CHM OwnerGuard

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on June 04, 2012

The CHM file extension refers to Microsoft Compiled HTML Help documents. Armjisoft's CHM OwnerGuard is a comprehensive Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution for managing CHM files, encompassing security, licensing, watermarking, and distribution for internal company documents and other access-sensitive information published as CHM files. It's available in several versions to meet both commercial and personal needs.

The Personal edition is free for individual users. It can create and open DRM-protected CHM files, and it supports licensing-rights limitations. The license-generating and transferring features are disabled in the freeware, and its support options are limited compared with commercial licensing. CHM OwnerGuard Personal works in both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows releases.

CHM OwnerGuard Personal Edition shares the ultrasimple, wizard-based interface of some the software's other packages, except that the Serial Generation and Generate License Code tools are disabled. But aside from a very large button labeled Upgrade Personal Edition and Help and Exit buttons, all the controls are functional and clearly labeled. We could create a new project, view existing licenses, and import licenses from other computers. But by far the easiest (and most sensible) way to start using CHM OwnerGuard is to select the first button, the Wizard, which displays a helpful video tutorial for every step.

To protect your CHM files, you must create a New Project to have a local license to use. We specified our Time and Input/Output limitations (such as allowing copying to the Clipboard) and moved to the next step, Protect Your Files. We added our CHM files (you can add whole directories) and specified our output folder. Under Projects, we selected our newly created license. CHM OwnerGuard quickly created and saved our protected file in the target folder. We could also copy our computer's local ID or add a new one under the heading Get Licenses from Other Computers. Clicking Current Licenses opened a simple tree view of our existing licenses showing their time and I/O limitations.

It's clear that the people who need CHM OwnerGuard Personal Edition the most are those who already handle CHM documents at work, but it's suitable for anyone who needs it.