Securing Access

[Jason MacKenzie]

I am working on an Access database that I plan to sell. Obviously I'd like
to limit pirating as much as possible but my customer base will be generally
be beginner level computer users so I don't want to go haywire here.

Are there any sites or can anyone provide me with any advice as far as best
practices go for this situation.

I'm not really sure how to automatically get a customer specific serial
number for each database for example (without doing it manually).

Any advice is really appreciated,

Jason MacKenzie

 

[Arvin Meyer]

Have a look at the Security FAQ. It may not answer all your questions, but
it should allow you to formulate questions that are more specific to what
you need:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;207793
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
Microsoft Access
Free Access Downloads
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access

 

[Jason MacKenzie]

Hi Arvin (and anyone else),

Thanks for the link. My question is more related to techniques to prevent
pirating.

I'll be deploying a password protected database using the Microsoft Office
Access 2003 Developer Extensions to create the installer. I would like to
prevent people from copy just copying the database and sending it to someone
else.

My basic idea was to have a table where I will store the machine name the
first time the application is opened and check the machine name against that
table each time the app is opened. That way if someone were to email the
database to someone else it wouldn't work on another machine.

Of course this wouldn't stop someone from just sending the install package
to someone else.

I'm just looking for some ideas or best practices to try to make people have
to purchase the product as much as possible.

Thanks,

Jay

 

[Arvin Meyer]

Using a software registration service which reads the hard-drive or MAC
address of a machine and send the proper registry code will accomplish that.
Try SWREG or one of the other services that does this.
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
Microsoft Access
Free Access downloads:
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access