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Prepared By Daniel Hyles and John Liu
Subject SSW Registration .NET
Date 16/01/2003, 13/03/2002, 14/03/2002
Registration
  1. New Look
  2. Versions
  3. Key Features and Benefits
  4. Developer notes and implementation
  5. How to reset the registration usage information
  6. How to register the product (internal use only)
  7. How to register the product (external)
  8. How do I extend user's evaluation period for another 7 days or 10 uses?
  9. What does the Website/Registration automate?
  10. How does the auto registration work?
  11. The following are some weakness with the registration dll
  12. How do I give away free versions for Journalists?
  13. How do I give away free versions in Magazines?
  14. What happens when our products are bought through Resellers?

  1. New Look of SSW Registration Wizard


    Registration Wizard
    Figure: New look of the main page

    More screen captures


  2. Versions


    Version Date Updated Changes
    1.0 14/03/2002 JL, JHL First Release
    2.0 16/01/2003 DH Major changes. Added all info about how to use DLL and ways to get around it
    2.1 31/01/2003 RAD Changed the image for adding a project reference to SSWRegistration2002; Added section 'Before Releasing your Program'; Small changes
    3.0 23/02/2004 DH Added all the auto registration functionality
    3.1 23/05/2005 DH Updated to use new database tables for prod name
    3.25 21/07/2005 DH First relese of new version

  3. Key Features & Benefits

    Since .NET and Web Services became available, we wanted to revisit our problem of registering software that people download from our website. The New Registration DLL uses this technology to incorporate our database with client registrations and trials while making it fail safe and easy to debug.

  4. Developer notes and implementation

    For developers please read the Registration for SSW Developers page
     

  5. How to reset the registration usage information


    To reset furiously double click around the area marked by the red dot
    Reset

    A message box will be displayed confirming that you want to reset the trail.

  6. How to register the product (internal use only)

    Add a dummy invoice to the SSW user in TimePro for this product and then login with your email address and password (preferred)

    OR

    To register the product enter rekcolnu (unlocker backwards) in the Registration Key field, press [Ctrl] and ] , and then right click on the Options label of the window title "Registration Options" at the top 6 times until the registration Key field changes to the unlock code. Click 'Next' to complete the process.

    Register

    More screen shots in the User Guide.

  7. How to register the product (external)

    Once the customer has a a paid invoice they are able to register the product via the web by simply entering their email address and password.

    The client picks the Register Now option
    Existing client option

    They then select the "existing client" option and click Next
    Existing client option

    The client will then need to type in their email address and password and click Next
    Enter email

    The registration will check SSWData2000 database through Registration Web Services and activate the product.

    Refer to the "How does the auto registration work?" section for any registration problems.

     

    If the user does not have an Internet connection then as an absolute last resort you can use the Unlock program.

    SSWRegistrationUnlocker.exe
    SSW registration Unlocker

    If the product name is not found in the list then click on the Refresh List button to get any new product names from our database.

    Please Note: You may have to copy the Unlocker directory to your computer so you have permissions to refresh the product list.

    Please Note: You can only give a client ONE temporary key. Once they have used it they cannot get another one.

  8. How do I extend user's evaluation period for another 7 days or 10 uses?   

    Temp key can only extend user's evaluation period once, therefore we cannot issue another temp key for the same user after the initial one, which is not good.

    From version 3.13, you can use web service and Time PRO client diary to extend user's evaluation period for multiple times. In order to use this function, user need to have an entry in Client table (normally when user download the software, a new entry will be created).

    To do this, you need to find the client record in Time PRO and click on "Dairy" button on the top:
    Dairy

    then, add new diary record and choose the category "Registration Trial Can Be Extended" :
    Trail Extension

    On the client side, they need to use "existing client" option
    Existing client option

    Then, the client need to type in his email address and password:
    Enter email

    The registration will check SSWData2000 database through Registration Web Services, because we have already add the diary record to enable extension for this user, his product trail will be extended.

    After the user extends evaluation, the record in client's diary will be replaced with another record, saying "Registration Trial Extended (WWW)", then we know his evaluation extension has been done.
    Trail Extended

    For multiple extensions, you just need to add another "Registration Trial Can Be Extended" record in the client's diary.

    Note: After the client extend his evaluation for the 1st time, a temp key will be added into his local registry and any temp key will return a "Invalid key" error message.

