Reinstaling Formula One component (TF1Book) in Delphi 2007, License Information for TF1Book not found error [closed]

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Closed 9 years ago.

I'm moving an old project developed with Delphi 2007 and a bunch of 3rd party components from an old computer to my own instalation. Everything except the TF1Book component (from the VCF132.ocx library, version 4.1.1.2) works fine. I'm using the exact same version of Delphi in the new computer and same patches. (The older computer belongs to a developer who left the company and it's unavailable and unreachable)

The error I'm getting in design time, and just in design time is:

License information for TF1Book not found. You cannot use this control in design mode.

So, I can still compile and can edit the .dfm form in notepad and works fine, in runtime, but I can't work properly within Delphi.

Please, note that I have read the first 30 entrys for each google search related to this problem, with several variations. And most of them says that I should simply run the regsvr32 to register the OCX within Windows and that will solve the problem. But also, most of this posts or blogs I've found are way older, and they're talking about the version 3.x of the component. I am using the 4.1.1.2 version. This is what the other developer had in his computer.

I repeated the supposed procedure of placing the VCF132.ocx on the \windows\system32 or the windows\syswow64 (for x64 windows) and then run the appropriate regsvr32 version to register the component in 3 computers: Win 7 x86, Win 7 x64, Win 8 and WinXP SP3 and got the same result in all of them.

I'm starting to think that this is a real licensing issue, not a ocx windows registering issues. Actually, if I don't register de OCX in Windows the error I get in Delphi is very different, it is something about class not found or similar.

Nobody else in the company (a small 3 guys company) knows or remember how this was component acquired and therefore we can't find the proper installer for the components.

Though, by researching the Windows registry in that computer I found information about some sort of registration process, like User, Company and a Serial number. There are no ".lic" files associated to this ocx in the old computer.

But so far, I'm unable to find such installer in that computer. I would be happy to simply acquire a new license, but this product is not being sold anymore.

So, this is my question. For the VcF132.ocx, version 4.1.1.2, does anybody knows/remember if there were a copy protection or registration mechanisms that would forbid me to simply move the component to other computer?

Answer 1

I used to use this component way back when. As I recall, registering the OCX only gives you runtime support. To get it all working at designtime you need to run, on your dev machine, the installation program that the vendor supplied.

I also distinctly remember that there was a .lic file installed onto each developer machine. So you should find them on the old machines, but I'm not sure whether they can be easily transferred.