Our company is using Advanced Installer 7.2.1 Enterprise, and I'm not a programmer or software developer but I'm given the task to create the .msi files after our developer submit his files to me.

This week we have integrated the Trial and Registration feature of Adv. Installer with our executables & it works well where on install it is runs as a 30 days trial.
After 30 days, the user can request for trial extension or upon registration, it will remove the trial interface screen.


So everything is working like a conventional software, but now the problem is we planned to deploy our software as a time subscription based software.

The requirement is :

a) Anyone is allowed to freely download the software from our website & upon installing it will run as a 30 days trial. (No problems here & already achieved this)
b) If the user likes it, then he can pay for monthly subscription where he is allowed to install software updates or newer versions for that month.
c) If the user stop subscribing, then he is not eligible to install newer versions and he will be locked out from using the software like an expired trial.

Some questions :

1) How can I use Advanced Installer 7.2.1 Enterprise to do this?

2) Is it possible for the auto updater to retrieve & post information for registration / license info such as key, name, company, etc to the web server?

The example in here :

www.advancedinstaller.com/user-g ... -info.html

is only for the GUI of the installer, but can the Auto Updater command line options or any settings in the updater.ini do the [HttpPostUrl] & [HttpPostCollectData] function?

I have read :

www.advancedinstaller.com/user-g ... ality.html
www.advancedinstaller.com/user-g ... ality.html

but without any example, I'm not exactly sure about the correct syntax to use.

4)Is it possible to have the trial.dll to check against a URL for extension? Assuming there is a serial number or trial key?

Hello,

Currently, Advanced Installer does not support this feature. However Advanced Installer 7.4 will include a feature that will enable you to set expiration dates on a license. This will help you distribute your software with a per-month license like you described.

The Advanced Updater only sends the license and the language id, as described in the updater license check article. The rest of the data associated with the license (name, company and so on) should already be existing on the server, in your database, as they were probably given to you by your customer when the license was sold.

Automatically extending trial is not supported. Trial can only be extended by requesting a trial extension in one of the ways specified on the Licensing Page.

This is what the registry entry looks like after installing & registering our software:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\My Company\My Software]
"Registration Key"="ABC123"

I have tried these commands :

1) "C:\Program Files\My Company\My Software\Updater.exe" /checknow "HKLM\SOFTWARE\My Company\My Software\Registration Key"

2) "C:\Program Files\My Company\My Software\Updater.exe" /checknow "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\My Company\My Software\Registration Key"

3) "C:\Program Files\My Company\My Software\Updater.exe" /checknow -licenseid ABC123

4) "C:\Program Files\My Company\My Software\Updater.exe" /checknow -licenseid "ABC123"

on the command prompt as well as the updater's Windows shortcut properties, but the our server side did not get any POST data, as reported by our server's collect_file.php script below; which did not execute at all.
There is no problem running our server's collect_file.php in the Internet browser, it does execute and the page will show "Array ()" message.

Which is the correct syntax to use since I can't find any practical example anywhere in the documentation or forum, or is this feature broken?

I have included these files which I used below.

Updater.ini :

[General]
URL=my.company.com/softwareupdates.ini
ApplicationName=My Software
ID={BC4320A4-1A06-4FF8-AC39-6112A6012784}
DownloadsFolder=C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Application Data\\My Company\My Software\updates\
AppDir=C:\Program Files\My Company\My Software\
CheckFrequency=1
CompanyName=My Company


my.company.com/softwareupdates.ini :

;aiu;

[General]
LicenseIdCheckURL=my.company.com/collect_file.php

[Update]
Name=My Software 2.0
URL=my.company.com/MySoftware2.0.msi
Size=2712576
ReleaseDate=14/01/2010
MD5=101b72b1dbd3a39a1bd27b62a98f1bbf
ServerFileName=MySoftware2.0.msi
Flags=SilentInstall
FilePath=[{E7BE0CF1-15DC-444E-8115-9167B928564F}{32C0AEA5-A921-4662-9017-6BDBC9218A46}]
Version=2.0

my.company.com/collect_file.php :


<?php

// test if there is any information to collect
if(!isset($_POST))
die();

$serverAppDir = @dirname(__FILE__) . &#039;/&#039;;
$installLog = $serverAppDir . &#039;installs/users.log&#039;;

// create directory, if not present
@mkdir(@dirname($installLog));

// open file in "append" mode (create if not exists)
if(!$handle = @fopen($installLog, &#039;a&#039;))
{
//echo "Cannot open file ($installLog)";
die();
}

// create install information record
$content = print_r($_POST, true) . "\n";

// log collected information
if(!@fwrite($handle, $content))
{
//echo "Cannot write to file ($installLog)";
}

// close file handle
@fclose($handle);

// optionally, emit a server response
echo $content;

?>

Refer www.advancedinstaller.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10356 for more post