Release Version Restrictions

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Release Version Restrictions allow you to :

1. Limit future upgrades of your software.
Example: You want to sell a license to version 1.0 and allow the user to upgrade for free to any version until 2.0 is released.

In this scenario you change the current release version from 1.0 to 2.0 when you release version 2.0 and you would also set a maximum software version number of 1.0 for your 1.X customers and a maximum software version number of 2.0 for your 2.X customers. This would permit version 2.0 customers to run versions 1.X and 2.X, but 1.X customers would be limited to releases before 2.0.

Example: You want to sell a license and allow the user to upgrade for free for a period of 1 Year.

In this scenario you change the current release version before each build to reflect today's date. For example 2003.10.31, you should always list the date in year, month, day order so that date comparisons can preformed properly. When you issue a key to a customer you should set the maximum release version to 1 year in the future. For example 2004.10.31.

2. Force users who have renewed their software license to upgrade to a specific version

Example: You no longer wish to support version 1.0 and need to require all users renewing their support contract to upgrade to 2.0

In this senerio you can issue a license key which has a minimum software version release version of 2.0. Any users still using 1.0 will not be able to use this key until they upgrade.

Setting the Release Version

Thinstall maintains a separate version number specifically for licensing purposes. This version number has no correlation with your EXE file version, installation version number, etc. This number is only used by License System 2.

You can change the current release version by using :

Menu -> Licensing/Trial Demo -> License System 2 -> Release Version



The Current Release Version should be one of the following formats:

X - a single number
X.X - a decimal number
X.X.X - 3 numbers seperated by (.)
X.X.X.X - 4 numbers seperated by (.)

X must be a number between 0 and 65535.

For example, if you are releasing version 1.1 of your software enter "1.1".
If you plan to restrict software upgrades based on release dates, you can enter the current date like this "2003.12.31"

The current release version must be set before building an EXE using Thinstall. The current release version will remain embedded in the EXE and cannot be changed without rebuilding the EXE.


Restricting Release Versions

You can set the minimum and maximum version numbers your license key will work with using:

Menu -> Licensing/Trial Demo -> License System 2 -> Release Version



Note: When generating keys, you can minimize the length of the key by setting your version numbers in one of the following formats:

X.X (where X is 0-15, i.e. 0.1, 0.15, 15.15, 9.5)
X.X (where X is 0-127, i.e. 0.127, 127.127, 3.99)
YYYY.MM.DD (where YYYY is a year >= 2003, MM is 1-12, and DD is 1-31)

Example key lengths (note the last keys are much longer)

1.1 = qjxj8vvx41emacsfemq2vt7y
2003.10.31 = 2ws98tryf89qck8hqf3hcjvk

2001.10.31

= s4cmjrgjzb6ns5b2arpqhb2pkheh7vdxbad9f (long because year should be >=2003)

3.3.5.2

= 67envfns5gtt2t88z7cb7nwvqtncmjmty2g69 (long because four digit release number)

300	= kv3hndpwh2b2nt5g49py7aan9rhpssxmwc5v1 (long because greater than 127)