A method and system for automatically configuring software distributed through a network. A server of the software vendor gathers certain information such as the user's name during a software download or purchase process, and generates a custom webpage containing software configuration information and/or a user id. The software being distributed includes an automatic configuration program. When the software is launched, the automatic configuration program finds the custom webpage and scrapes the necessary configuration information from it. The automatic configuration program then automatically configures the downloaded software using the configuration information. The automatic configuration program may also obtain additional configuration information from the server using the id contained in the custom webpage.