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Hiding the MIL licensing process


It is possible to make the presence of MIL licensing hidden so that your customer can install your MIL application and not have to deal with the MIL licensing process.

One way of hiding the MIL licensing process is to purchase and redistribute hardware license-keys. You will have to purchase a hardware license-key for each application that you are distributing.

If purchasing and distributing hardware license-keys is not possible or preferable, there is a command-line utility, Gencode, that allows you to get a software license-key while hiding the MIL licensing process. Gencode is essentially the silent command-line version of the License item in the MILConfig utility. Gencode can generate the lock code needed to get a MIL software license-key, as well as register the license. For more detailed and up-to-date information on Gencode's parameters and functionality, refer to the Gencode help screen. You can access the help screen with the following command:

gencode /h

Gencode commands are case-sensitive.

Generating the lock code

There are many different ways of getting the information that the Gencode utility needs to generate a lock code. For example, you can create an interactive interface, or have a series of prompts during the setup of your application. If you know the hardware and the packages that your client will be using, you can build a batch file which calls Gencode with the predetermined information. For example, if you know that your client will be using a Matrox Solios board, you could hardcode Gencode's command-line parameter HardwareFingerprint to the constant that means Matrox Solios.

To generate a lock code from a hardware fingerprint, the setup program of your application must internally call Gencode as follows:

gencode /g Filename HardwareFingerprint Packages

Replace the Filename parameter with the path and file name in which to store the lock code. Replace the HardwareFingerprint parameter with the fingerprint of the hardware component you will use to generate the lock code. Replace the Packages parameter with the value corresponding to packages you want to license.

You can retrieve a list of available hardware, in your computer, that can be used as the fingerprint for the license, as well as their corresponding constant, using the following command:

gencode /i

You can retrieve a list of available hardware, in your computer, that can be used as the fingerprint for an upgradable license, as well as their corresponding constant, using the following command:

gencode /u

You can retrieve a list of possible packages, as well as the accepted values for each, using the following command:

gencode /a

Getting a software license-key

Once the lock code is actually created, there are some steps that must be followed:

  1. Your customer must send you the lock code, by whichever means you designate.

  2. Take the lock code and obtain the software license-key by contacting your local representative or using the Matrox licensing portal website.

  3. Your customer must input the software license-key into whatever activation interface you have created.

Entering the software license-key

You can activate your customer's MIL license by entering the software license-key with the following command:

gencode /r LicenseKey

Replace the LicenseKey parameter with the software license-key that you obtained from your local representative or using the Matrox licensing portal website.