Incorporating license key approach for a WinForms app

Question

I need some guidance on where to research further incorporating license key enablement for a WinForms application. That is incorporating those key concepts you see often such as:

• 30 day trial
• Need license key to unlock the application beyond this
• Possibly the ability to unlock power user functionality using this approach

What is the normal approach people use to achieve this? Is it possible just using VS2008 Pro edition for example, or are there well known libraries that help out? Would be nice to think there were "client libraries" out there that let you incorporate this relatively easily into one's Windows Forms app.

[Possible Duplicates]

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1424955/prevent-casual-piracy-for-simple-utility

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/60497/whats-the-best-way-to-protect-a-windows-application-from-piracy

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1275196/most-secure-way-to-license-software

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/501988/how-do-i-best-obfuscate-my-c-product-license-verification-code

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/599837/how-to-generate-and-validate-a-software-license-key

Answer 1

There have been many other questions on StackOverflow on exactly this topic. Please search in future.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1424955/prevent-casual-piracy-for-simple-utility

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/60497/whats-the-best-way-to-protect-a-windows-application-from-piracy

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1275196/most-secure-way-to-license-software

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/501988/how-do-i-best-obfuscate-my-c-product-license-verification-code

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/599837/how-to-generate-and-validate-a-software-license-key

etc.