HOWTO: License an EXE for Deployment (.NET Framework)

Table of Contents

Background

This article refers to the process for licensing a exe that is targeting .NET Framework - for .NET 5 / .NET 6, please see: HOWTO: License a .NET 6 Application (embedding license in an exe)

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Embedding a License for Deployment

In order to deploy an application using DotImage, DotAnnotate or DotTwain, the .exe file must be licensed correctly. The following steps outline this procedure. (Note: DotImage OCR requires a runtime license agreement)

If you have only used an Atalasoft toolkit in a DLL, and are referencing that DLL in an EXE, you must follow these steps on the Executable project, NOT the DLL project. This is because our license can only be embedded into an EXE. Visual Studio will not embed a license if it thinks the license is not used in the code for the EXE. To get around this issue, follow these steps:

• Add all the Atalasoft references from your DLL project to the EXE project
• Now you are ready to follow the steps below

1. Locate the 'licenses.licx' file. It should be located in the Properties directory (next to AssemblyInfo.cs) inside visual studio project folder (For VB it would live in the MyProject folder next to AssemblyInfo.vb). If this file does not exist, create it. (Note: For a console application, you must include this file in the project so it shows up in the solution explorer, otherwise visual studio will ignore it. Likewise, if you had to manually create the file for any reason, be sure to click "show all files" in the solution explorer, find your licenses.licx file, and right-click to select the option to include the file in your project.)
2. Examine the references that are in your project. For each Atalasoft reference, refer to the table below and add the corresponding line to the .licx file. Keep in mind that a few references are licensed by the same license file, and therefore they have the exact same entry in the .licx file. If the entry was already entered, there is no need to add it again. (Note: If an entry in the licx was automatically generated by the visual studio designer, it may contain version information. You should delete all extra information other than what is listed below. This version information may cause problems when you upgrade you DotImage SDK.)
3. Compile your application (using a REbuild) to embed the licenses as a resource in the .exe file. Visual studio will automatically find the .licx file and embed the correct licenses into your application. No special steps need to be taken at this point

