Bulk key details

Your price plans are all listed as bulk key generation. Can you explain so things about this ..

Bulk key generation is just a feature. Lets say you're shipping boxed software, so you'll need to make several thousand product keys to print on these DVD cases. Instead of paying some intern to press the "make key" button thousands of times you can simply specify how many product keys you want.

But you don't have to use the bulk keygen. You can make product keys one-by-one.

are the SN's unique to visitors?

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Can you elaborate?

are a user's account tied into their email account entry and is the email verified on each period update, such as when using a software rental model?

The email field is completely optional. It's mainly used by software companies that want to add a "Find product key" functionality to their website. If they specify an email when they create the product key (or add it later) they can then use the limelm.pkey.find web api function to get the associated product keys with that email.

It's for your convenience only. You can use the email however you want. You can also store addtional data alongside the license using the custom license features.

do you provide a wrapper for exe's and dll's if we want?

You mean like obfuscators?

I imagine we could also protect/prompt during any install or re-install?

Yes. We can help you integrate it with your installer if you want. Just tell us the installer software you're using.

What I meant by unique SN is that when a key is generated is it only good for that particular user on that particular machine. It was a pretty lame question to ask after reading more on your site.

So here's another one .. our software license is currently enforced thru a hardware key and code, and we allow users to install the product on up to 3 machines. Would we have to trick your system to enable a user to install and use it on 3 machines? BTW, our software is workstation based, though libraries can reside on server if a client is connected to it.

Also, many of our customers will at times use a laptop w/o web connection. What happens then? Do they only need web access to validate/update licenses?

Thanks again

What I meant by unique SN is that when a key is generated is it only good for that particular user on that particular machine. It was a pretty lame question to ask after reading more on your site.

Yes, product keys are hardware locked (like Windows 7 or Office 2010). That is, the user enters the product key, TurboActivate get the hardware signature of the computer and sends this data to the LimeLM servers.

So here's another one .. our software license is currently enforced thru a hardware key and code, and we allow users to install the product on up to 3 machines. Would we have to trick your system to enable a user to install and use it on 3 machines?

No, LimeLM and TurboActivate fully support multiple activations per product key. That is, you could create a product key that is allowed to be activated 3 times. Thus the user will be able to use the product key on 3 separate machines.

You can also change this number on the fly. So lets say a customer wants to activate on 2 more computers - you just find the product key in LimeLM and change the value to 5. Presto, your customer can now activate on 2 more computers.

You can deactivate and revoke product keys within LimeLM just as easily.

Also, many of our customers will at times use a laptop w/o web connection. What happens then? Do they only need web access to validate/update licenses?

Yes, they need to be connected to activate the product key. But there's a grace period (fully customizable in the LimeLM interface), so if they're without connection the can still use your product for N days.

Tell me if this helps.

Sounds good so far but more about the three machine licenses per user .. we've been using a key so that a user could not use all three machines at once, they need the key in that one machine.

Any thoughts how to overcome that problem?

Well, you could limit the activations for a key to 1, then let the user deactivate the key. That is, the user will be able to install on all the computers they're using. But they will be limited to having one installation running at a time. You could put a menu in your app to let the user deactivate / activate at their leisure.

You can even automate the deactivation directly on the shutdown of your app. So your user won't have to worry about forgetting to deactivate before using the app on another computer.

Does this sound like what you want to do, or am I missing the point?

I think we're on the same page here. Maybe I need to reassess that part of our licensing anyway. I see things being a mess for users to deactivate/reactivate keys on different machines.

I take it that most of your users license on a server or on a single workstation per license? What I'm worrying about is somewhat on the fringe of expectations maybe. Am I correct?

I take it that most of your users license on a server or on a single workstation per license? What I'm worrying about is somewhat on the fringe of expectations maybe. Am I correct?

No, it depends on our customer. Some use 1 activation per product key, but some of our customers generate licenses with 2+ activations per product key. This means that customers can activate 2+ copies of the software and run these copies simultaneously on 2+ separate machines if they want.

Is there a reason you're letting the user install to multiple machines but only run one installation at a time?

The idea is that our customer base use our app at home as well the office, and that often also encompasses a laptop too. With a hardware key we don't really care how many machines they use to be true, but 3 seemed like a good number in our license agreement. With a key they can only run it on one machine at a time.

This model will require us to change all that, as far as I can see. That was one of the benefits of the hardware key.

Oh, I see. You were using a USB-dongle, correct?

Yeah, the only way you'll be able to reproduce that ease-of-use is be automatically deactivating on app shutdown and re-activating on app startup. Or allowing the users to run 3 copies simultaneously.