As you might know, parts of the core code of our commercial products OXID eShop Enterprise and Professional Edition are encrypted using the application Zend Guard. Technically, this encryption is embedded in our continuous integration process that at least runs every time we prepare a new OXID eShop release. With the existing Zend Guard v6 we could support the encryption for PHP versions 5.3 and 5.4 so far; an encryption for higher PHP versions wasn’t possible with this version of Zend Guard.
However, PHP 5.3 has reached his end of lifetime in summer last year, and PHP 5.4’s EOL will follow shortly (although I am afraid both series will be used by most of the hosting providers much longer…) That’s why we got a lot of requests by integration partners and clients to support the present PHP versions, and finally, on 1st of April in this year (no folly!), Zend came up with Zend Guard version 7, ready to encrypt files for use with PHP 5.5 and 5.6.
We immediately embedded Zend Guard version 7 for PHP 5.5 and 5.6 into our continuous integration process during one of the last sprints, and theoretically were able to deliver from OXID eShop versions 5.2.4 (Enterprise) and 4.9.4 (Professional) on.
Alone, we didn’t have a chance to test extensively. So if you need to have an OXID eShop version Enterprise or Professional Edition prepared for use with PHP 5.5 or 5.6 at the moment, please turn to our support team that will be happy to send the requested files. Any response is very welcome, just call it a beta phase if you want 
Just a hint, if you as a coder of OXID extensions make use of Zend Guard and face the same issue: Zend Guard version 7 accepts the serial number of the former version 6. Unfortunately, it is not downwards compatible; so if you want to encrypt your modules for use with PHP 5.5 and 5.6, please use Zend Guard 7. For extensions for use with PHP 5.3 and 5.4, Zend Guard version 6 is fine.
Author
Florian Auer is Product Owner at OXID eSales AG. Since 2003 he is working in the area of web development and professional services, and can look back on a wide range of experience in this field – from software engineering to project management. Follow him on Twitter (oxid_florian) to get notified about product updates and interesting facts about the e-commerce world.
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