Building in serial number scheme

[Richard D. Miller]

I'd appreciate hearing any thoughts on ways to build in serial number
protection...at least into one main opening stack. I'm not concerned with a
"foolproof" system (should one even exist!)...just something that will stop
most folks from running my program without a correct serial number. Is there
a "standard" approach to this?

Last time I did this (five years ago), I simply had a list of some 50
numbers in a text field inside the program. Users had to have one of them to
get into the program. Worked OK. Certainly not very elegant. Of course, that
means there were only 50 numbers out there, making it fairly easy for
someone to get into the program if they caught onto what was going on. But
for the most part, it kept people out.

Suggestions?

Thanks.
Richard Miller