Installing and Licensing your GlossContour Suite™ .Net Assembly

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Gloss Contour Suite™ INSTALLATION

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INSTALLING GlossContour Suite™ TO YOUR SYSTEM

ADVANCE Program Files subdirectories created by GCSuiteSetup.msi.

Most users will anticipate the ramifications of our typical Microsoft Installer process.

Depending on your web user agent (browser), you can download GCSuiteSetup.msi or install directly from the web. The .msi installs the current version of Gloss Contour Suite™ to a version specific subdirectory of your Program Files directory. The .msi purposely refrains from installing to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). This approach allows you to readily develop GCS applications from different versions of GCS. You simply install the intended version to your IDE and/or refer to that same version of GCS from your code base. This page details process ramifications for cases where the explanation provided by this paragraph does not suffice. For licensing your GCS installation however, you should see the following Licensing topic.

The GCS assembly, documentation and other supporting files are installed to a version specific subdirectory of Program Files.
For maximum downstream flexibility, the installation process does not install GCS to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC).
It is not necessary to install to GAC for development, but you may install to GAC if you so desire. Non-installation to GAC allows you complete downstream control of assembly version usage. With separate GCS versions stored to version specific subdirectories of Program Files, you simply install the intended version to your IDE and/or refer to that same version of GCS from your code base. The following topic shows you how to do this.
The GCS download (GCSuiteSetup.msi) provides 15 days of free evaluation.
A license must be purchased for further usage.

To install GlossContour Suite™ to your computer system,

Download GCSuiteSetup.msi.
Shut down other applications.
Run GCSuiteSetup.msi.

Start->Programs items created by GCSuiteSetup.msi.

To install GCS to your development environment, see the following instructions.

INSTALLING GlossContour Suite™ TO YOUR DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

GlossContour Suite™ installed to the Visual Studio Toolbox.

See your development environment documentation for alternate instruction. The following steps apply to Visual Studio™ 2005:

To create a dedicated GCS ToolBox Tab:
1. Right click your ToolBox and choose "Add Tab."
2. Enter an appropriate Tab name such as "ADVANCE".
3. Drag the tab to a desirable position in the ToolBox.
To install GCS to your ToolBox, right click the new Tab region and click "Choose Items..."
1. From the Choose ToolBox Items dialog, Browse to [Program Files]\[ADVANCE]\[NET]\[GCS]\[V*], and select GCControls_N.dll.
  GCS™ glyphs and captions should appear as above.
  
  Project references to the GCS assembly should point to this same GCControls_N.dll instance.

There are 5 GCS™ classes altogether. Non-visual-development GCS™ classes (GlossContourButton_UnInit and GlossContourSurface_UnInit) are not installed to the ToolBox. Use these classes strictly for (superior) run time propagation.

LICENSING YOUR GCS INSTALLATION

To license your GCS installation:

Run Start->ADVANCE->GCSuite->Pre-License Hardware ID Generator.
Pre-License Hardware ID Generator outputs a HardwareID.txt file which we process into your license. The encrypted binary identity is used strictly to verify the license file we return to you. Comprehensive firewalls such as ZoneAlarm will confirm your hardware identity is never collected. It is simply part of a license verification process which occurs entirely within your system.
Click Start->ADVANCE->GCSuite->GCSuite Program Files Folder to verify that [Program Files]\[ADVANCE]\[NET]\[GCS]\[V*]\HardwareID.txt has been created. Leave the original copy on your system, and do not modify it.
Buy your license(s).
Attach [Program Files]\[ADVANCE]\[NET]\[GCS]\[V*]\HardwareID.txt to the email receipt you receive, and send to GCSuite™ SUPPORT (gcsnet.support[at]advanceis.com)
If you buy plural licenses or additional installations, send each HardwareID.txt attached to a separate email of your receipt, and (for your own purposes) be sure to identify each email so that you may install the returned license file to the proper system.
Save the returned license to your Windows directory and restart your development environment. Disappearance of nag screens indicates successful installation of your license.

ADVANCED INSTALLATION TOPICS

Because GCSuiteSetup.msi does not install to your Global Assembly Cache, you can easily continue to deploy different previous or future GCS issues in your projects.
To base a project on a given version of GCS:
1. Install [Program Files]\[ADVANCE]\[NET]\[GCS]\[V*]\GCControls_N.dll to your development environment, and point all project references to the same instance of GCControls_N.dll.
2. Copy [Program Files]\[ADVANCE]\[NET]\[GCS]\[V*]\NecroBit\GCControls_N_nat.dll to your [Windows]\system32 directory.
This manually establishes a different installation. To work on other projects pointed to a different version of GCS, the process must be repeated for that project.
Distributables you develop must install [Program Files]\[ADVANCE]\[NET]\[GCS]\[V*]\NecroBit\GCControls_N_nat.dll and your GCS license with your assemblies. All should be stored to the same directory.