C / C++ / MFC

bob169721-Mar-08 5:52

bob16972

1-Mar-08 5:52

Assuming MFC...

Attempt #1: You can CreateEx() with WS_POPUP style but that will deactivate your app while the popup is up and your popup window will show up in the taskbar.

Attempt #2: You can give it an extended style of WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW to prevent the taskbar entry but that doesn't solve the deactivated application problem.

The solution is to avoid WS_POPUP and use CreateEx() with an extended style of WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW, style of WS_CHILD, and make the parent the desktop window.

There are other issues to contend with but that will get you a window that can extend beyond the window of your application.

Hope that helps.

JohnCz2-Mar-08 4:57

JohnCz

2-Mar-08 4:57

I do not quite understand your issue.
Indeed, drop list for combo box is a child of the desktop window. It also has mouse capture, to detect when it should be dismissed.

The point is that all you need is a handler for a command message with ID_HELP ID and command message handler.

Drop list generates WM_HELP message and the rest is done by a framework, resulting in delivering WM_HELP to a combo box and further as a command to an application.

JohnCz

Koder4-Mar-08 7:42

Koder

4-Mar-08 7:42

Thanks for your reply.

By ID_HELP, if you are referring to "I need this to work. F1.", please forgive my bad humour...I meand "I need this to work. Help"
$Shucks | :-\$ Blush | :O

Software licensing system

JohnCz4-Mar-08 12:17

JohnCz

4-Mar-08 12:17

Well, I took it literarily. Cool | :cool:

Koder wrote:
I need this to work. Help

Well, I took it literarily.
So, what is exactly that you "need this to work" then?

JohnCz
MS C++ MVP

Don M29-Feb-08 5:20

Don M

29-Feb-08 5:20

I am looking for a software licensing system. This is one of those systems where you register the product, and you get a key back, enter the key in a registration screen, and the product is enabled.

In our case, we're interested in this primarily for controlling access to different "modules" of a large application.

I have done some browsing, and it looks like there are a number of tools to do this kind of thing, including Protection Plus, Software Passport, and Encryptor.

Anyone have any experience with these or similar products? Recommendations? Things to look out for?

Thanks,

Don

Ahmed Charfeddine29-Feb-08 5:46

Ahmed Charfeddine

29-Feb-08 5:46

note that resorting to an existing protector can be bad, since most of them can be detourned using crack tools,hence so for your application security.

Bram van Kampen29-Feb-08 13:14

29-Feb-08 13:14

I am at the moment dealing with issues like that and have decided not to go down the road like that at all. I do not know how big or small your target market is, but mine is relatively small. If All small suppliers go to a big licencing house, it saves them money, and have the security of a Big House. Also, the Big House becomes a target, because it becomes worthwile for licence breakers in that one big efford will break thousands of licencing schemes. If everybody designs their own scheme, (and there is very good Public Domain (PGP etc) Software about that can be customised ), it will take thousands of individual effords to break the codes, and becomes economically not viable for the code breakers.

The rules are:
-Pick a Scheme, PGP, Blowfish, whatever.
-Learn How it works. (Vitally Important)
-Inspect for Backdoors
-Customise
-Inspect for Backdoors (again)
-Implement Licence Tampering Detection
-Inspect for Backdoors (again)
-Hope for the best.
-Sue.

regards, and I know what You're going through.

Rose | [Rose]

Bram van Kampen

Don M2-Mar-08 3:57

Don M

2-Mar-08 3:57

We're a very small company. I have considered rolling our own, but unless there's better information on how to do everything than I've found, I don't have time to do it.

Not only do you have to learn about an encryption scheme, you also have to learn about how to tie things to the hardware (drive serial number, or whatever), how to block debuggers and decompilers from running, etc. And you have to write the UI components -- the registration dialogs, the app that you use to issue registration numbers, etc.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Don

Bram van Kampen5-Mar-08 16:24

5-Mar-08 16:24

Well,

You Cannot block Decompilers, because they attack the Raw Excecutable. Decompiling is not an easy task however, and it would not be the case in general that an afternoon spent with your exe and a decompiler would reveal your code. It is typically ManMonths of painstaking research before decompiling anything gives results. The question is one of economics. How many Licences, how much each. how desirable is your target market, etc. vs the cost of many manhours decompiling your code. It may well be easier for potential competitors to write their own (after having bought yours) than to try and de-compile.

Debuggers are blocked by ensuring that your final EXE is stripped from all debugging info.

Unfortunately you will need some UI Components to let the user know that they need to register, and a method to allow him(her) to enter salient details.

If you bounce an e-mail to bramvankampen@aol.com, I'll forward you software I found somewhere to deal with DiskId's etc.

Bottom Line.: If you think it's going to be big, and that you could become a Worldwide Target for Licence Decrytptors, your potential sales will be large, and invest in professionals to do this in a bespoke way.

Regards Smile | :)

Bram van Kampen

Don M8-Mar-08 5:23

Don M

8-Mar-08 5:23

If anyone else is interested, Bram sent me some public sources that he didn't remember where they came from. But a quick google turned them up at http://www.winsim.com/diskid32/diskid32.html[^]. This is "DiskId32 (freeware): A Win32 Application and Source Code for Reading Hard Drive Manufacturing Information".

Thanks, Bram.

Don

Bram van Kampen8-Mar-08 9:53

Convert string to date? [modified]

8-Mar-08 9:53

Hi Don

Thanks for recovering the link where I found it. I found it quite usefull. The only thing one wonders is, will it survive the various Vista udates and upgrades in the future. It appears to me that it depends on a lot of undocumented features. By the way, one wonders why there is no Kernel API to do something like that.

Regards,

Bram van Kampen

Code Profiling

Ahmed Charfeddine29-Feb-08 4:49

Ahmed Charfeddine

29-Feb-08 4:49

I am using MFC in an application with a lot of lengthy operations.
Any body can help me on a good and easy tool for code profiling ? (I only need to profile regions of code, not a whole application.

bosfan29-Feb-08 4:11

29-Feb-08 4:11

Hello,
can i convert string to date, when string is in format: "Mon, 05 Mar 2007 12:11:32 GMT"
I try this but this dont work:

COleDateTime coletime;
if(coletime.ParseDateTime(L"Mon, 05 Mar 2007 12:11:32 GMT", VAR_DATEVALUEONLY, LANG_USER_DEFAULT))
	TRACE(L"KONVERT DATE \n");

Thanks for any help!
termal

modified on Friday, February 29, 2008 10:31 AM

jeron129-Feb-08 5:21

jeron1

29-Feb-08 5:21

see here for allowable string formats,
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/37t16xc9(VS.71).aspx[^]

bosfan29-Feb-08 5:25

29-Feb-08 5:25

Hello,
ups, looks like my string format is not valid!
Thanks for reply!

regards
termal

David Crow29-Feb-08 9:46

David Crow

29-Feb-08 9:46

If you are willing to remove the first four and the last three characters, it will parse fine.

"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it." - Ellen Goodman

"To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have deference for others governs our manners." - Laurence Sterne

bosfan2-Mar-08 21:25

2-Mar-08 21:25

Hello,
yes i do this, this first(and last) character i dont need, i remove them!

regards
termal

Bram van Kampen29-Feb-08 13:28

29-Feb-08 13:28

Why not write a small parser to do things like that. I wrote one years ago which still stands me in good stead. Apart from that I try to avoid as much as possible anything like COle... Admittedly I never had any use for the COM library sofar.

Regards, Smile | :)

Bram van Kampen

bosfan2-Mar-08 21:26