License the components

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A license key is required to use Xceed components. A license key can be purchased on the Xceed web site. Or a trial license can be obtained to evaluate the components for a limited time.

Using a component after the trial period or without a registered license key will result in an exception will be thrown and the component being non-functional.

Once a trial or registered license key has been obtained, the licensing process works as follows.

All license keys are tied to a specific version of a component, the major and minor version numbers. The target .NET framework version does not matter when it comes to licensing.
When a new significant version of a component is released
- New license keys are required for that new version.
- Existing licenses will continue to work on the old versions without issue.
- New registered licenses are sent automatically by Xceed to clients.
Trial license keys expire after a period of time and will stop working then.
Registered licenses never expire for the version of the component they are tied to. However, a support subscription must be active to receive techincal support.
The license key must be set in the application code in order to unlock the component. See the section below for details.

If you do not have a registered license key, see the Xceed web site or contact us at sales@xceed.com to purchase a subscription or to have your license key resent if it has been lost.

If you have an active subscription, you will be sent new license keys for every major, minor, or service release. Making sure you have an active subscription ensures that you can use the new features and bug fixes of the latest versions, and also receive priority support. Once your subscription expires, your license keys will still work, but will not unlock features and bug fixes in versions released after the version to which your latest registered license key corresponds.

LicenseKey property

The license key must be set in the application code in order to unlock the component.

Each component has a license key. But not every assembly (.dll) requires a key. A component is a logical grouping of assemblies and a license key propagates itselt to all relevant assemblies automatically.

Assemblies that require licensing all have a Licenser class. It has a LicenseKey property that must be set with a valid license key before any other method of the Xceed component can be called. If an invalid or expired license key is used, or the property is never set or set in the wrong place in the code, an exception will be thrown at runtime.

It is strongly recommended that the LicenseKey property be set in the main entry point of the application. For example, C# users can set the LicenseKey property in the Main method. Visual Basic .NET users can set the property in the constructor of the main form or in the Sub Main procedure.

If no entry point is available, it is recommended that you set the LicenseKey property in a static constructor of a class that will be accessed systematically before any of the library's classes are instantiated. As alast resort, you can simply set the LicenseKey property immediately before you instantiate a class.

The keys you are sent must be used in their entirety: you cannot simply exchange ZIN for FTN, for example, and use the rest of your XX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX license key.

Here is how the LicenseKey property is set for each component.

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To use the Zip capabilities, set the LicenseKey property as follows (using your own valid license key); note that the key begins with ZIN. Older keys may begin with SFN.

C#	Copy Code
Xceed.Zip.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

VB.NET	Copy Code
Xceed.Zip.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX"

Setting the LicenseKey property of the Licenser class in the Xceed.Zip namespace will also automatically register the classes in the Xceed.FileSystem and Xceed.Compression namespaces.

The classes in the Xceed.Compression.Formats namespace are not automatically registered. This is because they are not used by the Zip functionality. See below to learn how to activate them.

To use the classes under the the Xceed.Compression namespace and/or the Xceed.Compression.Formats namespace (like XceedXCompressedStream or GZipCompressedStream), set the LicenseKey property of the Licenser class contained within the namespace:

C#	Copy Code
Xceed.Compression.Formats.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

VB.NET	Copy Code
Xceed.Compression.Formats.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX"

If you are only using the classes contained within the Xceed.FileSystem namespace, you can set the LicenseKey property of the Licenser class contained within this namespace:

C#	Copy Code
Xceed.FileSystem.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

VB.NET	Copy Code
Xceed.FileSystem.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX"

To use the SFtp capabilities, set the LicenseKey property as follows. Note that this also unlocks the FileSystem functionality.

C#	Copy Code
Xceed.SSH.Client.Licenser.LicenseKey = "SFTXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

VB.NET	Copy Code
Xceed.SSH.Client.Licenser.LicenseKey = "SFTXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX"

To use the FTP capabilities, set the LicenseKey property as follows.

C#	Copy Code
Xceed.Ftp.Licenser.LicenseKey = "FTNXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

VB.NET	Copy Code
Xceed.Ftp.Licenser.LicenseKey = "FTNXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX"

To use the Tar and GZip capabilities, the classes in the Xceed.Tar and Xceed.GZip namespace, set the LicenseKey of the Licenser class using the Zip key. Note that by setting the LicenseKey property on Tar, you also automatically unlock the GZip capabilities:

C#	Copy Code
Xceed.Tar.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

VB.NET	Copy Code
Xceed.Tar.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX"

If you only wish to use the GZip capabilities, set the LicenseKey property as follows:

C#	Copy Code
Xceed.GZip.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

VB.NET	Copy Code
Xceed.GZip.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZINXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX"

To use Xceed's Zip or FTP .NET CF components, setting the license key is the same as described above, but the appropriate Compact Framework license key is used instead:

C#	Copy Code
Xceed.Zip.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZICXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

VB.NET	Copy Code
Xceed.Zip.Licenser.LicenseKey = "ZICXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX"

C#	Copy Code
Xceed.Zip.Licenser.LicenseKey = "FTCXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX";

VB.NET	Copy Code
Xceed.Zip.Licenser.LicenseKey = "FTCXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX"

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LicenseKey property