I am developing software. For some products I'd like to apply a time limited demo version. To achieve that, I'd like to apply a "simple" tool in a post build step to make the normal product a demo version.
I asked a similar question on Stack Overflow before, but it seems there is no possibility to achieve the same with Code signing.
The tool should
limit the time a target application can be started
- to a fixed date I specify at compile time
- or to a relative date from the first application start
- or to a number of application startups
(I don't really care about the trial model)
- run as a post build step (not require code in my application)
- not need a license key input like Application Trial Maker, since I don't want have overhead managing the demo licenses
- provide some attempts to prevent cracking (not only one indicator, e.g. use a file, Registry and alternate data streams) and survive a deinstallation of the product it is applied to
- run on Windows 7 SP 1 until Windows 10 (compile time)
- run offline (compile time)
- patch applications for Windows 7 SP 1 until Windows 10 (runtime)
- work with .NET applications (please also mention .NET only solutions, since that's my main part)
- cost less than 100 € (gratis / free / Open Source preferred)
- have lifetime license, no annual cost
Optional:
- if it uses online "activation" (runtime), the activation server needs to run on a Ubuntu LAMP stack. Please mention if online activation is needed. Since I'm not a friend of all that online stuff, I'd need to take a closer look on how it works in detail (which will not prevent me from upvoting though)
- the tool (compile time) should not bound to a specific machine (per developer license). If bound to a machine, there should be a clear way of changing the machine (e.g. when the build server is exchanged).