Go to Protektor using the following login information:

 User Name: protektor
 Password: Guu4araisar5

From the list of files available download:

• a special protectable vvvv build for the version you're working with
• for beta < 40: ProtektorV18.zip
• for beta >= 40: ProtecktorV19.zip

Using Protektor to protect your project requires just a few klicks:

1. Start Protektor
2. Choose a key consisting of 32 characters (or random)
3. Specify the directory of the vvvv version that this project is running with.
4. Specify the directory of your project
5. Specify the projects root-patch
6. Plugin a dongle
7. Press Protect

This will:

• encrypt *.v4p and *.fx files of the specified vvvv and project path to the Output Path (using the specified key)
• copy all other files (assets) to the Output Path accordingly
• create a file license.lix in the vvvv directory in the Output Path (which needs to lie besides vvvv.exe)
• burn the key onto the dongle
• create a file startup.bat in the Output Path that you can use to launch the protected project.

The project will only run if a dongle with the right key is present. If you need more dongles to work with the same project just insert another dongle and press Burn Only to only burn the key onto the dongle but not redo the encryption process (which can take a while).

Also you can disable to Copy Assets or only exclude certain files from being copied/encrypted to the Output Path during the protection process.

If you specify a Custom License Info you can read it out in your patch using Dongle (VVVV) as described below.

 .dll, .exe, .v4x, .xx, .ax, .ocx, .xml

Boygrouping

If you check the Boygroup checkbox, Protektor will create two batch files:

• startup_server.bat, which starts the root patch of your project and has the /server argument.
• startup_client.bat, which has the client option and the server IP you specified in the Protektor.

Not only the server but also each client needs a dongle (same key as server) and the same encrypted vvvv version. Therefore just distribute the entire folder as it is to your clients and server machine and start the appropriate batch file.

Using the Dongle (VVVV) node

vvvv only checks the right combination of dongle + license file once on startup. You have to check for the presence of the dongle periodically yourself and react in a way you see appropriate if the dongle went missing. Additionally the node returns the custom licensing info which you can specify when protecting your project using Protektor.
Dongle (VVVV) has the following pins:

• In: Check for Dongle
• Out: Is Blackbox Mode
• Out: Dongle Is Present
• Out: License Info

Notes about Paths

Referencing vvvv files in batch files is not really intuitive. Note that the file path you set for the /o argument has to be a valid path from the view of vvvv, not the batch file. That's the reason why Protektor uses the weird %~dp0 shell variable to get the full path of the directory where the batch file is, to generate a valid path in your system which vvvv can process.

Known Problems

• Protektor.exe will crash when run from a directory that has unicode characters in its path