Nick Hodges - Help, My Delphi 2007 license key is invalid

[Tom Martin]

Nick:

I ran across a situation with Delphi 2007 for WIN32 that could explain and
maybe even help with Christopher Burke. I am sure there maybe others in
the same situation that can benefit from my experience.

I got the ultimate April Fool's last week. Only it was not a joke.

I was very happy with my Delphi 2007 for WIN32. I had been using it for
about 3 weeks with no problems. I converted all of my projects from Delphi
2006 without a hitch (I was running Delphi 2006 and 2007 on the same
computer, my notebook as well). I was so happy with my Delphi 2007 I
decided there was no need to keep Delphi 2006 on my computer or notebook
anymore. I uninstalled Delphi 2006 from both computers.

Later, I came back to do some more work. I started Delphi 2007 and then all
hell broke loose. Delphi was complaining about bpl's missing. I started
getting inheritance errors on my project claiming components were missing,
etc. I was totally baffled. Everything was working fine so what went
wrong. Then I realized uninstalling Delphi 2006 hosed up Delphi 2007.

I remembered the installer had a repair feature so I re-ran the installer
and tried to repair Delphi 2007. I ran this 4 or 5 times to no avail.
Nothing got repaired and the problems were still there.

I decided to uninstall Delphi 2007 and go for a fresh install. The
uninstall process proceeded without a hitch; however, I can not say the same
about the re-install. When I got to the screen requesting my license key, I
kept getting the error "Invalid license key". I must have checked this key
100 times. I even went back to the Digital River website and checked my
order to verify I had the correct license key. It was the correct license
key and I was inputting the correct key, but the installer would not accept
it.

For a brief moment, well let's just say I was very unhappy... Remember the
Delphi battle cry I sent you, I was getting my battle gear ready for mortal
combat. Cooler heads prevailed of course.

I put my problem solving hat on and decided to look around my computer to
see if there was something I missed. I noticed that the uninstaller did not
remove any of the registry keys in either HKEY_CURRENT_USER or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (The Delphi 2006 keys were still there as well). So I
deleted all of those keys. I figured there maybe some other things left by
the uninstaller that needed removing. Sure enough, the "Shared
Documents\RAD Studio\, and all of the "RAD Studio" and "Code Gear"
directories in the "My Documents" and "Documents and Settings" were still
there. One directory in particular C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Code
Gear\.licenses was suspicious. All of the aforementioned directories were
manually deleted.

I crossed my fingers (and rebooted my computer for good measure) and began
the install process again for Delphi 2007 all over again (this would be the
3rd or 4th time). When I got to the License key screen, I retyped the same
key and pressed next. Wouldn't you know it, it worked as it should have and
I was able to reinstall Delphi 2007. I was up and running again in short
order. All was well with the world again.

When it came time to reinstall Delphi 2007 on my notebook, I decided to try
something a little bit different. I deleted the "C:\Documents and
Settings\All Users\Code Gear\.licenses" directory only, and left the
remaining directories and registry settings in tact. I suspected the
"\.Licenses" directory was the culprit causing me so much woe trying to
reinstall Delphi 2007 on my computer. Sure enough, Delphi 2007 installed
just fine on my notebook and I did not get the notorious "Invalid License
Key" error.

When I first got the error, I thought for some reason I had used up all of
my installs, but then I thought thats not possible. I believe for some
reason Christopher Burke has a similar issue. If he would delete the
"\.Licenses" directory, and reinstall Delphi 2007, the "Invalid License Key"
issue maybe resolved.

Tom Martin
Delphi Centurion
http://www.delphicenturion.blogspot.com/

[Nick Hodges (CodeGear)]

Tom --

Yep, you ran into a problem that we need to fix. I'm sorry that you
ran into it.

The solution when you uninstall is to also delete the

C:\Program Files\CodeGear\RAD Studio\5.0\bin\cglm.ini

file. This should get rid of the "Invalid License Key" problem.

I'm really sorry you ran into this.

--
Nick Hodges
Delphi Product Manager - CodeGear
http://blogs.codegear.com/nickhodges

[Donald Shimoda]

Tom Martin wrote:

> When I first got the error, I thought for some reason I had used up
> all of my installs, but then I thought thats not possible. I believe
> for some reason Christopher Burke has a similar issue. If he would
> delete the "\.Licenses" directory, and reinstall Delphi 2007, the
> "Invalid License Key" issue maybe resolved.

Excellent report! I will try with my Delphi for PHp trial.

--
Donald.

[MRCarver]

Ditto to Tom's experience! In fact I have submitted a ticket to
CodeGear to help to resolve this problem. Over this Easter weekend, the
very thought of hacking out registry entries had occurred to me. My
scenario was that I had just removed Delphi 2007 Beta.

Thanks Tom for the "How to". Looks like I have an answer for the tech
support when the contact me :)

Regards,
Monte Carver