vbpackage one time installation

[sujmam]

Please help us!
We want to distribute VB +access package to our clients and we want the following feature :
The end user should be able to install the package only once.
If he needs to do it a second time he should contact us.
and
once installed no one should be able to copy from that machine.
How do we do this
Immediate help wanted
Thanks

[Cimperiali]

-not the first part, but the second: making impossible to copy from machine- ...you could be millionaire...

[lsmeteor]

Actually, if you make your app heavily dependent on the registry and/or dll files, it will be very hard for someone to just copy your application to another machine without a proper installation.

Just look at Crystal Reports, a real pain to make work fine in the first place, I wouldn't try to run a 'transfered' version of it and not expect run-time errors.

As far as the one-time installation goes, if you mean that the installer should run only once, then I guess you'll have to create registry entries and check for those entries at the time of the installation, provided that they haven't been cleared.

There are licensing mechanisms that you can use to limit the number of times one can install/run an application.
Maybe look for 'vb copy protection' in google.
The one we use requires our clients to contact us to get an unlock code to activate the product.

[sujmam]

Thanks a lot,
Will try