WinLicense > Licensing with WinLicense

SmartActivate keys have the same transparency for the final user as Text keys but they produce a small registration code, which is suitable for many developers when they want to send their licenses via SMS, FAX, etc, or they just prefer a short code registration serial.

SmartActivate keys are given as a serial number in ASCII format. The SmartActivate key can be inserted into your Registration form by your customers when they are going to register your application. Once that the SmartActivate key is inserted, the developer will call the WinLicense SDK function WLRegSmartKeyCheck to check if the introduced SmartActivate key is correct.

Once that the SmartActivate key has been checked and it's correct, the developer can either insert the SmartActivate key as File key (calling WLRegSmartKeyInstallToFile) or as Registry key (calling WLRegSmartKeyInstallToRegistry). Notice that if you decide to install a SmartActivate key as File key, you have to enable the option "Single file" in the Registration panel and if you decide to install the SmartActivate key as Registry key, you have to enable the option "Registry" in the Registration panel.

WinLicense offers two types of SmartActivate keys:

•Static SmartActivate keys: They are SmartActivate keys with a fix and short length. These keys cannot include all possible license restrictions offered by WinLicense (like runtime expiration, country locking, Network instances, etc) and they are not as strong as Dynamic SmartActivate keys.

This is an example of a Static SmartActivate key: 77172C78-D80A4A04-1CD70B1F-493E5EC2-9DA63776-D530B309-07E0

•Dynamic SmartActivate keys: They offer a stronger security layer (based in elliptic curves and other crypto algorithms) and can include all type of license restrictions offered by WinLicense. They size of these keys are larger than Static SmartActivate keys and they are also length-variable (depending on restrictions inserted in the license).

This is an example of a Dynamic SmartActivate key: NF5M5RNA-SIYKK5VX-KQ7MM74D-GMU7FHFP-FUYC4AQV-AC7JLQDC-PWTYRM25-VEFT374O-XUV2PZGB-OQBBKAFH-OIIOYQBW-NR5L624P-Q2AZN7CC-HSCGEWIQ

Dynamic SmartActivate keys were introduced in WinLicense 2.0 and we recommend you to select them instead of Static SmartActivate keys, to get more security and flexibility in your SmartActivate keys.