Disabling a development license

[emonk]

I bought a laptop, installed the LV 2015 Professional Development System on it and used it for a month.  Then the laptop's processor died.  The vendor wants the unit back for service with the OS drive installed.  That's fine, but I worry about someone swiping our LabVIEW license. 

I can't boot the laptop and do a proper removal but I could extract the drive and externally manipulate the files on it.  Does anyone know what files I could move off of that drive that would disable the development system and remove our license info, but make for an easy restoration when the unit comes back (assuming, of course, that I get the same laptop and/or drive back)? 

Thanks.

[aputman]

Is it worth the effort to do that?  Even if someone did swipe your license, wouldn't it be easy enough to prove to NI that you/your company is the rightful owner?  Just a thought. 

[Bob_Schor]

You know the saying about purchasing a computer -- consider Price, Power, and Weight, and you can optimize two, but not all three.  Same here.  In all likelihood, a reputable Vendor will not "peek" at (much less steal) your files.  However, if you remove the National Instruments folder found on Program Files (check also the x86 folder), that will do 98% of the work.

Note that if you do this and get the drive back "otherwise intact", the safest thing for you to do is immediately reformat the Drive and reinstall everything!  A Brute Force removal of LabVIEW (which is what you are describing) is rarely successful (I've failed numerous times, even when removing using "Add/Remove Programs", and have had to go the "reformat" route).

So my recommendation(s) are either "trust the vendor" or "Delete and later reformat/reinstall".

Bob Schor

[emonk]

Yes, there is a distinct possibility that I worry too much.  But after digesting the situation over a lunchtime, here's what I think I'll do tonight:  Extract the HDD and clone it to an SSD.  Delete the LV directory from the HDD and scrub the unused sectors.  Then, when the unit comes back, clone the SSD to the HDD (for a backup) and use the SSD. 

It may be more work than is strictly necessary, but, hey, I live for this stuff.

Thanks for the input, guys.