Jade installation and licensing.

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by kirsty >> Fri, 2 Aug 2002 13:02:18 GMT

We have recently purchased InstallShield Developer for use installing our product at client sites. I am curious to know how people have handled releasing their product, whether they have just copied the necessary files with their code in them to the client drive, or have installed Jade and then applied their schemas to the database.
If copying the complete files how do people handle the licensing problem?

I'd be grateful for any information people can give me.

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by allistar >> Sun, 4 Aug 2002 22:11:37 GMT

Hi Kirsty,
We deploy what we call a "blank system", which is a system that has
our schemas in it and has already been initialised (we have run
scripts on it that set up some default objects). This system is
already licensed (i.e. we have already used jadreg to license it).

We essentially copy the bin and system directories to the client
hard disk, and when they startup the application for thsi first time
it steps them through a setup wizard (asking them to setup some
defaults etc.). Our install shield application gives them the option
to install a server, a client or just ODBC.

This way installing our Jade based application is no different than installing any other Windows application, there is no schema loading
step as that has already been done before the install CD was made.

What licensing problem are you referring to?

Regards,
Allistar. ------------------------------------------------------------------
Allistar Melville
Software Developer
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Greentree International,
Developer of Greentree Financial Software. ------------------------------------------------------------------

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by kirsty >> Mon, 12 Aug 2002 14:12:50 GMT

Hi Allistair,

We currently wish to as you put it, to deploy a "blank system". The problem we have run up against is licensing Jade after installation. We want to be able to allow users to supply their own license key, and determine the outcome of installation in that way. Unfortunately having looked at the option of launching the command line registration program and passing it the license key from Jade, we can't determine the outcome of the licensing process from within Install Shield, and hence control the installation.

We have also looked at trying to install Jade, and then apply the schemas afterwards, however this is a more convoluted and awkward way of doing things, and we would much prefer not to have to do things this way.

Thanks for replying I have more of an idea of what other people are doing, and I'd be interested to know if anyone has a solution to the problem of licensing Jade during the Install Shield process.

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by allistar >> Mon, 12 Aug 2002 21:38:05 GMT

Hi Kirsty,
It is much easier to have your schema and all initial data setup on
the system that is on the cd. Mucking around with getting install
shield to do a schema import is awkward, and also takes longer for the install process to finish.

Is it not possible to pre-register Jade with a dummy license (that
only allows say 1 user) and then actually spawn jadreg.exe from within install shield right at the end of the install process (i.e the very
last thing the installer does). That way the user can enter the appropriate key.

You could prevent your application from working if it has been registered with the "dummy" license to prevent abuse of this system.

Just an idea, we only have one Jade license that all of our users
use, which make deploying less complicated.

Regards,
Allistar.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Allistar Melville
Software Developer
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Greentree International,
Developer of Greentree Financial Software. ------------------------------------------------------------------

[ConvertFromOldNGs]

by kirsty >> Mon, 12 Aug 2002 14:13:20 GMT

Hi Allistair,

We currently wish to as you put it, to deploy a "blank system". The problem we have run up against is licensing Jade after installation. We want to be able to allow users to supply their own license key, and determine the outcome of installation in that way. Unfortunately having looked at the option of launching the command line registration program and passing it the license key from Jade, we can't determine the outcome of the licensing process from within Install Shield, and hence control the installation.

We have also looked at trying to install Jade, and then apply the schemas afterwards, however this is a more convoluted and awkward way of doing things, and we would much prefer not to have to do things this way.

Thanks for replying I have more of an idea of what other people are doing, and I'd be interested to know if anyone has a solution to the problem of licensing Jade during the Install Shield process.