License Problem

Hello there,

I'm having a minor nightmare with this control at the moment and I have spent far too much time trying to get it to work already. I have an existing solution which contains several projects - one of which has a Mindscape PropertyGrid in there.

After trying out the trial and being very happy with it, I bought the control - went away and came back again a couple of weeks later. Unforunately for me, in the meantime my license seems to be totally screwed up for this project.

Now, if I create a brand new empty Visual Studio Project & Solution, I can add an instance of the PropertyGrid and all seems to be just fine. However if I try to add an instance to my existing project there is no chance.

Everytime I try to work with this control in this project I get some variation of the old:

"Exception occurred creating type 'Mindscape.WpfPropertyGrid.PropertyGrid, Mindscape.WpfPropertyGrid, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0f2f2e3bf9b0527c' System.ComponentModel.LicenseException: An instance of type 'Mindscape.WpfPropertyGrid.PropertyGrid' was being created, and a valid license could not be granted for the type 'Mindscape.WpfPropertyGrid.PropertyGrid'. Please, contact the manufacturer of the component for more information. C:\Users\raffertyj\Documents\Development\VS2008\Code\UI\Client\Wpf\My Project\licenses.licx"

I think I've tried everything... removed the reference then added it back again. Deleted all bin and obj directories and recompiled, and recompiled again (a lot). Removed completely all of the license.licx files from my solution and added the control back to a form. Uninstalled the component - reinstalled the component, tried the nightly builds. Nothing works!

Why can't I get this to work? Do I have to scrap my quite large solution and start again? Or is there some kind of suggestion you guys have for me which will sort this out. I see there was one other post on this forum so far about licensing, and your suggestion was to ensure that the .lic file is present in the directory where the PropertyGrid library lives; This file seems to be present and correct.

Thanks for your help... going a bit mad here.

Justin.

Hello Justin,

I'm sorry you're having these problems.  You certainly shouldn't have to scrap your solution and start again.

Are you referencing the grid at its C:\Program Files\... location or have you copied it to a project "libraries" directory?  If the latter, you need to make sure that you have also copied the .lic file from the retail installation to the same location.  To check whether the .lic file is retail or trial, open the .lic file as a text file: if it begins with KE then it is the retail one, if it begins with 4K then it is the trial one.  Also, as a sanity check, could you check the reference path in Project > Properties > References to make sure that the control is being picked up from where you think it is?

The build action for licenses.licx should be set to Embedded Resource.  Can you check that this is the case?  I believe VB does not show the contents of the My Project folder by default, so you will need to turn on Show Hidden Files in Solution Explorer to see licenses.licx.  Check that licenses.licx is included in the project and that its build action is set to Embedded Resource.

Try opening licenses.licx in a text editor and check that it contains the line Mindscape.WpfPropertyGrid.PropertyGrid, Mindscape.WpfPropertyGrid, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=0f2f2e3bf9b0527c.

If none of this works is it possible for you to zip up the solution (or one of the projects that is giving you the error, provided that it still gives you the error when compiled in isolation) and post it here (or mail it via the contact form if you don't want to post it in public), and we will look at it as a matter of urgency.  Thanks!

Thanks for your help Ivan. Checking through each of the points you raised, everything seems to be correct. However, my problem has gone away - what fixed the thing to my knowledge is when I added a reference to the component into the top level project, as well as the project which uses the component. Anyway, I'm happy now.

Good news, and thanks for letting us know the resolution.  (I guess it kinda makes sense that the runtime licence should be available for compilation into the EXE and not just into any DLLs that it invokes, but I have to admit it hadn't occurred to me.)  One for the knowledge base!