Software License key collection

[flexeranoob]

I am wondering if Flexera  collects license keys from the registry. I am not sure why it doesn't.  It is extremely useful information .  IT can help you determine standalone license from network license. It can help you determine genuine software from counterfeit in many cases, and multiple other things.  Any idea, how this can be collected?  I looked at NDI files for some instances, and did not see any keys. 

Is there a way to force this collection?

[mfranz]

Hi,

Do you have any specific use cas ein mind, perhaps specific publishers? There are cases where licenses keys can help, there some where they're pretty much useless.

If you're running FNMS on-prem, you can customize the agent to collect registry values. Registry stuff can be configured in the mgssetup.ini, or in the BeaconTargetPropertyValue table, using the CTrackerIncludeRegistryKey key. This does not seem to be documented very well, but one of my colleagues tested this just recently.

When the data is collected, youl have to either ammend the ManageSoft Reader or create a business import to process the additional data.

Edit: Please note Joseph's comment!

Best regards,

Markward

[jjensen]

To add onto @mfranz comment regarding IncludeRegistryKey - a general note for anyone intending to use this preference with the inventory scanner or inventory agent:

Please make sure that you include the Uninstall registry key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\) as an additional entry after adding whichever custom registry paths you want to capture.

The default behaviour is for IncludeRegistryKey to gather data from the Uninstall key, thus providing important installer evidence data from Add/Remove Programs for Windows machines. Specifying any custom value for IncludeRegistryKey will override this behaviour, unless you explicitly include the Uninstall path in your list of entries.

HTH,
Joseph

[flexeranoob]

There could be a number of cases.  There are some software, where you can recognize the counterfeit by checking the keyvalue.  There are others, where you can differentiate between Network licenses and standalone licenses using the key. Different keys may allow for different number of activations as well. 

CTrackerIncludeRegistryKey  has not given us expected results.  None at all in fact. 

[ChrisG]

A challenge with gathering license key information from the registry is that there is no standard way that this kind of information is stored in the registry. Unfortunately there is no standard place or format for storing this sort of information (as opposed to how details of installed software are stored in places like Add/Remove Programs and the Windows Installer database for example, which are consistently used by most software of interest).

For example:

* Many software applications don't store license info in the registry at all.
* When license info is stored in the registry, it may be encrypted in inaccessible.
* If it is stored in the registry and not encrypted, where and how it is stored is likely to be application-specific as determined the application developer.

[sissonr]

Based on people's experience with this kind of key collection, how is the key typically stored after collection? Does the license need to be created in FlexNet Manager before the key can be stored?

[winvarma]

Hi, 

May be the requirement you have is something not in the product framework and its not designed to perform such tasks due to various reasons and its not the purpose of FNMS.

you may raise a request with flexera for this and if possible they might provide some support.

Regards,