Migrating Protection PLUS 5 SDK to Modern .NET (.NET 5 and later) and Replacing PLUSManagedGui

Moving a C# application from .NET Framework to modern .NET (.NET 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.) keeps your Protection PLUS 5 SDK licensing working. The one piece that needs changing is the optional GUI dialog library. Here is the recommended path.

Use the .NET Standard build of PLUSManaged

Reference the PLUSManaged .NET Standard build (installed under Library\Standard2.0, which supports .NET 5 and later) instead of the .NET Framework PLUSManaged.dll. Node-locked copy protection and activation work cross-platform on this build (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS). Network Floating Licensing is Windows-only (see the note below). The only other difference is some of the plumbing for calling the SOLO Server endpoints.

Replace PLUSManagedGui with your own UI

PLUSManagedGui is currently .NET Framework only (no .NET Standard / .NET 8 build). It is just a set of Windows Forms dialogs layered over the core PLUSManaged API, so the migration is to rebuild the equivalent UI (WinForms or WPF, targeting net8.0-windows) and call the core PLUSManaged API directly.

Every operation the dialogs performed is already in the core library and callable from your own UI: - Online activation: ActivateOnline - Refresh: RefreshLicense - Deactivation: DeactivateOnline - Validation: Validate - Manual / offline activation: the manual activation methods

Your SOLO Server endpoint and proxy settings continue to come from the existing [WebServiceHelper](https://www.softwarekey.com/help/plus5/#PLUSManaged_ProxyServers.htm) sample class (the default SOLO Server URLs and proxy/proxy-authentication support live in WebServiceHelper.cs/.vb, in code), unchanged.

Start from the sample

A simplified .NET Standard command-line sample ships with the latest SDK. Use it as a starting point for calling the core API. See the sample .NET applications.

Network floating on modern .NET

Both network floating approaches are Windows-only: NetworkFloatingSemaphore (local/semaphore-file network floating) and Cloud-Controlled Network Floating Licensing (seats managed through SOLO Server) are each documented as supported on Windows platforms only. On Windows under .NET Standard they behave exactly as they do today. There is no documented network-floating option for non-Windows targets ; for cross-platform deployments use node-locked activation (which works on all supported platforms), and consider SOLO Server usage models such as license counters if you need usage-based control.