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ComponentOne Licensing

To license your ComponentOne application:

  1. Purchase a ComponentOne edition
  2. Activate your key using the License Manager tool (installed alongside the product)
  3. Re-build your project and that's it
Check out this video about licensing and subscription information >>>

Licensing Options

Standard Developer License

The standard ComponentOne licensing model is per developer or per any machine that needs to build the application.

  • Activate one license on up to three machines (i.e., desktop, laptop, and build server)
  • License entitles you to build applications using our components
  • Build and distribute royalty-free applications
  • Includes a one-year subscription that entitles you to one year of updates, including bug fixes and new features
  • Volume discounts are available

Contact sales for further details

Pipeline License

If your development cycle includes a dynamic agent (for example, Azure Pipelines with Microsoft-hosted agents) we offer a special pipeline license that does not need to be deactivated after every build.

Contact sales for further details

Source Code License

Purchase full source code for any ComponentOne product to use as a reference or with the rights to modify and redistribute. Users can purchase a source code license in addition to standard developer licenses.

Learn more about source code licensing

Commercial OEM License

Create your own commercially-licensed SDK that uses ComponentOne controls. Use cases vary, so OEM licenses are customized for each customer.

Contact us to learn more.

Licensing FAQs

Licensing is a mechanism used to protect intellectual property by ensuring that users are authorized to use software products. 

Licensing is not only used to prevent the illegal distribution of software products. Many software vendors, including MESCIUS, use licensing to allow potential users to test products before they decide to purchase them. MESCIUS, inc. publishes the ComponentOne product line.

Without licensing, this type of distribution would not be practical for the vendor or convenient for the user. Vendors would either have to distribute evaluation software with limited functionality or shift the burden of managing software licenses to customers, who could easily forget that the software being used is an evaluation version and has not been purchased.

When you decide to purchase a ComponentOne Edition, you will receive a serial key. The serial key must be activated on your development machine to properly license any application built with ComponentOne controls. Serial keys are activated using the License Manager (gclm.exe), installed with any ComponentOne edition.

When a project containing a ComponentOne control is built, licensing information stored in the system is obtained, and a unique runtime license (.gclicx) is generated. Only one .gclicx file is generated per application build. This file must be distributed with the application as an embedded resource. 

For .NET Framework applications, ComponentOne controls use .NET licensing. Visual Studio obtains version and licensing information from a newly created component, like the toolbox, and will generate a licenses.licx file and add it to the project. The licenses.licx file contains the licensed component's strong name and version information. The MESCIUS Visual Studio plugin (found under Tools) can be used to update this file and help resolve licensing issues. For a Web Forms application, the runtime license may also be stored as an embedded resource in the App_Licenses.dll assembly, which must always be deployed with the application.

Later, when the component is created at runtime, it obtains the runtime license from the appropriate assembly resource that was created at design time. It can decide whether to simply accept the runtime license, to throw an exception and fail altogether, or to display information that reminds the user that the software is unlicensed.

All ComponentOne editions are designed to display licensing information if the product is not licensed. Applications will not run correctly if the license is missing or invalid after the 30-day trial has expired.

For more information on how to activate a key or license an application, check out our Licensing Documentation.

ComponentOne and its editions are licensed per developer. This includes anyone who uses ComponentOne components and controls to create and compile projects in Microsoft's Visual Studio. If someone wants to work with the code that a component or control has created, they need to have a license. Developing a component or control that allows more developers access than licensed goes against our EULA. 

There are no limits on the distribution of applications—with unlimited, royalty-free, and runtime distribution. The licensing only affects build and design time.

When you purchase a license, you receive a one-year subscription that entitles you to one year of free upgrades, including bug fixes and new features. The license is perpetual and does not expire, and the subscription runs year to year. Standard, pipeline and plugin licenses are perpetual. If you choose not to renew, you can still use the software as is, but without access to the latest version. Read more about subscriptions and renewal rates.

Licenses may be transferred from one developer to another or from one server to another. In this case, the original license must be deactivated from the original developer's machine or from the original server. Each license key can be activated on a maximum of three (3) machines at one time.