To License this Assembly ...	Add This Line
Atalasoft.DotAnnotate	Atalasoft.Annotate.UI.AnnotateViewer, Atalasoft.DotImage.Annotate
Atalasoft.DotAnnotate.Ink	Atalasoft.Annotate.UI.AnnotateViewer, Atalasoft.DotImage.Annotate
Atalasoft.DotImage.Annotate	Atalasoft.Annotate.UI.AnnotateViewer, Atalasoft.DotImage.Annotate
Atalasoft.dotImage.BarcodeReader	Atalasoft.Barcoding.BarReader, Atalasoft.dotImage.BarcodeReader
Atalasoft.dotImage.Barcoding	Atalasoft.Barcoding.BarCodeReader, Atalasoft.dotImage.Barcoding
Atalasoft.dotImage.Barcoding.Reading	Atalasoft.Barcoding.Reading.BarCodeReader, Atalasoft.dotImage.Barcoding.Reading
Atalasoft.dotImage.Barcoding.Writing	Atalasoft.Barcoding.Writing.BarcodeWriter, Atalasoft.dotImage.Barcoding.Writing
Atalasoft.dotImage	Atalasoft.Imaging.AtalaImage, Atalasoft.dotImage
Atalasoft.dotImage.Dwg	Atalasoft.Imaging.Codec.CadCam.DwgDecoder, Atalasoft.dotImage.Dwg
Atalasoft.dotImage.Dicom	Atalasoft.Imaging.Codec.Dicom.DicomDecoder, Atalasoft.dotImage.Dicom
Atalasoft.dotImage.FormsProcessing	Atalasoft.FormsProcessing.Omr.OmrEngine, Atalasoft.dotImage.FormsProcessing
Atalasoft.dotImage.IntelJpeg	Atalasoft.Imaging.AtalaImage, Atalasoft.dotImage
Atalasoft.dotImage.Isis	Atalasoft.Isis.IsisAcquisition, Atalasoft.dotImage.Isis
Atalasoft.dotImage.Jbig2	Atalasoft.Imaging.Codec.Jbig2.Jb2Decoder, Atalasoft.dotImage.Jbig2
Atalasoft.dotImage.Jpeg2000	Atalasoft.Imaging.Codec.Jpeg2000.Jp2Decoder, Atalasoft.dotImage.Jpeg2000
Atalasoft.dotImage.Lib	Atalasoft.Imaging.AtalaImage, Atalasoft.dotImage
Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr	Atalasoft.Ocr.TranslatorCollection, Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr
Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr.Abbyy	Atalasoft.Ocr.TranslatorCollection, Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr
Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr.GlyphReader	Atalasoft.Ocr.TranslatorCollection, Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr
Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr.RecoStar	Atalasoft.Ocr.TranslatorCollection, Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr
Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr.Tesseract	Atalasoft.Ocr.TranslatorCollection, Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr
Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr.Tesseract3	Atalasoft.Ocr.TranslatorCollection, Atalasoft.dotImage.Ocr
** Atalasoft.dotImage.Office Both OfficeAdapterDecoeer and OfficeDecoder "live in" the Office Assembly. ***	If using OfficeAdapterDecoder (10.6): Atalasoft.Imaging.Codec.Office.OfficeAdapterDecoder, Atalasoft.dotImage.Office If using OfficeDecoder (10.7 and newer only) Atalasoft.Imaging.Codec.Office.OfficeDecoder, Atalasoft.dotImage.Office
Atalasoft.dotImage.Pdf	Atalasoft.Imaging.AtalaImage, Atalasoft.dotImage
Atalasoft.dotImage.PdfDoc ONLY if using PdfGeneration / DotPdf	Atalasoft.PdfDoc.Generating.PdfGeneratedDocument, Atalasoft.PdfDoc
Atalasoft.dotImage.PdfDoc If using PdfDocument, but not PdfGeneration	Atalasoft.PdfDoc.PdfDocument, Atalasoft.PdfDoc
Atalasoft.dotImage.PdfRasterizer	Atalasoft.Imaging.Codec.Pdf.PdfDecoder, Atalasoft.dotImage.PdfRasterizer
Atalasoft.dotImage.PdfReader _(up through 10.7) Atalasoft.dotImage.PdfReader (11.0 and newer)_	Atalasoft.Imaging.Codec.Pdf.PdfDecoder, Atalasoft.dotImage.PdfReader Atalasoft.Imaging.Codec.Pdf.PdfDecoder, Atalasoft.dotImage.PdfReader
Atalasoft.dotImage.Raw	Atalasoft.Imaging.AtalaImage, Atalasoft.dotImage
Atalasoft.dotImage.WebControls	Atalasoft.Imaging.AtalaImage, Atalasoft.dotImage
Atalasoft.dotImage.WinControls	Atalasoft.Imaging.WinControls.WorkspaceViewer, Atalasoft.dotImage.WinControls
Atalasoft.dotImage.Word Word assembly replaced with Office assembly in 10.6	Atalasoft.Imaging.Codec.Word.WordDecoder, Atalasoft.dotImage.Word
Atalasoft.dotImage.Wpf	Atalasoft.Imaging.Wpf.AtalaImageViewer, Atalasoft.dotImage.Wpf
Atalasoft.dotTwain	Atalasoft.Twain.Acquisition, Atalasoft.DotTwain

If you are using DotImage 4.0 or Previous then please use the below lines for DotAnnotate, DotAnnotate.Ink, or DotImage.DotAnnotate

Atalasoft.DotAnnotate Atalasoft.Imaging.Annotate.AnnotateViewer, Atalasoft.DotImage.Annotate
Atalasoft.DotAnnotate.Ink Atalasoft.Imaging.Annotate.AnnotateViewer, Atalasoft.DotImage.Annotate
Atalasoft.DotImage.Annotate Atalasoft.Imaging.Annotate.AnnotateViewer, Atalasoft.DotImage.Annotate

4. Test your application. To emulate a client machine you can simply relocate your development licenses so that DotImage cannot find them. The license file are located at "C:\Documents and Settings\Local Settings\Application Data\Atalasoft\DotImage X.0" (XP) or "C:\Users\AppData\Local\Atalasoft\DotImage X.0". Create a temporary folder and move all of the .lic file there. Make sure to relocate any license files for other versions of DotImage also. Now run your exe. When it starts, DotImage should read the licenses that were embedded into the exe, so if the application runs without a license error you know that the licenses were embedded successfully.
5. Fix problems. If you have any license problems, please see one of the related articles.

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Related Links

• HOWTO: License a .NET 6 Application (embedding license in an exe)

Original Article

• Q10128 - HOWTO: License an EXE for Deployment
• HOWTO: License an EXE for Deployment (.NET Framework)

Last Update

2025-06-13 - TD

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