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Hello All:

Our shop was using HPC MasterKing software. Very old version on a Windows XP machine. Well, the hard drive died, and we don't have a backup. Since I understand that locksmithing side, and I understand that IT side, I am the one tasked in resolving this issue. At this point we are considering if we should try a different program than the MasterKing. I have done a lot of searching, and there are very few programs that you can actually run in a demo mode to evaluate. From what I have seen it appears that the people that write this software understand locks, but know next to nothing about programming a Master Key system. So, my question is this: Are you using any program for creating and maintaining your master key systems? How long have you had it? Do you like it? What are the Good, Bad & Ugly. We will spend the money for a program that meets our needs, we just want to make sure that we can find something that others are using, and can endorse from your personal experience. We do the standard systems, Schlage, Kwikset, Weiser, but we also do a fair amount of IC Core work for Best, Russin (System 70), Seargent. Any thoughts, comments would be very much appreciated.

Do you happen to belong to ALOA? If you do included in membership is access to a couple of masterkey programs on line, free. What we use at my work was written in house by our IT department, so that does you no good. The sample programs that I have tried don't do much for me.

I'd say that, as long as you keep the system you guys are using off-line, just spin up a new instance of XP and re-install the same software you are using. Call HPC and see if they'll let you use the same license key as well. And this time, keep a back-up of your machine. It won't change you work-flow at all.

Yes we do belong to Aloa, so thanks for the suggestion. Of course the backup is going to be more relevant, and will be done now off site. As for spinning up an XP machine, I do IT as well, and with the fact that there is no updates, and so many security issues, I prefer not to do that. We are going to Win 10, so I want to keep everything all the same, but thanks for the suggestion.

you can run it on VMware workstation/player and turn off the network card.