Quick Start Guide - Manual Code Protection

It is possible to manually protect your application using the Code Protector UI. This may be required in circumstances where integration of protection/licensing with the build process is not possible e.g. only the final application assemblies are available.

This Quick Start Guide for new users will get you up and running with protecing your application using the Software Potential protection solution in 3 easy steps.

• Step 1: Setup Your Development Environment
• Step 2: Configure Code Protector
• Step 3: Protect Assemblies

Step 1: Setup Your Development Environment

Setting up your Development Environment is straight forward; however it is best done by a software developer.

1. Create your Permutation

To get started, you need to generate a unique permutation for your product. A permutation file contains a unique one-way transformation which, when loaded into the Code Protector, transforms the CIL of your assembly so that the protected assembly cannot be reversed engineered.

1. Logon to the portal https://srv.softwarepotential.com.
2. Select Accounts → Manage Permutations → Create Permutation.
3. Enter a name for your permutation and click OK.
4. Eventually (click refresh) the status field will change from Creation Pending to Done.

2. Download Code Protector and Permutation

Before they can be installed on your development/build machine, the permutation and the code protector tool need to be saved locally to your machine, where they are easy to find later.

1. Select Develop → Manage Permutations and select your permutation by clicking on the record in the table.
2. Download the Code Protector .msi file and Permutation file using the links in the respective Downloads column and save them locally.

3. Install Code Protector and Permutation

Locate Code Protector on your development machine and double click the .msi to install. Once installed:

1. Launch Code Protector.
2. Select Permutations tab and the click the Install Permutation button.
3. Locate the previously saved Permutation file and click OK.

Now that your Development Environment is set up the next step is to configure Code Protector to protect your application asssmblies.

Step 2: Configure Code Protection

This step enables both protection of your application with Code Protector.

To enable automation of the code protection step within your build environment, you first need to store the Code Protector settings in a SLMCfg configuration file that will be used by Code Protector when protecting your code.

1. Launch Code Protector. (You can cancel the login prompt as there is no need to login to your Software Potential account when just protecting your application.)
   
   
2. Select Project tab and in the right hand Settings panel set the following values:
   • Permutation: select the permutation previously installed in Code Protector .
   • Target SLP Runtime Variant: Set this to Standard. (Do NOT select Distributor or SpAgent options as these are not supported runtime variants for this manual process.)
     
     
3. Select Add Modules to add one or more application assemblies to be protected. The selected assemblies will appear in the tree view.
   
   
4. Open an assembly to view all the methods that can be protected. Select one or more methods for selecting. Repeat this for each assembly to be protected
   
   
5. Select File → Save As and save the Code Protector configuration as <ProductName>.SLMCfg file alongside your project file in your project directory
   (where ProductName is the name of the product containing code to be protected).

Step 3: Manually protect assemblies

To manually protect your assemblies using Code Protector:

1. Launch Code Protector. (You can cancel the login prompt as there is no need to login to your Software Potential account when just protecting your application.)
   
   
2. Select  File → Open File option on main menu and load the Code Protector configuration file (.SLMCfg extension) for your application that you created previously.
   
   
3. Click Protect button to start the protection process.
   
   
4. Monitor progress of the process in the Messages section.  Any errors encountered will be displayed here.
   
   
5. When the protection process is completed the protected assemblies, together with the required Runtime DLLs, are located in the output folder specified in the Code Protector configuration file.
   
   

The default location for the protected/licensed assemblies is ..\Bin\Debug.Protected or ..\Bin\Release.Protected depending on the build configuration.