Protect Inno Setup installer files

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lkalam
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2015 10:31 am

Protect Inno Setup installer files

Post by lkalam »

Hi all,

apologies if this is a duplicate - I looked but couldn't see anything related.

We distribute our application using Inno Setup installer. I would like to be able to protect the installer executable, but when I put it through Enigma, the protected executable complains that "The setup files are corrupted. Please obtain a new copy of the program" (which is most likely Inno's way of saying "I can't extract from this .exe as it's not in a format I recognize").

I would appreciate some advice on how to proceed from here!

Thanks!
Enigma
Site Admin
Posts: 2939
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:24 pm

Re: Protect Inno Setup installer files

Post by Enigma »

Hi, this is not a good practice to use Enigma Protector for protection of setup files. You have to protect the program that is inside Inno setup.

Let me know more details of why did you choose such way for protection and we can recommend you a better way to do that.
Ilya
Posts: 82
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2014 2:31 am

Re: Protect Inno Setup installer files

Post by Ilya »

Inno setup has checksum checking. You couldn't disable it.
Are you sure that you want to protect installer?
I think you have to protect the files the application, not the installer.
lkalam
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2015 10:31 am

Re: Protect Inno Setup installer files

Post by lkalam »

Hi both,

The application files inside the installer are indeed also protected using Enigma.

The reason why I wish to protect the installer itself is because it asks for the user serial number(s) and activates them using publisher keys, activation IDs for serial numbers, etc. which you understand I wouldn't like the hacker to be able to find.

Ideas?
Ilya
Posts: 82
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2014 2:31 am

Re: Protect Inno Setup installer files

Post by Ilya »

You must make this check in the application.
Anyway, you couldn't modify inno setup files, it has checksum checking, which can not be disabled
Enigma
Site Admin
Posts: 2939
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:24 pm

Re: Protect Inno Setup installer files

Post by Enigma »

You can develop a very simple dll file and protect it with the same project file as your main application. Then call this dll while InnoSetup installation (see how to use external dll in InnoSetup script). So while installation, the protected dll will ask for a key that will be also accepted by main application.

In InnoSetup you may call any function from the protected dll, like "check_if_register", and inside the dll, inside "check_if_register", you may call Enigma API functions like EP_RegShowDialog, or key validation functions like EP_RegCheckAndSaveKey
Ilya
Posts: 82
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2014 2:31 am

Re: Protect Inno Setup installer files

Post by Ilya »

Also you can modify sources of inno.
File /issrc/Projects/Msgs.pas seems contains this check
lkalam
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2015 10:31 am

Re: Protect Inno Setup installer files

Post by lkalam »

Thank you both!
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