HOWTO: Passing a License Key to ADO in Visual C++ Using #import

Last reviewed: October 10, 1997
Article ID: Q170459

The information in this article applies to:

ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) included with: - Microsoft Visual C++, 32-bit Editions, version 5.0

SUMMARY

The #import directive is used to incorporate information from a type library, but makes no provision for a license key. If you installed the OLE- DB SDK or Internet Information Server 3.0, then the license key is automatically created in the registry.

If your application, though, is redistributed to machines that have not had either OLE-DB SDK or Internet Information Server 3.0 installed on them, you need to programatically provide the ADO License Key. This is necessary regardless of the development environment you are using to manipulate ADO.

MORE INFORMATION

A typical #import statement is as follows:

   #import "msado10.dll" no_namespace rename( "EOF", "adoEOF" )

When using #import to generate classes for ADO, your code to manipulate a recordset might look like this:

   HRESULT        hr;
   _ConnectionPtr pConn;
   _bstr_t        bstrConnect = SysAllocString( L"driver={sql server};"
                                                L"Database=pubs;"
                                                L"UID=sa;PWD=;" );

   hr = pConn.CreateInstance(__uuidof(Connection));
   if (!FAILED(hr))
      pConn->ConnectionString = bstrConnect;

This works on any machine that has had the ADO 1.0 License Key already installed. However, if the license key is not installed, this code does not work. The code sample below is functionally equivalent but demonstrates how to create an ADO object using a license key:

   BSTR            LicKey;
   IClassFactory2  *pIUnknown = NULL;
   IUnknown        *pOuter    = NULL;
   HRESULT         hr;
   _ConnectionPtr  pConn;
   _bstr_t         bstrConnect = SysAllocString( L"driver={sql server};"
                                                 L"Database=pubs;"
                                                 L"UID=sa;PWD=;" );

   LicKey = SysAllocString( L"gxwaezucfyqpwjgqbcmtsncuhwsnyhiohwxz" );

   //
   hr = CoGetClassObject( __uuidof(Connection),
                          CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER,
                          NULL,
                          IID_IClassFactory2,
                          reinterpret_cast<void**>(&pIUnknown) );

   if( !FAILED( hr ) )
   {
      pIUnknown->CreateInstanceLic( pOuter,
                                    NULL,
                                    __uuidof(_Connection),
                                    LicKey,
                                    reinterpret_cast<void**> (&pConn) );
   }

   if( !FAILED( hr ) )
      pConn->ConnectionString = bstrConnect;

   SysFreeString( LicKey );

REFERENCES

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q168122
   TITLE     : HOWTO: Redistributing ADO 1.0 or ADO/R 1.0 with OLE/DB 1.1

Keywords          : kbcode adoengdb adovc CLIss MfcDatabase
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbhowto

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Last reviewed: October 10, 1997
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