Activation is used by MESCIUS to verify the authenticity of the product key used to license the software. It also ensures that keys are only used to license an approved number of machines. Activation is performed using the License Manager (gclm.exe). The activation process does not collect any personal information aside from IP address, city, country, machine name and operating system.

Prior to 2020 v2, ComponentOne keys were activated using the ComponentOne License Activation utility (C1LicenseActivation.exe). After 2020 v2, keys should be activated using the License Manager (gclm.exe).

If you have a new 19-digit license key, it must first be activated through the License Manager tool. If you'd then like to use an older version of any ComponentOne product (prior to 2020 v2), you can launch the legacy C1LicenseActivation tool, which will prompt you to install an old key that matches the new key's subscription time period. You will be able to use old versions of any product licensed within your subscription.

If you have a 28-digit license key, you can use just the first 17 digits of your serial number to unlock older products through C1LicenseActivation. For example, for SE307AC-3G-XXXXXX-06-6WNWR1K, you would use SE307AC-3G-XXXXXX.

The usage of this serial key has exceeded the activation limit, which is three for a standard developer license. Please try to deactivate it on a different machine that doesn't need it and then try to activate it on this machine again.

The serial key has been activated too frequently. A serial key can only be deactivated and reactivated up to 9 times within 24 hours. Please try it after 24 hours. If you need a build server license that can be reactivated more frequently, contact our sales team.

The product version being used may fall outside of your subscription window. Click on the About button for the control you're trying to license and identify the version number. For example, if your license is 2020 v2, you are entitled to versions up to and including 2021 v2 (version x.x.20212.xxx).

The limit is three (3) machines per license. Allowed installations include any combination of a primary machine (desktop), backup machine (laptop), build machine, or test machine. A license can be deactivated on one machine so that it can be activated on a fourth machine. This is known as reactivation. However, this is only allowed up to 9 times within 24 hours. If you need a build server license that can be reactivated more frequently, you may be interested in our pipeline license. Contact our sales team.

No personal information is required to submit during activation. The activation process does collect the following information from the users machine: IP address, city, country, machine name and operating system.

You can deactivate one machine in order to free up activation for a different machine. A serial key can only be activated on 3 different machines and up to 9 times within 24 hours. If you cannot deactivate any of your current computers, you will need to purchase additional licenses or request an additional activation.

You can activate an offline machine through another machine that is connected to the internet. This is known as offline activation. You can activate an offline machine from the following site by clicking Activation (or Deactivation for offline deactivation): https://sa2.mescius.com/

No, only the developers who are installing ComponentOne controls for use in development projects need to activate their controls.

Source Code Licensing

Purchase full source code for any ComponentOne product to use as a reference or with the rights to modify and redistribute. Users can purchase a source code license in addition to standard developer licenses. In both cases, the source code license follows guidelines set by our EULA.

ComponentOne Source Code Licenses Include:

  • Full source code for one product, including all components belonging to a single platform version or single .NET version
  • Enterprise controls for the supported platforms
  • Discounts to purchase additional products, versions, or updates
  • Support to ensure you can access and build the source code.

*Please note that once the source code is modified, we cannot guarantee further support.

Different Types of Source Code Licenses

For Education & Reference: You may receive the source code for reference purposes to help with education and debugging. However, this does not give you the right to modify and redistribute a custom version of the controls. The price for this license is significantly less than the license to modify and redistribute the source code.

For Modification: Modify the source code and redistribute the modified components within your application. This license does not entitle you to redistribute the components for third-party usage. The benefit of this license is that you may modify the controls to add missing features to your application or customize the control beyond the standard licensed version. The modified component must keep the MESCIUS copyright intact. You may not create a new assembly and resell it, which is known as white label software. The price for this license type is significantly more than the education & reference price.

Contact us for pricing information.

Troubleshooting

We try to make the licensing mechanism as unobtrusive as possible, but problems may occur for a number of reasons. For more information on how to activate a key or license an application, check out our licensing documentation.

If you need further assistance, submit a ticket to our support team. Contact the MESCIUS Developer Tools sales team at 1-800-858-2739.