2) another often experienced reason can be found in the fact that the Hint property is just set to the shareware message (from previous usage of the unregistered component). In this case, you should simply change the Hint property and/or turn the ShowHint property off.

A simple check whether the registered or the unregistered component has been linked into your program can be performed by starting the application program without running Delphi and/or C++Builder on the system. If the application uses the unregistered component, the program should overwrite the component area with a copyright message. In this case see point 1 above, otherwise point 2.