StrataFrame Forum » .NET Forums » General .NET Discussion » Licensing Manager applications for .Net

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Russell Scott Brown — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:15:31 GMT

Thanks. I will check both those out too then.

Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Edhy Rijo — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:15:31 GMT

Hi guys,

In my quest for Licensing Manager solutions I came across this product:

[url=http://www.interactive-studios.net/products/qlm.htm]Quick License Manager[/url] from Interactive Studios Inc.

I will start testing it this week and would like know if anybody have used this product?

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Edhy Rijo — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:09:23 GMT

[quote][b]Russell Scott Brown (07/02/2010)[/b][hr]Edhy, did you end up using Quick License Manager after you tested it?

Just curious how easy it was to use and if it did what you wanted....[/quote]
Hi Russell,

QLM is pretty easy to use and enough for most projects, unfortunately for my project I needed more control and by the time I needed to start implementing this, [url=http://www.softwarekey.com/protection-plus/]Protection Plus[/url] and [url=http://www.softwarekey.com/solo-server/]Solo Server[/url] which I already have been using for years came up with a native .Net support library and a lot more flexibilities than QLM, of course keep in mind that Protection Plus is a more mature product and more expensive than QLM.

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Russell Scott Brown — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:55:26 GMT

Edhy, did you end up using Quick License Manager after you tested it?

Just curious how easy it was to use and if it did what you wanted....

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Greg McGuffey — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:33:07 GMT

Sean,

Thanks for another recommendation.

For those who might check out this post at a later date, here are the vendors mentioned so far:

[url=http://www.interactive-studios.net/products/qlm.htm]Quick License Manager[/url] - License Manager

[url=http://www.deepseaobfuscator.com/]DeepSea Obfuscator 2009[/url] - Obfuscator

[url=http://www.red-gate.com/products/smartassembly/index.htm]SmartAssembly[/url] - Obfuscator/Optimizer

[url=http://www.xenocode.com/]Xenocode[/url] - Was Obfuscator, now App Virtualizer as [url=http://spoon.net/Studio/]Spoon Studio[/url]. Here is an article about this: [url=http://virtualization.sys-con.com/node/1437899]Xenocode Morphs into Spoon[/url]

[url=http://www.secureteam.net/index.aspx]CliSecure .NET Obfuscator[/url] - Obfuscator

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Sean D — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:50:17 GMT

I'm using [url=http://www.secureteam.net]CliSecure .NET Obfuscator[/url] to protect a silverlight application.
It accepts and xap as input, obfuscated it and outputs an obfuscated xap file. I'm happy with the results so far.

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Russell Scott Brown — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:02:52 GMT

Good deal. Thanks for researching this for everyone.

They are inexpensive as well, which is a good thing!:)

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Edhy Rijo — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:11:15 GMT

Hi guys,

It looks like Quick License Manger is going to be a winner here. I have been testing some implementation o a plain .Net project and so far so good.

Their product includes a web service you can install on your host computer or your ISP for online activation and many other goodies.

The control of the activation process is also pretty good and flexible for the developer/customer service. Still I need to do more in deep testing, but so far they have everything I need in a License Manager tool.

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Russell Scott Brown — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:44:10 GMT

By the way, Redgate just acquired Smart Assembly on September 1st.

http://www.red-gate.com/

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Greg McGuffey — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:48:14 GMT

I've used Xenocode ([url]http://www.xenocode.com/[/url]) to obfuscate my code. It worked OK. A couple of things about obfuscation and SF. As long as you have pretty granular control over what gets obfuscated, any of them will work. However, there are a lot of gotchas when obfuscating SF code. The primary concept to remember is that SF serializes a bunch of stuff as strings to designer. Things like the name of BOs, the names of methods, the names of enums, etc.

Because of this you need to make sure you don't obfuscate BOs (the class names at least) and don't obfuscate any methods used as fill methods with listviews or listboxes or combos. Also, don't obfuscate enums names or values.

Thus, it is very doable, but there is some pain and make sure you test the obfuscated version. BTW, I was doing this with ClickOnce...that was fun!

:crazy:

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Edhy Rijo — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:19:25 GMT

Humm, looks pretty good. Thanks Russell.

[quote]
Trent, since obfuscation is a very important part of protecting our SF applications, could you list what kind of features of an obfuscation can be use to successfully obfuscate an SF application?

I know there are features like renaming, encrypting, etc, and I believe Greg mentioned in another post that BO could be hard to obfuscate or something like that.[/quote]

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Russell Scott Brown — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:05:01 GMT

I'm probably going to go with Smart Assembly but I haven't yet tested it with SF either!

www.smartassembly.com

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Edhy Rijo — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:27:16 GMT

[quote][b]Russell Scott Brown (09/29/2009)[/b][hr]By the way, what do you use for a .NET obfuscator? Have you standardized on something already? I've looked at about half a dozen ranging all over the place it price. I'm having a tough time deciding what I will use in this category too there seems to be so many good choices.[/quote]

I have [url=http://www.deepseaobfuscator.com]DeepSea Obfuscator 2009[/url] but still I have not been able to make it work with SF, I get all kind of error while trying, it is next on my list to make it work after the Licensing Manager stuff.

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Russell Scott Brown — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:13:46 GMT

I will almost certainly buy AppLife Update once my trial expires next month and before their special offer expires for Strataframe users.

I'm going to check out QLM this weekend too.

By the way, what do you use for a .NET obfuscator? Have you standardized on something already? I've looked at about half a dozen ranging all over the place it price. I'm having a tough time deciding what I will use in this category too there seems to be so many good choices.

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Edhy Rijo — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:14:41 GMT

[quote][b]Russell Scott Brown (09/29/2009)[/b][hr]There appears to be some overlap with the AppLife Updates product at least in terms of checking for updates.... [/quote]
I sent them an email yesterday asking a bunch of questions about their products and have not received any response yet.

I have not dig into this product yet, even though I installed and yes it looks pretty good, don't know all details about the .NET integration or the check for updates, but so far I am having good time with AppLife Update.

RE: Licensing Manager applications for .Net

Russell Scott Brown — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:54:22 GMT

I have not used this but it looks like something I'm interested in for sure. It is definitely inexpensive compared to some of the other ones I've looked at.

There appears to be some overlap with the AppLife Updates product at least in terms of checking for updates....

Thanks for the information.