>Big difference. But as far as registering a control that is being legally used in your app, how is the insertion of control info into the registry different from a design-time registry entry? In one of my apps, I do a read of the reagistry to make sure certain controls are registered. If not, I register them programmatically. To me there is no difference with an OCX. Seems to me, you would have to have VFP, VB, VS, etc., installed to be able to do anything with respect to design-time use anyway. If that is true, then you have the design-time license if the developer product was installed legally.

The design-time licencing "protection" mechanism is a general mechanism that should be implemented by any serious development tool. That means non MS or non-Visual Studio development tools, too.

So, if you install the design-time licence on a computer, that COM can be used in dev tools that do not include that COM.

Is it clearer now?

Vlad