There are a number of ways this can be tripped up with the VX release. Here is how I would attack it:
1. Make sure your project has references to the COM objects from the current release of Xpedition. In this case you will need MGCPCBEngines, as well as MGCPCB. I do this by using the Add Reference function and selecting those from the COM object list. (BTW I use the Sharp Develop IDE most of the time.)
2. You will need to start your IDE with mglaunch. I do this by way of a batch file with the following:
%mglaunch% D:\my_path\my_project.sln
and I have set an environment variable called mglaunch with the path to the current version's mglaunch. This is found typically in the following location:
C:\MentorGraphics\EEVX.1.2\SDD_HOME\common\win32\bin\mglaunch.exe
or win64 if you have 64bit installed. Of course it will change with different releases.
The reason you need to do this is that the PCB Engines must start blindly from within your executable, and they do not attach to a running session of one of the Mentor tools. Therefore your executables must be started from mglaunch, and thus your IDE must also be started from mglaunch. The way you know if you need to launch with mglaunch or not is if you have any CreateObject statements in your code for starting applications. If you do, you must start the IDE with mglaunch, and you must also start your executable (see below) with it as well. The other option is the GetObject statement. If you only have those in your code, to attach to existing sessions of the Mentor tools, mglaunch is not needed.
3. If mglaunch is needed (which in this case, with MGCPCB Engines, it is), you must start your executable with it. Mentor recommends using the ReleaseEnvironmentServer for this purpose. Naturally I do it a different way. My was was suggested by someone from Mentor who wrote a document on various ways of doing this, so it's not like I just said, "screw you guys, I'm doing it another way!" No, I followed their advice and it worked. It's also simpler and uses less code, so I like it.
I start the automation executable with a vbs script that gets the path to mglaunch from the Windows registry. It looks like this: (filename is something like start.vbs)
Optionexplicit
run
sub run()
Dim objShell, regkey, mglaunch
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
regkey = "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\mglaunch.exe\"
mglaunch = objShell.RegRead(regkey)
mglaunch = mglaunch & " " & chr(34) & "D:\my_path\my_executable.exe" & chr(34)
objShell.run mglaunch
set objShell = Nothing
Endsub
This script gets the path of the currently registered version of mglaunch from the registry, then uses that path to run mglaunch with the executable as the argument.
So, get all that in place, and see where it gets you. The other element which may be missing, you already mentioned - Automation Pro license. You also need that to run the MGCPCBEngines. I can tell you that with the above items in place, I am able to start and run the Engines with the scripts above. The system does work if you have everything in place correctly.