Integrating The SoftwareShield ClientProtector™ Into Your Software

The ClientProtector is a COM server DLL. To link to the ClientProtectorCOM.dll, your application installer must distribute and register the DLL along with your application and license and any other supporting files your license may need.

The first step to using the ClientProtector in your application is always to create an instance of the component in memory. Your application must do this immediately upon starting and before trying to use it - just like any other COM server or component.

When you compile your license the SoftwareShield License Manager writes sample code for you in three different languages (C++, VB and Delphi) that allows you to get a quick start integrating the ClientProtector into your application.

In the simplest of cases the code required to enforce your license using the ClientProtector in your application is just a few lines. All the logic for enforcing a license is already inside the ClientProtector. Naturally, the more complex you design your license to be, the more code will be required between your software and the ClientProtector.

A high-level view of the steps for integrating the ClientProtector into your software follows:

1. Simply reference the ClientProtector component in your development environment the way you normally would reference any other COM server DLL.
2. Declare (and instantiate) an instance of the ClientProtectorCOM component.
3. Use the component.
4. Un-initialize or free memory when you are done.

That's all there is to it.