  9. What does the Website/Registration automate?

    • Creates the client if one doesn't already exist
    • Creates the invoice
    • Emails info@s*w.com.au about the new invoice telling you to process it
          Admin guy then processes this invoice manually
    • You process it then reply to customer telling them to:
          Install the software if it is not already (chances are it is as they purchased the software though it)
          Tell them to open up the software package and click on "Register Now"
          The user then selects the existing client option and then enters in their email address and password
          The system will detect that that client has purchased the product and will register the product automatically

    Note: If they dont have Internet Access then the user will have to go though the old process:

    • They click Register
    • They email us their PC ID
    • We email them their Unlock ID"
    • They open the product
    • They click Help - Register Now
    • They enter the Unlock ID

     

  10. How does the auto registration work?

    Users now have the option to auto register their program.

    When they do this a couple things get checked:
    1) Did that user purchase that product?
    2) Are they installing a new version and if so have their free upgrade time expired?
    3) Has the user registered too many times this month?

    1) Did that user purchase that product?

    This will look for a invoice for that client for that ProdCategory.

    Extension of Use

    2) Are they installing a new version and if so have their free upgrade time expired?

    We give them 6 months of free upgrades. This is judged by the 'DateCreated' of the invoice for the product. You can extend this for a client by altering this field. After this period and the user tried to upgrade or install a newer version that they had previously installed before this timeout period then they will be denied. The user has the option to continue and purchase a 'maintenance' product with will allow the user to have another 12 months of upgrades.

    Purchase again

    3) Has the user registered too many times this month?

    This functionality was introduced so we can monitor and try to control warez keys floating around the Internet.
    We are allowing the client to register the product as many times as they have licenses for with an additional 2 times every month.
    So if I have 2 licenses i can register it 4 times per month.
    Every purchase counts for 1 license except if it is a enterprise product then the purchase will account for 100 licenses.
    Every time a client updates the application, or registers a new application on a new machine, a new entry is made in the ClientDiary table.

    Auto Registration

  11. The following are some weakness with the registration dll

    1) What is SSW goes broke?
    Problem: If SSW goes broke then our web service will stop and clients will be unable to register their product.
    Solution: Buy source code.

    2) I don't have the original image that I had when I purchased the software. Now I cannot register the latest version!
    Problem: If you try to register a product after 12 months after the date of purchase then you will be denied and prompted to purchase a upgrade. We don't keep previous versions of our product so we cannot supply you with a working version. You should have kept the download.
    Solution:: If they complain then go to their tags in TimePro! and add a 'PRDUPD' tag with the current version of the product. This will allow the user to register the current version and you have now given them warning regarding keeping the download.

  12. How do I give away free versions for Journalists?

    All you have to do is make a dummy invoice for the person for that product and they will be able to register the product.

    If you want to give them 3 months of upgrades then all you have to do is change the DateCreated of the invoice for the product to a date 9 months prior to the current date. (The rego dll gives them 12 months of upgrades. So by changing the DateCreated to a earlier date their upgrade period is reduced).

  13. How do I give away free versions in Magazines?

    At times we give away free copies of our software as part of a magazine promotion or some other promotion. When this happens we supply eligible persons with a code. More information about our INETA and Practical Web Projects promotions can be found here:
    http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/Products/Pwpmag.aspx and http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/Products/Ineta.aspx

  14. What happens when our products are bought through Resellers?

    Each product registration is attached to a client ID. This means, the reseller who bought the product, has the product and its invoice attached to their client ID. To correct this and hand over the registration to the 'real' purchaser, you need to alter invoices. Once the invoice is paid:

    Step 1: Set the date back one year so they cannot activate the software themselves. Put in the notes field that they are a reseller, the invoice was changed to avoid them being able to activate the software themselves and getting a free copy.

    Step 2: Ensusre you have full details of the company that will be the registering company (not the reseller). If they have not registered with SSW yet, create a Client ID and fill in the details. Make sure you know which person is going to be registering the software and make them the main contact with their email address.

    Step 3: Create the registering company an invoice for the product that the reseller purchased for them and set it to zero ($0)

    Step 4: To register, the company will need to know the email the product is now bought under, as well as the password that was generated to unlock the registration keys. Provide this information over the phone if possible to avoid sendoing sensitive information via email. If this is unavoidable, send the email and password to the one main contact who will be the one registering the software.