Other than the windows registry where can I hide program information that is
hard for the user to find, manipulate or copy onto another computer. 
Thank you for your time.  Have a great one.

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Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 15 Aug 2004 04:49 PDT

John --

You can use the *.ini files.
You could use the Startup folder -- though that's trivial to copy.
You could use BIOS information or modify the BIOS (though the latter
is harder to accomplish).
But you might want to explain what you're trying to accomplish to get
the best answer.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Clarification of Question by johngl-ga on 15 Aug 2004 05:42 PDT

I'm creating a program to secure e-books.  When a book is registered
on a computer I have to store that information some place.  An ini
file wouldn't really work.

The best place is to store it in the registry, but you can create a
system checksum and encrypt the key.

Activation doesn't HAVE to be
hkey_local_machine\software\ebook.com\copythiskey "thisebookunlockkey"
it could be buried in there, but also in
hkey_local_machine\someotherplace\w31rdch4r4c+3r$ "MD5KEEHASH"

if "thisbookunlockkey" hashes to hiddenkey "MD5KEEHASH" then it
unlocks. Even if the unlockkey is copied, the keyhash may not be so
thoughtfully. It's possible to be found out, and people will, but I
tell you what, I'm a computer guy, I'd probably be scratching my head
if I didn't know that there was a second key to check versus.

You could password protect them or hide them with this
http://www.cursorarts.com/ca_fw.html