ABBYY FineReader Engine provides a special installation utility for its distribution. Using this utility, you can install the ABBYY FineReader Engine library on a workstation in automatic mode from the command line. In addition, you can install the library manually by copying the necessary files.

If the FineReader Engine DLLs are part of your own application/solution, then you will include the needed files in you own distribution package / installation routines.

The functions which load the Engine require the 'Project ID' as one of the input parameters.

The 'Project ID' should be used to compile the application.

Note: The 'Project ID' is a parameteer of ABBYY FineReader Engine 12. In the versions 9.5, 10 and 11 the 'Project ID' corresponds to the Master Developer Licence.

You should activate a Runtime License on the workstation.

More details can be found in the Developer's Help of the SDK.

• Files marked as “mandatory” in the table of the ABBYY FineReader Engine Distribution Kit section. They are system modules and main recognition databases.
• Recognition databases for handprinted text, if you want to recognize handprinted text.
• Resource files for interface languages that will be used in your application.
• Dictionary support files for recognition languages that your application will support. If the recognition languages include languages with the Latin alphabet, make sure that you copy the Univers.amd and Univers.amm files.
• Scanning modules, scanning-specific resources and Twain modules if your application will perform scanning via the ABBYY FineReader Engine interface.
• The Local License Manager utility and the Hardware Key drivers installation utility (ikeydrvr.exe). The Hardware Key drivers installation utility - ikeydrvr.exe - should be copied into the in the \USB Drivers subfolder of your application root folder in the case of a 32-bit system, or \USB Drivers\64 folder in the case of a 64-bit system. For more details refer to Installing Hardware Key drivers.
  Note: All the files must be copied to the same folder, if otherwise is not stated.

The following folders should be accessible from the workstation:

• folder with ABBYY FineReader Engine binary files - full control
• %TEMP% folder - full control
• “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ABBYY” registry - full control
• “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID” registry - full control
• “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib” registry - full control for installation and activation only

More details can be found in the documentation chapter: Distribution of applications using the ABBYY FineReader Engine library and in the articlle Permissions required for ABBYY FineReader Engine to run on workstations.

Please, make sure that the Runtime License corresponds to the Developer License. During the program operation on a workstation, the relationship between the Runtime Licenses and the Developer License is checked once the GetEngineObject function is called.

If the licenses do not match, the Engine object will not be created and the application will not work. The GetEngineObject function requires a developer license serial number to work.

The developer license serial number can be written directly into the application code when calling the GetEngineObject function or the application can find it in an INI file (as it is done in the ABBYY FineReader Engine code samples). Alternativelly, the application can get the number from the registry. The method for getting the serial number is selected by the developer. If the application gets the serial number from an INI file, make sure that the number written in the file is the developer license serial number.

The default licensing mechanism of FineReader Engine 11 does not support its usage in containers. For FineReader Engine 12, usage in containers is supported (the Online licensing mechanism is required).

Yes, there is a limit, however it is rather bound to network latency and not to the specifications of hte server on which the Network Licence Manager (NLM) is running. The reason is that each communication action must be confirmed before another request could be processed. A communication action includes sending a packet of data and getting back an acknowledgment that it has been received successfully. Required time is the major bottleneck. If it is 30ms, then nominal NLM throughput will be 1000ms / 30ms = 33 requests per second without timeout issues.

To calculate the maximum number of workstations, it is necessary to know their activity diagram: how often a workstation performs a recognition task and how big the average recognition time is.

If each workstation works continuously and simultaneously, and the recognition time is 5 seconds, then the NLM will work without any issue with 155 workstations simultaneously. More workstations however, may cause timeouts and recognition process failings.

These are rather theoretical estimations. Under real conditions, the results might differ due to lower network latency, longer processing time and significant processing time dispersion. Timeout limit longer than 1 second makes virtual short-term request queue. Virtual limit of simultaneous connections is about 32000.