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| Posted by Daniel on May-12-2012 21:55 | |
| Hello Peter, I intend to propose to our company to buy a CD license and it is not very clear for me what kind of license is suitable for me so that to achieve some conditions: 1. My IDE is the old VB6 and I am the unique developer in my office team 2. The users OS could be Vista or XP, maybe Windows7 3. I would like to create an application, using CD, so that to do not install any CD component in other computers (without registering) ; simply, I would like to deliver my application in only one executable file 4. All applications are non-comercial Because my applications are small, especially designed to handle the excel library, would be wonderful to manage these apps without any setup. Do you think is it possible ? I mean, instead to use an ocx, I wonder if is that possible using I kind of an uncompiled control. Thank you in advance. Daniel Bucharest, Romania | |
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| Posted by Peter Kwan on May-15-2012 03:20 | |
| Hi Daniel, For licensing questions, I will forward your enquiry to sales@advsofteng.net. Please expect a response within a few hours. For creating an application as a single EXE without installation, note that any VB6 program always required the Microsoft VB6 runtme msvbvm60.dll. So even if you do not use ChartDirector, you would always need to redistribute msvbvm60.dll (unless you can assume your users always have this DLL already installed). If you use ChartDirector, you also need to redistribute the ChartDirector DLLs and OCX. However, it does not mean that your user would need to "install" anything. Your EXE, when run, can extract itself into separate files, and then automatically launch a "bootstrap program". The "bootstrap program" can just register the DLLs, and launch the "real application". After the "real application" ends, it can automatically unregister and delete the extracted files. To the end user, the executable appears just as a single file. Note that even Microsoft's own programs, such as psExec, use the above method. (The psExec extracts and installs part of itself as a Windows service when run, and uninstall itself when the main EXE ends.) So the above method is quite practical. If for some reason, you do not want to register the DLLs and OCX, you can use Windows side by side execution (Google for "COM side by side") to avoid registering the DLLs and OCX. However, you would still need to distribute them using the self extracted EXE and then lanuch the "real application" and delete the files afterwards. Regards Peter Kwan | |
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| Posted by Daniel on May-19-2012 07:13 | |
| Hello Peter, First of all thank you for your reply. It is a bit funny that your email that was forwarded to sales@advsofteng.net is signed again by you. Sometimes I think that in the backside of your company is just one person: you. In the last years, I have never seen other collegue involved on the ASE forum, apart of you. Anyway, this detail is not very important as time as you are a brilliant programmer and administrator, and your product is very versatile and functional in so many languages. Taking into account the CD capabilities, the price and your dedicated support I consider that CD does represent the best value for money, maybe the most advatageous charting software. But, to get the point, I would like to find a response to following: - the library msvbvm60.dll I think is already integrated in all Windows OS, at least in XP , Vista or Windows7. So, a VB6 exe should work without any issue. -the method and the behaviour of the "bootstrap program" is a bit unclear for me. On the side, you say that "you need to redistribute the ChartDirector DLLs and OCX" and, on the other side, "it does not mean that your user would need to "install" anything"... I am not very experienced in programming but I have never heard that I could use an ocx in my compiled program without to be a must to register it later in the user PC. With "bootstrap" method or without it, is not at all clear how does the CD runtime work. So, how to distribute CD ocx in the user PC without any installing? Do you think is it possible just using a single exe file (excluding a setup exe) ? On the other hand, your last email increased my confussion. Because in the file distribution process you consider 2 different licenses: one as developer and other as distributor. I have already a developer license bought 3 years ago and , as you know, it is a simply text file with a modified extension. In this case, I wonder what I would buy for other 500$? Another text file, a special dll, a control? Normally, I shouldn't install those 2 licenses in other PC. I am still in confussion... Thank you in advance, Daniel | |
| Re: License |
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| Posted by Peter Kwan on May-22-2012 02:39 | |
| Hi Daniel, My understanding of what you want is to distribute a EXE file. When the user clicks on the EXE, it lanuches an application. Is this what you need? To do the above, when the user clicks on the EXE, it first extracted the necessary files to a directory (which includes the OCX, DLLs and another application EXE - you probably are aware that you can embed files in an EXE), then automatically register the files, and automatically launches the application EXE as a child process. When the application ends, the EXE (which is still running in the background) will automatically unregister and remove the files. To the user, what he experiences is that the application is launched when he clicks on the EXE. He does not know that the EXE has extracted and register files, and launches another application EXE, and then do the clean up afterwards. In other words, the user does not feel he has "installed" anything. To do the above, the key is to write the EXE that can performs the above steps. I have not tried it myself, but I know Microsoft's own programs use this method, so it should be a feasible and proven method. As we prefer this forum to mainly for discussing technical issues, I will response to your licensing enquiry by email. Regards Peter Kwan | |