| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| vderelle |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 11:10:43 AM
Hello,
I work in IT at a big game development company. We've stumbled across a trivial yet annoying issue. We have systems which are used by multiple users who each have their own domain accounts. Every time a user launches Visual Studio they get a prompt to enter the registration information for Visual Assist even after VA has been registered with a previous user. This is a hassle for IT since it requires us to go to the workstation, locate the activation info on the network with our credentials, enter the registration information etc.. you get the picture. This happens often.
Is there anyway the activation can apply to all users who login to a machine?
Thanks,
Vincent |
| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Kakashi |
Posted - Aug 23 2007 : 1:15:49 PM
I'm not part of the VAX staff but like you I'm also an IT Administrator.
I would try registering the registration information in the Default User hive.
You can find it on the file
"%systemdrive\\Documents and Settings\\Default User\\NTUSER.dat"
Then, you load this file with Regedit using the "Load Hive" option, from the File menu.
If you exported your registration info as a reg file, you can then search/replace the registry paths in the reg file to match the registry path the default user hive was loaded (for example, something like "HKU\\DefaultUser", depending the name you choose when loading the hive into Regedit".
This hive is the one that is copied for the HKCU when an user never having logged on this machine previously logs on.
Alternatively, you can use a logon script to launch the registration reg file using the "Regedit /S File.reg" switch for the User Group using VAX of running only if VAX is installed on this machine.
The second way is probably the easiest since you can manage it centrally, while the first one has to be done on each machine.
Hope this helps. |
| feline |
Posted - Aug 06 2007 : 10:52:56 AM
This is an interesting idea, I have asked internally about this. |
| vderelle |
Posted - Aug 02 2007 : 11:17:33 AM
Let me first say that I appreciate the responses I got so far.
We purchased a license valid for 1400 users, we're definitely not exceeding this and got no notification from VA which would suggest this as well. We have about 600 employees, not all of whom are software engineers either so.. that's not a concern.
None of the accounts in the domain are roaming due to the size of various development related files that are stored locally in peoples account profiles.
Constructive Criticism: Perhaps in a upcoming release you guys could implement licenses that are machine in scope? Change the placement of the registry keys to HKLM instead of HKCU?
Thanks
|
| kevinsikes |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 8:16:48 PM
Vincent,
Since Visual Assist X is licensed per user, not per machine, it is appropriate for the IDE to ask for the license key exactly once per user. When the same user logs on again, VA X should know that the key has been entered before. If this is a roaming profile situation, then perhaps our third party license protection mechanism sees this as a potential license violation (whether or not you are actually exceeding the number of users for which you paid). Let us know if you are using roaming profiles and we'll investigate further. |
| feline |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 3:16:02 PM
I have just been running some tests here on a stand alone winXP machine that has several user accounts created on it.
The licence protection mechanism is a black box to me, but I do know there are two primary registry keys:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Whole Tomato\\Visual Assist X\\UserKey = <shows as blank>
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Whole Tomato\\Visual Assist X\\UserName = <standard string value here>
Logged in as user One I deleted the "UserName" key, this is enough to trigger VA to prompt me for the licence key when I run the IDE. Selecting cancel I then logged off and logged on as user Two, where VA is still registered and works correctly.
Apparently I was wrong, and have seen a form of this problem on my test machines, but had completely forgotten about it, since I hardly ever swap users.
Obviously each user has their own HKCU registry keys, so this pair of keys is not visible from one user to another.
Currently there is no way of automating entering the keys, or any form of central licence management, although this is something we are looking into:
case=4107
For now I am wondering if there is some way to "cross link" the registry keys, so that all users who log into this machine see the same instance of these two registry keys. This would mean that all users who log onto this machine would be using the same licence information, but that is not in its self a problem.
There is this sysinternals utility: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/Junction.mspx
which does a very similar thing, but it works on the file system, not the registry.
I wish I had a better answer for you. |
| vderelle |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 1:09:07 PM
I tried VA 1559 as you suggested and the problem persists. I authenticated to the machine as the local admin user, registered VA, logged off, logged in with a domain account to the same computer and VA asks me to enter the registration info once again.
Any other suggestions? |
| feline |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 11:38:35 AM
That is unhelpful, and a little unexpected.
Can you try upgrading one of the machines to VA 1559? I know the way the licence check is handled has been changed in this version, but I don't know if this change will help you or not:
http://www.wholetomato.com/downloads/default.asp
I have never seen this problem on my test machine with multiple user names, but the machine is not on a domain, so it probably works a little differently. |
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