Licensing Question

sebling

I have upgraded my project that uses the toolkit to Visual Studio 2005. When the application is deployed (it is a web app) and the toolkit components are invoked, the toolkit components are launching a modal dialog - evidently for the licensing information.
I have changed the licx file as suggested in another post to make it more specific. Is this a VS2005 issue or am I missing something else?

Brian Donahue

Hello,

It could be a 2005 issue, but more than likely it's just a case of the licensing not embedding properly in the assembly. Were you prompted for a serial number during the build process? If not, have a look at your licenses.licx file to make sure it's formatted as in the Toolkit help file -- be aware that the classes listed in this file are case-sensitive!

Also, the licenses.licx should be added to the Project rather than the solution.

sebling

Just to be sure, I started a new project in 2005, added all of my code from the previous version.
licenses.licx is
RedGate.SQLCompare.Engine.Database,RedGate.SQLCompare.Engine

(as per another post)

No prompt for a s/n on the build (I have built other toolkit projects in VS2003 on this same box and as far as I can recall, only once was I ever prompted for the s/n).

Brian Donahue

What happens if you just leave it as RedGate.SQLCompare.Engine.Database?

Every time you start a new project, even on the same machine, you should get nagged for the serial number. If not, something is definitely wrong. I'd make double-sure that the licenses.licx has been added to the project and is not just sitting there without the compiler knowing about it. You may also try just deleting and redoing the whole file from scratch!

sebling

I thought that the NAG would display when the build occurred, but it doesn't, only during the run when the objects are instantiated. I hadn't been getting the NAG on my box because when I ran the web project, I didn't encounter the code that used the RedGate modules. When I encountered the RedGate modules, then I got the NAG screen. I thought my problems were over, however when I deployed the web page and then encountered that code on the web server, the NAG attempted to appear and the web page crashed. I took the code out of the web page and put it in a class project and rebuilt it - I got the NAG in dev and redeployed the web page and the same thing occurred.
The differences in VS 2005 in how web projects are built must have something to do with the way that the licensing is bound or not bound in the executables. see http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/beta2 ... fault.aspx - if you can understand the section on Licensing...
Also http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/421whcfb.aspx

I hope that this can be resolved in the next release of the Toolkit.

Brian Donahue

Sorry -- you're right. In order for the licensing to come up, you need to create a new instance of a database class in the code. I don't think we emphasise that much because, hey, you're going to do that anyway no matter what!

If the licence is not embedded in the assembly, the nag kicks in when a database class is created in the assembly you'd built. If you had a UI available, the message would say something like 'this program was created with an unlicenced toolkit'.

The MSDN link in your last post seems to confirm that licensing should work exactly the same in 2.0 as it did in 1.1, provided you've uninstalled 2.0 Beta 2 and replaced it with the RTM version of 2.0.

sebling

I am still at a loss as to how to get the license embedded in the assembly of this web project. The only version of .NET 2.0 installed on the machine is the RTM.

Brian Donahue

Are your references to SQLCompare.Engine pointing to the Red Gate SQL Bundle Installation folder? Maybe Visual Studio can't find the RedGate.Licensing.Client and RedGate.Licensing.Helper dlls. That is where the actual code is that asks for the serial number.