Registration of DG Kernel Controls
DG Kernel components are COM servers, in many cases information about the controls has to be
entered into the Windows Registry. This process is called registration.
In certain scenarios, DG Kernel components can be deployed without registration.
See Registration-free deployment below.
Specific to DG Kernel Developer installations: A computer can have more than one
version of full DG Kernel installation, but only one set of components can be
registered at a time. Select the "Update Component Registration" Start menu
option to activate a version of DG Kernel.
All versions are intended to be backward compatible, so an application will run
with a newer version of DG Kernel without recompilation.
Self Registration
Versions of DG Kernel prior to v4.3 are using self-registration process. Most
commonly this is done automatically by the installer package. From the installer
package developer's point of view, it means that Register property of the
installed .ocx file must be set to vsdrfCOMSelfReg or similar
option.
Another way to self-register is to execute a command line similar to:
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\regsvr32.exe KerCADne.ocx (32 bit applications) or
C:\Windows\System32\regsvr32.exe KerCADne.ocx (64 bit applicaptions)
Either way during the self-registration the .ocx component is loaded into memory
and a function called DllRegisterServer() is executed.
The above process involves loading a large set of dlls, on which DG Kernel
depends. So starting form v4.3 the recommended way to register components on the
target machine is via .xreg files:
RealAll2.exe and parametric reg files
To register, say KerCADne.ocx control, it is recommended to execute command
line
RegAll2.exe KerCADne.xreg
RegAll2.exe and KerCADne.xreg are provided in the Bin folder of DG Kernel
installation directory. All three RegAll2.exe, KerCADne.xreg, and KerCADne.ocx
are assumed to be installed in the same folder. The Register property on the
file in the installer, if used, has to be vsdrfCOMDoNotRegister or similar
This way the component is not actually loaded. Instead, a small set of required
information, contained in the *.xreg file is entered into the Registry directly,
which is a faster and safer way of doing it.
If both .Net and native controls need to be installed it can be done with a single
command:
RegAll2.exe KerCADne.xreg KerCADe.xreg
Use /u switch to unregister the control(s) during uninstallation:
RegAll2.exe /u KerCADne.xreg KerCADe.xreg
Registration-free deployment
Sometimes DG Kernel components can be used without registration using Reg-Free
COM technology of Microsoft. With this method the application uses a manifest
file, generated by Visual Studio or other method, located next to the
application's executable file, which contains the information describing the
DG Kernel component, instead of writing it into registry. See more details in
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc188708.aspx
This approach assumes that DG Kernel component and all supporting files are
installed into the same folder as the applications executable, or in a folder
pointed to by the manifest. As DG Kernel redistributable is large, this method is
not suitable for cases when the component is used by many executables located in
different folders.
Because of the above consideration and some other reasons full DG Kernel
installation (DG Kernel Developer) uses traditional registration
See also: Deployment Samples and Tutorials
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