How do I track vi installations?

[Kurt286]

I wrote a vi for commercial distribution, but only get paid when a copy is sold. What is the best way to track the number of these installations? Would this be some kind kind of license management software that I could incorporate into my vi?

[tst]

You could write a VI which will lock your VI unless it was activated, then use a number generated randomly or based on certain characteristics of the PC (like the windows key number) and run some operations on it to generate a key. Then, when someone wants to unlcok their copy, they have to contact you with the number, and you give them the key that unlocks the program by running the algorithm on your computer with the number generated on their computer. This should be enough security for programs with a fairly small number of programs. You could also try VIsecurity.com. This sounds like their kind of thing.