Deployment

Deploying an application means installing a run-time component on more than one machine. In the case of xlsgen, it means one of the two following things :

ARsT Design provides a royalty-free right to deploy and distribute the run-time component as long as you own a Deployment license and you enforce the licensing.

The Deployment license is not free of charge. See the pricing page.

 

How to distribute your application along with xlsgen

xlsgen is a COM component and stands all by itself as a single file : xlsgen.dll.

In any deployment, also is needed the deployment license file (xlsgen.license.lic) in the same folder than xlsgen.dll.

If you are using a .NET programming language (VB.NET, C#, ...), also needed is a copy of file Interop.xlsgen.dll which is produced by the compiler. You may want to put this file in the same folder than your application .exe.

If you are using Java, also needed is a copy of file xlsgen_jproxy.dll which is part of the xlsgen install.

In summary,

Once the files are copied on the machine, the component must be registered before using it, unless you are using the COM-free technique. To register the component, open a command-line window and type :

regsvr32 "<path>\xlsgen.dll"

The COM-free technique : there is a workaround to COM registration for all Windows operating system versions. It is possible to deploy and use xlsgen applications without making a COM registration at install time, and without using the Windows COM API to instantiate the component. If you are interested in learning how this works depending on your programming language, make sure to check out code samples, for instance those related to charts.

If the target machine is running a 64-bit operating system and the client application is a 64-bit application, make sure to take a copy of either the native 64-bit version of xlsgen.dll, or xlsgen.exe instead. Be sure to read the information on the isolated server.

 

Installing and running in limited user environments

In case you are willing to deploy xlsgen in a limited user environment, where the user is not an administrator, it is actually very simple with those steps.

You need to deploy the following files in addition to your application :

You can actually embed the license file inside xlsgen.dll using the technique described in next section.

If the application uses .NET, you also need to deploy file Interop.xlsgen.dll that is produced by the .NET compiler.

If you are using Java, you also need to copy file xlsgen_jproxy.dll whic is part of the xlsgen install.

Deploying means to create a folder and copy those files in it.

Because a limited user cannot create folders arbitrarily, make sure to pick one that is allowed. For instance, you can create a folder inside the user's My Documents folder.

Once this folder is created, you can copy those files.

Since xlsgen is a COM component, you must use the COM-free deployment technique in your source code, otherwise the application will not successfully run. The COM-free deployment technique allows to load and run a COM component without creating system-wide registry keys for the COM component.

In summary,

If the target machine is running a 64-bit operating system and the client application is a 64-bit application, make sure to take a copy of either the native 64-bit version of xlsgen.dll, or xlsgen.exe instead. Be sure to read the information on the isolated server.

 

How to embed the license file inside xlsgen.dll

If you are an ISV deploying the xlsgen run-time and would like to embed the xlsgen.license.lic file inside xlsgen.dll as a resource so that there is really a single file to deploy (aside Interop.xlsgen.dll if you are using .NET) then you can do that very easily by following those steps :