told you I wasn't au fait with the installer side of things.) So how does this sound? 1) An msi installer that performs a per machine installation. 2) A configuration file that can be modified to include a network path to which all registration data will be saved. The default setting will be to require each computer to register while connected to the internet (so this is what would happen for example on a laptop not connected to the network), but if a network path is specified, the software need only be registered on the installation machine. The configuration file will tell the program where to store and look for registration information, so once this has been done once on the installation machine, subsequent launches of the program on other machines will look in the network location for registration information (which it will then copy to the local machine). 3) If the CD is set up so that the user has full access to all of the files to be installed, presumably this means that the same msi can be used to perform updates, simply by replacing the existing ones on the CD with the most up-to-date versions. Would this work? Or am I missing some fundamental point?

You're right that there's nothing that needs changing for the trial version. The licensed version isn't very different, but it would be useful if the end user cold modify tm.config before installation - that way the end user could specify a network path to which to copy the registration details when the program is registered, and I could add code to the program asking it to look in tm.config for the path for registration details. This would mean that the software would only need to be registered once (following installation, and while connected to the internet) for all machines that are connected to the network. I'm presuming it isn't possible to modify the contents of tm.config, though. At least, I can't see how the end user can do this. But if they could, would that kind of registration work OK in schools, do you think? A separate issue is one of updates. At present, updating my software means replacing the existing exe files with new ones that can be downloaded from my website. I've been told that this is very difficult, as it either means copying manually to each machine or writing some kind of script. I spoke to someone who said that what they would like to be able to do is replace the exes from the CD installer with the new ones and then run the msi again (or somehting like that), but that they had no way of adding to or modifying the msi... I guess I could provide the updates as a new msi. Do you think tha would be preferable? "2) School name and serial number are set via MSI properties. This makes it easy to add them via a transform file (MST) or command-line." - I think that this is the kind of thing that isn't available in my current msi.

Thanks for your replies. Your answers to my questions are what I suspected to be the case (but I have to admit I was hoping you'd come back and say "yeah, that's fine - lots of software requires registration on the net"...). Having one installation type that registers via the net would make life much simpler for me, but I won't consider it for the UK if it's going to put people off buying it, obviously. I am not particularly au fait with installation methods, msi installers etc. I'm more involved with the program itself, and I use another 3rd party program to create the installer. I believe one of the issues with the current installer is that it can't be edited in any way - there's no access to the admin features of the msi. (Hope that makes sense..) On the site licence CD there are currently 3 installation options - an single exe installer; a file with an msi extension which seems to contain all of the compressed content for the installatioin; a silent msi option with a 525kb _data.msi file and a cab file containing the compressed content for the installation. (The single user and 10 user CDs only have the single exe installer, with the idea that they should be installed on each machine separately.) I receive emails every now and then asking me to provide installation instructions for an RMCC3 network (no other type of network seems to require anything extra). With my limited knowledge of all of this, I thought that one msi was much the same as any other...

I sell a piece of software called TaskMagic. Installation currently does not require registration of any kind and it is possible to use a silent msi install to install it to all machines on a network (although not all schools are 100% happy with the msi in its current form). I am thinking of moving to a register online system (following requests from distributors outside the UK). The system involves the registration on each machine (once only) following installation and with an internet connection. Updating, re-installing the software etc should not require re-registering of the software. So I was wondering: 1) How many educational software titles require registration on each machine in the way outlined above? 2) How much would a system like this discourage a network manager from installing software which requires registration in this way? Is it the kind of thing which would encourage them to turn to the member of staff or department and say that, sorry, s/he is not able / prepared to install the software? I thought I'd ask on here, as you're the people who have to do the installation, and maybe you could give me some feedback on how you would like installations to be ideally. (If there is a thread that deals with this already, I haven't found it, but I'd appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction.) Martin Lapworth