Problem
At startup, GDSLAB displays a message saying that the HASP security dongle was not found.
Make sure the dongle is not an expired timed dongle. Timed dongles are black whereas regular dongles are purple.
Solution
1. Swap USB Port
Close GDSLAB and confirm that the dongle is plugged into a USB port on the PC and its red light is turned on. If it is not, plug in the dongle and run GDLAB. If it is, then plug it into a different USB port. If you are using a desktop computer try to use a port on a different internal USB hub (i.e. if the dongle was connected to the back of the PC swap it to one of the ports at the front.
Run GDSLAB, if the dongle is recognized then the USB port it was connected to (or the internal HUB was faulty), or the driver installation was not finished and by connecting it to a different port Windows recognized the new device and finished installing its driver. If the error message persists continue to the next step.
2. Re-install the HASP dongle drivers
For this step the following conditions need to be met:
The account used has full administration privileges for the computer, with absolutely no restrictions. Otherwise, the drivers will not install correctly and may even become locked,
The dongle is NOT connected to the PC during the installation
For Windows versions older than Windows 10 it may be necessary to manually delete the HASP driver from Windows Device Manager before starting this step.
The drivers are installed at the same time as GDSLAB. Unplug the dongle and restart the PC. Run the GDSLAB installer and tick all the options (excluding AdvCore drivers if running Windows 8 or later). Once the installation is finished plug the dongle to the PC. Wait a few seconds, you should hear the Windows sound indicating that a device was plugged into a USB port and Windows will finish the background installation of the drivers.
Run GDSLAB, the dongle should be recognized now. If not, proceed to the next step.
3. Re-register the HASL library
Unplug the dongle and unregister the file GDS_Hasp.dll located in C:\GDSLAB\Plug-ins
Once this is done re-register the file. For more information on how to register/unregister dll files please refer to the article below:
How can I register or unregister dll files for GDSLAB or GDSLAB Reports?
Once this has been done plug in the dongle and run GDSLAB. If the dongle is still not recognized at this point you may not have the necessary access permissions in your machine. Please bear in mind that even some Windows user accounts with full access can be limited by default admin restrictions. Contact your IT support to confirm this situation. It may be required to use the original administrator account to properly install these drivers, depending on local machine restrictions.