Introduction

Sheriff is used by software publishers to protect their products from illegal use by ensuring that they can run only on machines for which they are licensed. In order to run a Sheriff-protected product for the first time you must obtain a unique licence key from the publisher. Normally this process takes place when a product is installed, although it can be done manually using the Sheriff Administrator.

A licence key is stored in a licence file on your hardware; because the licence file is bound to the hardware, it is not possible to run the publisher's application illegally.

To obtain your licence key you must supply the software provider with a Reference Code, normally displayed at the time of installation. The 24-digit Reference Code incorporates a unique digital fingerprint of the computer on which it was generated and the licence key granted by the software provider is also unique to that computer. If a Sheriff-protected software product is copied to another computer it will fail to run unless (a) the software provider issues a new licence or (b) an existing licence is imported from another computer or (c) the software is being run on a network and there are spare licences available on the server.

In order to run, a Sheriff-protected product must be both registered and licensed on the user's computer. Normally both of these operations are performed on installation but it is also possible to register and/or license a product with the Sheriff Administrator. For further information see the topic Registering & Licensing Overview.