Hi all,

I am coming from a Visual FoxPro environment and in my VFP applications I used to install the .EXE file on a network share drive where all users will have access to it.

In a .NET application can this also be done? or do I have to install the .EXE file in each computer on a local drive?

Edhy Rijo

Edhy,



I can't answer much about the whole licensing thing, but I can perhaps clear up what Enterprise Server does. It's sole purpose in life is to act as an intermediary between a SF application and a data source. It doesn't do anything else. I.e. if you have a VFP data source (I'm pretty sure ES works with VFP databases), you could use ES to sit between the application and the VFP database. The app uses a special datasource that points to ES. When the app needs to communicate with the database, the request is packaged up, sent to ES, which then makes the actual request to the database. The response is sent to ES which then packages that up and sends back to the app. This all happens transparently.



Now, the licensing server might use ES itself, if it needed to communicate with a database (or it might just connect directly). The licensing server will typically be a Windows Service (could be a Web Service, I suppose), that manages licenses. After that, I'm not so sure how it would work. It might be something like the license server has license file that allows N number of users to connect, which the server enforces. Or perhaps something more sophisticated, like SF does with activation/deactivation of licenses, via net card MAC address. The important thing is that your likely looking at either a Windows Service or a Web Service as the actual license server.



I know that doesn't actually answer the license question, but hopefully that help clear the mud just a little bit.

Do you people ever sleep?   Oh wait, I am up and working too

You will just need to create a service to which all of your clients will connect as soon as the client app starts.  You will then send over a request to the server asking if there are any open CALs and check to see if the license is valid, etc.  You can use TcpSockets and a listener at the server to manage the connections between the server and the clients.

Embedding the ES is probably not the route you want to take here as this would become a much more complicated (and expensive...which I am cool with ) approach.  But this really has nothing to do with the problem at hand.  At this point, especially at the end of the road here, you will want to take the "keep it simple" approach .  Create a service that is your server which has a tcp listener and all of your licensing logic.  Keep in mind that you will also need to create a console that talks to the service (since the service is a non-UI component).  The other approach is to just create a server app that doesn't run as a service but is still a TcpListener server (just moving the logic from the service to the WinForms console).  The service will work better in the long run though as it will auto-start and play better into the server environment.

Humm, sleep? that sounds familiar

Thanks for the info, will try to go the Service/Console Tcp Sockets way.  The whole idea is to control the customer license and allow then to have as many workstations installed in their network under the same license.

Edhy Rijo

Cool   I think that is a good way to go.