Maintenance Plan's and tampering with them

[NewsArchive]

Hi all,

As no one seems to have anything to say about Setup Builder for the part 3
days which is NORMAL as after all there are NO BUGS in this excellent tool,
I decided to come jere between two fishing sessions and two installer and
updater modifications to let you all know about something I found and which
or course is NOT A BUG <VBG>

I was trying out my updater for DMC when to test various possibilities I
decided to invalidate an MP to simply remove a number at the end of the
string

of course the updater told me to return fishing for the proper MP

Then I decided to add an extra number at the end of the string and ..... the
updater told me to stay tuned because all was fine and I was allowed to
update the the last version

I was really astonished at such a lack of testing from SB and decided to
port all this to the "Times" magazine as of course I received not answers
(as usual from Friedrich)

The "Times" head officer sent me to the 2nd floor assistant who in turn sent
me to the 6th floor secretary who in turn after asking me wehter I wanted a
cup of cofee directed me to elevator 2 on the right after the end of the
corridor where I was taken to underground number 24 and that is when I
decided to stop asking them anything :)

So I called our new president who happens to be a mate of ...no not carla
..... but ok let's stop here all this useless blabber

It turns out simply that SB checking of MP's is so clever that it knows
exactly where to look in the string to find the MP

So it is an intended way of doing things and if ever one of you has the same
stupid idea than this Frenchman - crook to be - do not worry ALL IS NORMAL
in the best of worlds by FL <VBG>

MERCI Friedrich for such "way's" in your - again - excellent tool you let us
have !

Merci - Thank you

JP

Data Management Center
A tool to help you Transfer - Import - Export your data so easily ....

http://www.dm8.fr

[NewsArchive]

Hi Jean-Pierre,

Thanks so much for your kind words :)

--
Friedrich Linder
Lindersoft
www.lindersoft.com
+1.954.252.3910

"point. click. ship" - that's SetupBuilder 6.7
Create Windows Vista ready installations in minutes

-- Official Comodo Code Signing and SSL Certificate Partner

[NewsArchive]

Hi Jean-Pierre,

You may have a point but only to a point.

By modifying the maintenance plan code manually, the next time you open the
app. you may find that you have no maintenance plan at all. I think
Friedrich needs to incorporate a first-time block as well.

Sim

[NewsArchive]

Sim,

> You may have a point but only to a point.
>
> By modifying the maintenance plan code manually, the next time you open
> the app. you may find that you have no maintenance plan at all. I think
> Friedrich needs to incorporate a first-time block as well.

Could you explain this a bit more? What is a "first-time" block?

Thanks,
Friedrich

--
Friedrich Linder
Lindersoft
www.lindersoft.com
+1.954.252.3910

"point. click. ship" - that's SetupBuilder 6.7
Create Windows Vista ready installations in minutes

-- Official Comodo Code Signing and SSL Certificate Partner

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

Sure thing.

When SB starts up, one of the first things that happens is a check on the
maintenance plan. If it is corrupt under certain circumstances (I have no
idea what test scenarios are required) SB will message "Support and
Maintenance Plan out-of-sync. The Plan id will be refreshed" after which
there is no maintenance plan at all. Great.

However once SB is up and running, if a maintenance plan has expired, as
Jeanne-Pierre points out, if the user adds a character at the end, there is
a warning about the maintenance plan being invalid, but seems to allow the
user to update nevertheless. My suggestion (as was of Jean-Pierre) was that
the Web Update Wizard should be blocked immediately that the plan is deemed
invalid, not just at startup.

HTH ;-)
Sim

[NewsArchive]

Hi Sim,

> Sure thing.
>
> When SB starts up, one of the first things that happens is a check on the
> maintenance plan. If it is corrupt under certain circumstances (I have no
> idea what test scenarios are required) SB will message "Support and
> Maintenance Plan out-of-sync. The Plan id will be refreshed" after which
> there is no maintenance plan at all. Great.

This has *NOTHING* to do with the "subscription feature". It's a protection
feature in the SetupBuilder IDE itself to verify the license. I don't want
to go into too deep detail here, but this feature is there to protect
SetupBuilder. It's not something that is available to SetupBuilder
developers. If the IDE reports an "Support and Maintenance Plan
out-of-sync" then it simply means that the maintenance key stored in the
sb6.lic and the key stored in the Windows registry do not match!

Again, it has absolutely nothing to do with the "maintenance feature".

> However once SB is up and running, if a maintenance plan has expired, as
> Jeanne-Pierre points out, if the user adds a character at the end, there
> is a warning about the maintenance plan being invalid, but seems to allow
> the user to update nevertheless. My suggestion (as was of Jean-Pierre) was
> that the Web Update Wizard should be blocked immediately that the plan is
> deemed invalid, not just at startup.

No, sorry. This is *COMPLETELY* wrong. And Jean-Pierre did not say that!!!
If the subscription key is invalid, then SetupBuilder will say so and the
"Verify Subscription Key" function returns "3" (which means invalid).

The following return values are possible:

0—The subscription key is valid and not expired. If you check for Supported
Component ID, the component is available (enabled).
1—The subscription date has expired.
2—The subscription version has expired.
3—The provided subscription key is invalid.
4—The verified component ID is not available (means it is disabled in your
installation).

The "Verify Subscription Key" function will *never* allow to continue an
installation or update if the subscription is expired, invalid, or whatever!

BTW, it's NOT the web update client (wupdate.exe) that does the subscription
validation!

>
> HTH ;-)
>

No ;-) I fear you misunderstood what Jean-Pierre posted. I would suggest
to read the "DMC pb with Setup Builder MP solved - my code was wrong
IMPORTANT" thread.

Friedrich

--
Friedrich Linder
Lindersoft
www.lindersoft.com
+1.954.252.3910

"point. click. ship" - that's SetupBuilder 6.7
Create Windows Vista ready installations in minutes

-- Official Comodo Code Signing and SSL Certificate Partner

[NewsArchive]

Sim,

correction as my english seems to be a problem (or my wau of expressing
myself also) :

What I found and reported was that if you take any VALID maintenance Plan
and add 1or 2 figures at the end manually - I was trying to get an invalid
result from the VerifySubscriptionkey function in my script - then IF the MP
is VALID that function will return a 0 error because the MP is VALID

What I wanted to point out was that the function was SMART ENOUGH to check
what was the REAL MP and not anything after it

Imagine you send a MP to a client and he copy pastes it "including" some
other things from your email.....his MP is VALID but he "added" some chars
after then end of by mistake

You want your updater to tell him to stop tampering with MP or to pass as
valid (because it is Valid) ?

Well again that function is smart enough to do just that : report it is good
and valid MP :)

You are happy and the client is happy and SB is happy because their smart
function works perfectly <BG>

Now regarding your suggestion of blocking the updater - that is YOUR script
which YOU write who acts as per YOUR decisions as to when block or not an
update
before the welcome screen is my position and if the MP is outdated or
invalid THEN ONLY do I open the Welcome screen and after this a Dialog
asking to enter a NEW MP - this dialog again checks if the entered MP is
valid and if yes then it carries on and if not it stops there!
where I decided it to stop.....we use a function to check a MP it us up to
us to decide where and how we use it no ?

Hope this helps and is easily understandable - sorry for my tooo loonnnggg
sentences :)

--

Merci - Thank you

JP

Data Management Center
A tool to help you Transfer - Import - Export your data so easily ....

http://www.dm8.fr

[NewsArchive]

My sincere apologies to Jean-Pierre and Friedrich.

I had misunderstood the issue.

Sim