You cannot prevent copying anything.

If you are talking about allowing a user to install the application (contained on the CD) on only one computer you cannot unless you have some form of online checking...

As part of the installation of the software the user would need to enter a security code (serial key etc.) the application then tries to connect to a web server (your server) to authenticate the security code .... Your server will need to keep track of what security codes have been used and by whom to grant or deny the application from running.

Another thing you can do to allow the user to reinstall the application if they accidentally delete or uninstall it is to have the application send the serial ID of the hard drive it was installed on initially. That way as long as that serial ID doesn't change (ie. they are reinstalling on the same hard drive) then you can allow the application to run...

Hope this helps.

Cheers ....
G.

If I was going to attempt to protect a piece of software, I wouldn't attempt to put it on the CD itself, that won't work, I would probably avoid putting it into a setup process, I would put it directly in the application itself. Some sort of call home on application launch, making it part of an update process of some sorts.

CD copying can be easily bypassed companies have spent decades trying to prevent it and have failed, and most setup/install processes can be avoided or easily hacked. Having the process directly inside of an application although not 100% can make it much more difficult especially if you have some sort of self check of the program.

Keep in mind nothing you do will be 100%, if someone wants to hack it, then they probably will. The only way to provide really secure way of protecting your application is if you can offload parts of it into a web service that requires an online account that the application requires. then you can do all kinds of interesting things like subscription based or monthly billing

You cannot prevent copying anything. use another way like using web service to authenticate user or something like that

Thanks guys, i'm grateful

Hi,it is not right you cannot copying anything.