Software Deployment

Normally I'd use a lightweight snapshotter to record what happens. If the data is being recorded in an INI, is that INI in regular INI format, i.e. a section name in square brackets, a key name and an associated value? If it is, is the computername in clear text? If it is, you can add that information to the MSI using the INIFile table.

If none of that is true, you'll need to approach the vendor to ask how the activation is done. Sometimes, it's a switch passed to the main EXE or it may be a separate EXE. In either case, you could run the EXE in a Custom Action.

Yes, I used install watch to capture the changes during activation. That is how I discovered that the activation stuff was contained in the netcheck.ini file that gets created during activation. Here is what the file looks like.

[Powerword]
ProductServerTime=3E81493F47
ProductInfoSet=00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000842DE649000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000E0
ProductLocalTime=0000000000
ActivedUUID=A1BB4178782504CE7E294B26074AA558
ActivedUUIDHash=06043000220F000000000000000077303668

Normally I would contact the vendor but the packaging and and all the manuals is in chinese. The only thing that's in English is the name of the software. Their website is http://support.kingsoft.com I can't seem to find an english version.

ORIGINAL: joedown
Normally I would contact the vendor but the packaging and and all the manuals is in chinese. The only thing that's in English is the name of the software. Their website is http://support.kingsoft.com I can't seem to find an english version. Then I think you are, to coin a phrase, stuffed. You might want to try and monitor the activation process with, say, an API monitor to see if you can determine what function calls are being made and then try adding those to a Custom Action.