Licensing

When most users of OAK purchase a license, they will be given a license key to enter into the licensing form, according to the instructions in the section: Buying OAK

There are other situations that can arise. There may be a problem storing the license, or if a site license has been purchased a site license file will have been provided.

When installed, OAK creates a folder Operis\OAK4 in the Common Application Data folder. The folder that OAK creates will be referred to as the OAK Common Data folder. The license is stored in a file in this folder.

Windows	OAK common data folder in Common Application Data (default location)
XP	C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Operis\OAK4
Vista	C:\ProgramData\Operis\OAK4
7	C:\ProgramData\Operis\OAK4

Files and folders stored in these places require, by default, administrator rights to write to them. For this reason, it is necessary for an administrative user to install the license key.

When OAK attempts to store a license key that has been entered into its licensing form, it calls an external utility in OAK's program folder. This utility is Operis.OAK.Licencer.exe.

The reason that a separate utility is used, rather than OAK performing the task itself, is that under Windows 7 and Vista, although a user may be an administrator, Excel (and thus OAK) runs as a standard user. This means that OAK cannot write to that location regardless of whether the user is an administrator or standard user.

Operis.OAK.Licencer.exe contains contains a security manifest that requests that it be run as an administrator. Windows can recognize this and display a User Account Control (UAC) prompt for administrator credentials. If the user is an administrator, or the security permissions on the OAK common data folder have been altered to give the current user access, then this should work. OAK will wait 60 seconds for it to finish, before showing an error message. This utility is signed with Operis's code signing certificate, and on some systems this can result in a delay as Windows tries to verify it.

This utility can be run from the command line if necessary. For example, for license key 123456789ABCDEF, one could type the following into a command window:

This creates a file called License.lic in the Operis\OAK4 folder in the Common Application Data folder.

This is simple a text file containing the product id, a bar character '|', and the license key, with no whitespace, e.g.

If OAK is licensed with a site license, then a binary file with a .slic extension will have been provided. This contains encrypted information about the company who has the license, a branding logo, and the expiry date.

This file should be copied into OAK's common data folder. This folder varies according to the version of Windows in use. See above.

Many organizations use a software deployment system, and a site license file could be delivered to the required location as part of a deployment package.