WSpell ActiveX Spelling Checker
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License problems

Problem 1: When you attempt to use WSpell is Visual Basic (or another development environment), an error message similar to "License information for this component could not be found" is displayed.

Solutions:

Try re-installing WSpell, taking care to enter the license key provided by Wintertree Software when prompted by the setup program. Note that the license key is not the same as the serial number.

WSpell expects to find its design-time license information in a file located in the same directory as wspell.ocx. If wspell.ocx is moved and re-registered, or if a different copy of wspell.ocx is registered on the system (as can happen if an application which uses WSpell is installed), the design-time license file will no longer be where it is expected and the licensing error will occur. The solution is to run regsvr32 to re-register the development copy of wspell.ocx like this:

regsvr32 "\Program Files\WSpell\wspell.ocx"

If you are using a version of WSpell prior to 5.14 on Windows 2000 or XP, the problem may be caused by another copy of WSpell in use by an application you installed on your development system. The only solutions are to uninstall the other application or to use WSpell version 5.14 or later. You can purchase an upgrade by ordering product #0172.

Problem 2: You can use WSpell in your development environment, but it does not work when you install it with your application on a target system, or works only if wspell.lic (which is not redistributable) is also installed.

Discussion:

WSpell uses the ActiveX licensing protocol. The protocol consists of two parts: the control portion, which WSpell implements, and the container portion, which your application implements. When you use WSpell in a Visual Basic application, for example, VB asks WSpell for its licensing information at design time, and stores that information in the application's EXE file. At run time, VB provides the licensing information to WSpell, allowing it to run. VB takes care of the container side of the licensing protocol when you use a licensed ActiveX control in an application.

Not all programming languages implement the container portion of the licensing protocol. In these situations, you must implement the container portion of the protocol in your application, or WSpell will not work. Even if the programming language normally implements the container portion of the protocol in applications, there may be other situations where it does not. For example, if you use WSpell inside an ActiveX control created in Visual Basic, VB will not implement the container side of the protocol and you must do it explicitly. The same holds true for MFC applications which use ActiveX controls in non-dialog containers; see Using WSpell in a non-dialog container in MFC for further information.

You should note that the licensing protocol is part of the ActiveX technology, not something specific to WSpell. Many (but not all)ActiveX controls use this licensing technology.

For more information on the ActiveX licensing protocol, search for "ActiveX licensing" on MSDN.

If implementing the container portion of the licensing protocol seems like too much effort, you might consider using our Sentry Spelling Checker Engine Windows SDK product instead. The Sentry engine is implemented as a straightforward Win32 DLL.