Add Missing Entries to .licx File via Visual Studio Utility

Background:

This article covers GrapeCity’s Visual Studio utility that allows you to automatically add any missing entries to your licenses.licx file. This utility will only work in Visual Studio 2017 or Visual Studio 2019. You can download this utility via the ComponentOne Control Panel, under the “Products” tab > “Tools” sub-tab > ComponentOne Visual Studio Menu option. This is very useful when trying to get rid of trial version nag screens when building applications on licensed machines.

Steps to Complete:

  1. Open your Visual Studio project containing ComponentOne references

  2. Ensure that there is a licenses.licx file included with the project, which should be found in the “Properties” folder (if C# project) or in the “My Project” folder (if in a VB project).

    1. Please note, in order to see the licenses.licx file in VB projects, you must select the “Show All Files” icon above the Solution Explorer search bar.

  3. Click on the licenses.licx file, and make sure that it is included in the project and that under the “Properties” window, the “Build Action” is set to “Embedded Resource”.

  4. Inside Visual Studio, go to Tools > GrapeCity > Update Projects > Add missing entries to .licx file

    1. Selecting this option will open up our Visual Studio utility

  5. Once inside the utility, select the checkbox next to every project listed that the utility allows you to select

    1. The projects selected should be projects that contain ComponentOne references and licenses.licx files

    2. If a project is missing a .licx file, it won’t let you select the checkbox next to it, even if that project has ComponentOne references. If this occurs, be sure to create a text file titled “licenses.licx” and repeat steps 2-4.

  6. Click the “Update” button, and every project should receive a green checkmark next to it, indicating the utility completed successfully. You may now close out of the utility by selecting the 'X' on the top-right of the utility

  7. When you open the utility, all the projects are unloaded from the solution. When you close the utility, Visual Studio will attempt to reload the projects into the solution. Sometimes, Visual Studio hangs up at this step. If this occurs, you will have to open Task Manager and force close the Visual Studio process. When you reopen Visual Studio with your project loaded, the changes the utility made will have persisted.

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Hunter Haaf