Frequently Asked Questions

Can another software developer purchase Dinkey Dongle and re-program my dongles?
No! Each of our customers has a unique SDSN allocated to them. This is burnt into each we dongle we send them. It is also used to encrypt the SDK software so that the SDK is unique to each customer too. This means that you cannot access another customer's dongles and vice versa. For each SDSN we have a registered address and we only send that customer's dongles to that address.

Has anyone beaten the Dinkey Dongle system?
Whilst no-one can claim to have produced an uncrackable protection system we are not aware of any copying or emulating software that has ever beaten Dinkey Dongle. However, there are many techniques you can use to increase the protection we offer and we recommend that you follow these. More details are in our manual.

Is it possible to add protection to my software without modifying the source code?
Yes, using our "shell" method of protection you can automatically add protection to most exe files. Not only that but it also encrypts your file to make it much more secure and prevent de-compilation.

What is a Product Code?
A Product Code is a string that identifies one product from another. This makes it possible to have some dongles that protect one piece of software and other dongles that protect another piece of software. For Dinkey Lite dongles you need to specify the Product Code when ordering. For other dongle models you can specify the Product Code when you program the dongle.

Does Dinkey Dongle work with my programming language?
Dinkey Dongle is a very flexible system that will work with just about any programming language or even files that have a programming element e.g. Access databases. Please see here for a list of languages.

Which Operating Systems do you support?
Currently Dinkey Pro and Dinkey FD dongles are compatible with all versions of Microsoft Windows (including Windows 7 and 64-bit versions but excluding CE and PocketPC). Our older Dinkey range of dongles are also compatible with Linux and Mac OSX (Intel and Power PC chipsets).

Do I need to install a large framework or drivers in order to access the dongle?
Unlike some of our competitors you do not need to install any drivers or frameworks for the Dinkey Pro and FD dongles to work with your software. For our older Dinkey dongles you need run a small installation program to install drivers.

What if I need to send out an upgrade to my program?
You can protect upgrades to your software without having to issue new dongles or ask for the existing dongles to be sent back for modification.

What if I want to change protection parameters after I have sent the dongle to the customer?
All our dongle protection systems allow you to modify the protection parameters stored in the customer’s dongle by issuing the customer with a secure, once-only update code on a per-dongle basis.

Can I get full technical support if needed?
All registered users have full access to our technical staff free of charge.

Can I upgrade a Dinkey Net so that it allows a greater number of network users?
Yes.

Can I order specific dongle numbers?
Yes, for a small extra charge you can specify your own serial numbers. However, it is not normally necessary because each dongle contains a unique software developer's serial number in addition to the dongle number.

Do Dinkey Dongles work with PC emulators such as Virtual PC?
In general we cannot guarantee that Dinkey Dongles will work with emulators because for security we do many things close to the operating system level. However, we do work with some virtual machines e.g. VMWare and also Parallels (under Mac OSX for Windows XP but not Windows 2000). We do not support Virtual PC because it does not support USB devices.

If you have a question that is not covered above, please click here to contact us and we will get back to you.