I'm not a developer, but have been around Excel NGs for many years. And I
can tell you that most "real" Excel developers rely primarily on the honor
of the general public.

There is no good way to protect any Excel-based program from unethical
users. You have to deem it a cost of doing business.

Additionally, I find that those who post questions about "protecting" their
programs have a highly inflated view of the value of the same.

Just my $0.02.

--

Vasant



"William Benson" wrote in message
...
I am more optimistic that controlling the distribution / the integrity of
the code would be more a business software developers concern, than people
not paying the licensing fee. And even where we've come to expect no honor
in the population at large - downloaded music - I just read tonight that
iTunes downloads has eclipsed P2P music downloads.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...08/bs_nf/36124

Would any of the developers in this forum care to share their thoughts for
naive souls like myself to learn from?

Thanks...



"Dave Peterson" wrote in message
...
You might be able to put something into the windows registry and check
it
when
you open the workbook.

But if you can put it there, then anyone can clean it up. So it's not
foolproof.

Look in VBA's help for GetSetting and SaveSetting for examples.

But this would also depend on having your project protected--and that
protection
can be bypassed pretty quickly.



Ashman wrote:

Hi all,

I have developed a spreadsheet that I am planning on selling. I am
offering
a free trial of my spreadsheet, and after 30 days, it lock the user
out.
This does not stop the user from downloading another version.

Is there anything in excel or some coding that will remember if someone
has
downloaded the trial version before?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Jason

--

Dave Peterson