First of all, let me start by saying that I DO like your product (MySQLDirect.Net). Although my problem originated somewhere else and I was kind of "forced" to use MySQLDirect.Net I must admit that it functions fairly nice and the price is not too high.
But I would also like to make a huge rant and I think the people at CoreLab should consider alternatives for the following:
I purchased a license yesterday and today the confirmation email came in. Funny thing is that the license(code?) is actually not used anywhere; there's just a difference in the trial/release versions of the DLL. Not that big of a problem but it has cost me about a day to get the stupid licensing to function correctly. And I am not the only one.
After reading the helpfile about how to do the 'licensing' and carefully (re)checking everything and every step I kept getting "License not valid...". So I came here and started browsing this forum. Most solutions here are the same solutions as in the helpfile or even just only 'pointers' to the helpfile.
Actually I have no idea what finally solved the problem. I've tried about a million things like (re)installing, moving .licx files to all kinds of folders, adding/embedding as resources, creating licenses.config files, copying MySQLDirect.Net files to all kinds of folders etc. Nothing helped. Until suddenly it just worked. No idea what I did to fix it.
But judging from the lot of questions on this forum (and elsewhere on the net) there should be done something to make this easier. Why not just store a license-key in a single place (registry, next to the MySQLDirect.Net dll's or whatever) or take a look at one of the many other products in the market and how they have solved the problem.
I noticed at the llblgen.com forum (search for licx) that even over there people are complaining about licensing trouble caused by MySQLDirect.net.
This (sorry) crap has cost me almost a day to fix and worst of all I have no idea what solved the problem
Also, as a final critical note, I would like to mention that most of the samples don't run out-of-the-box. Again; licensing trouble and a lot of references that went haywire. Make sure a new release contains working examples; that way new users can get started much quicker with your product and won't put it aside as soon as they do now. It is actually the fact that I am 'forced' to use MySQLDirect.net but otherwise I would've given up about 4 hours ago and asked for a refund or never even actually bought a license.
I know this post sounds very negative and critical an sceptical. Maybe I am. My advise: take this "rant" at heart and improve these problems a.s.a.p.
To all other users: make sure you too get heard! Post here (@CoreLab forums in general or this thread) and 'protest' with me!
“its when people stop criticizing that you should worry, because thats when they no longer care”