SoftwareKey Protection PLUS

Add-Ons
1

Has anyone used Concept Software’s SoftwareKey product to protect their Windows applications?
Here’s the website -> http://www.softwarekey.com/
It’s looks very promising, they wrap your exe and then when user runs the application they get choices to register or use on trial basis.
I’m trying to wrap my Windows exe [Xojo 2015r2.2 on Win7 Ultimate] using a Trial version of Instant Protection PLUS 3.
I get no errors when wrapping, and it runs their part just fine - but when it runs my Xojo application, I get errors:

  1. Common\Loaders\LoaderWindows.cpp:119
    Failure condition: bytesRead == mCodeSelection.DataLength
  2. Common\Loaders\LoaderWindows.cpp:123
    Failure condition: bytesRead == 4
  3. Common\Loaders\LoaderWindows.cpp:131
    Failure condition: bytesRead == 4
    Maybe this has something to do with the msvcp120.dll and msvcr120.dll Microsoft Runtimes?
    Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated!
    Thanks!
2

These are already in the Windows\System32 folder. So even if they where missing, it should not be an issue.

3

Hi - Thanks. I found that when I make a Xojo Windows Desktop application, inside the ‘AppName’+ Libs folder there are the MS runtimes! The application I’m trying to wrap also has a number of other dlls - like Appearance Pak.dll, GUIKit.dll, etc.
So, I made a really simple solution - just a main window - it only has the MS runtimes (msvcp and msvcrt) and XojoGUIFramework32.dll and no Resources folder.
I get no errors when using SotwareKey to wrap - but I get the same errors when running the wrapped app, Maybe it’s having a problem with the XojoGUIFramework.dll.
SoftwareKey says it should work fine with Windows PE files. Are binaries made with Xojo Windows PE compatible?

4

I had the same issue with Xojo and Themida. it turns that after statrting up a Xojo (Windows) excutable the executable reads itself, perhaps to load resources or as a validity check. You can verify this behaviour with executable compressors like upx, executables compressed with upx produce the same error. At least the XojoGUIFramework32.dll will compress nicely using upx

5

Xojo apps do some unusual, but not unsupported, things using the Windows API’s
Any of these wrapper technologies have to support those or you will certainly have issues
Few, if any, do

6

this seems like a xojo build problem
anyone found a viable solution for this?
do the xojo developers know about this issue?

7

Use AguilaPro. It is for Xojo. Search in the forum.

8

The AguilaPro site is down for several days.

9

How come ?

10

Now it works. Updating Wordpress finished.

11

Hey, never had a look at AguilaPro.
Would like to hear some experiences from somebody who’s using it right now, especially for time limitation.

12

The whole thing seems kind of flaky to me.

  • The demo is served out of a dropbox.
  • The website doesn’t seem trustworthy (I’ve performed quite a bit of research before making this statement.)
  • The unlock process is quite cumbersome for a product with no reputation.
  • The only person who seems to know anything about it has only been around for three months.

So yeah, I’d like to hear some experiences (or even see a screenshot) of it in action.

13

I am ready to excuse a bit of flakiness from people who are starting in business. Since apparently the site arrived at the same time as the announcement 3 months ago, I’ll suppose they are very young in the business.

I regret that the site does not mention any company or address. I was a bit shocked to read the site was “down for several days”. I would never dare doing that to potential customers.

The site is not referenced in Google, which to me would be the very bare minimum. The procedure is simple enough.

Providing a try-before-you-buy package is a good idea, but indeed, the dropbox thing is surprising for a web site, as it would have been so simple to place it on the host. The fact that it is a rar archive is downright gauche IMO. I am not sure an out of the box PC or Mac can unpack that without some doing. Zip would be much preferable.

All that shows some lack of professionalism. I will be nice and call that obvious inexperience.

What concerns me is that it is not an innocuous kind of class we are talking about. Protecting intellectual property is a major undertaking. If I was to consider ways of protecting my software, I would have a very long hard look at the company I will trust with that responsibility.

14

I used to work with HASP, Sentinel and Codemeter. These products are there for more than 20 years, but it’s not simple to integrate with Xojo and multiplatform.

15

And I found this.

16

Wow, the “secure order form” on that website is is a relic from the 90’s.
You actually need to type in what products you want to order. (it’s just like a brick and mortar order form)
Long time since i’ve seen something as old as this.
Does not exactly inspire confidence in me.
Hopefully the product is better than the website.

17

Is there anybody on this forum using this protection software at all ?

18

Well, I downloaded the sample, tried to run the example, and dang!

An error has occured while compiling this project. Message = this item does not exist File : RBXML Location : aguilafree.start

At this point, this is far too amateurish for me. Compiled with all the rest, it is a real show stopper.

Also, I am surprised nobody from AguilaPro seems to care enough to chime in. It is definitely not a good sign. I know they have the language barrier, but yet…

19

Think it’s allowed nowadays to let your desktop applications contact to a webservice every now and than to check the license criteria. For business-software I it makes more sense to get a monthly/yearly fee for the usage of the software instead of a lifetime license for software as is.
Lifetime license is doubtful because it nails down the developers’ intensive to continue improving.

20

Indeed today connectivity is assumed. Unlike ten years ago, it does make total sense to use a call home scheme for a per month or year licensing.