I'm hoping someone might be able to answer a question since I have no clue....I have an embroidery software program called Origins that uses a parallel security dongle (and was pretty expensive). The company decided they will no longer be providing upgrades., something to do with incompatibility issues with Vista, etc. They also no longer have usb dongles available to purchase and I'm sure there will probably be very limited support. They came out with another program that is compatible with the newer operating system and offered a trade in which to me and probably others didn't seem like such a great deal after spending so much on this program. Question is ..is it possible to create some sort of patch so you no longer have to use the dongle? I was thinking of suggesting this to them since I no longer have the option of purchasing a usb dongle and from what I understand others have tried adapters and they don't work. Would this be an impossible request? Thanks so much...
It's not impossible to do what you ask, but takes a lot of time...
Basically what's needed is to reverse-engineer the program and trace through the assembler code till you find out which routines are interrogating the dongle. Then some changes (called a patch) are made and HOPEFULLY, the program never needs the dongle again.
Like I said, it's a very time-consuming task, and NO, I am not volunteering for the job
Another option is for you to keep an old PC running whatever OS is compatible with your program. After all, if it runs OK on an old version of Windows, why do you need to upgrade, just for that program. This would tie up just a few hundred $ at the most, and meanwhile you can buy a shiny new PC with Vista (if you must ) to run the latest and greatest software.
I have many old PCs sitting around doing various undemanding jobs in our business. One is an old 386SX with just a Floppy Drive and 2 Parallel Ports. All it does it print invoices and packing slips so why would I need to upgrade it?
Yeah good point. Your best option is to either keep an old machine with the old OS around and buy new hardware because MS brought out a new OS...
..or you could figure out exactly what the software wants from that dongle of yours and emulate it somehow.
....although I'm thinking...can't you pass USB devices into virtual machines with Vmware? It would be cool to have your application running in a virtual machine. Some places do that although its obviusly not the most favoured solution.
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