Lock down windows/PC

yop

Guys,
I sell PC's and provide a credit facility of 30 days. In the last 6 months I have lost 2 PC's to people but instead of 100% removing the facility as it does have more pro's than con's is there a way to put a 30 day access on the PC or the OS?

I am a programmer so MAYBE i am in the wrong forum but is there a way to do this say in Windows normal and safe mode?

I was thinking of writing an app that runs on startup, after 30 days it locks windows and requires a activation key, if they dont have the key they can't access windows, but this maybe open to clever people getting in,

Thanks

Stephen

Anyone with a little bit of technical ability could just format the disk and install their own OS. I don't see any way to prevent that in software.

ronkmonster

you could reinstall the OS on the pc yourself and don't activate it.

take any stickers off the pc with the product key.

then only activate after receiving payment.

Capt'n Midnight

you'd have to lock down the BIOS to stop it booting from Floppy , CD, USB , etc. but too easy to bypass this to bother.

there are apps you can get to phone home, but not really worth unless you have a high rate, if you had an ftp server or mail server you could have an app write the IP to them, but messy on privacy and not much an individual can do with just an IP





Another option would be to name and shame, local ads or shop windows, small claims court

ronkmonster

cant lock down a PCs bios until after they don't pay and by then he'd have no access.

you could write a call home program and have a kill switch in it.

but really you should be repossessing the PCs. not sure the procedure.

activation would work but there are cracks that bypass that, but non IT people might not be aware. just reduce credit to 28 days, and that gives you 2 days to go activate/email the product key to them