Installing the Visual Basic IDE on Vista
Like a lot of other people, we have to provide support for existing products authored in VB6. That means we have to be able to debug VB6 applications in the target OS (which will soon be Vista), and be able to make changes and recompile for compatibility.
All credit to Microsoft, they've committed to providing support for VB applications in Vista - see here.
The problem with Vista RC1 is when you've done a clean install (well you would, wouldn't you?), and try to re-install VB6, the installer crashes ... I've seen a lot about this on the web forums, and as far as I'm aware - I haven't seen a solution.
Here's the solution that worked for us (and I hope it works for you) ...
- Cancel any Visual Studio auto-run.
- Navigate to the CD/DVD and find the Setup.exe file.
- Right-click and select Properties, and on the Compatibility Tab, set the following:
- Check the 'Run this program in compatibility mode for:'
- Select Windows NT 4 in the drop-down
- Check 'Disable Visual Themes'
- Check 'Disable desktop composition'
- Check 'Disable display scaling ...'
- Right-Click again and select 'Run as administrator'
The Visual Studio setup should now run OK. (Note that the 'Install MS Virtual VM for Java ...' doesn't complete properly, but that's not a problem).
The Setup will do an auto-restart, then continue as normal when the computer re-boots. (One file 'iviewers.dll' fails to register for
security reason - you could register it manually if required - this notes that Setup did not complete successfully ...
but everything seems to work OK).
We're still checking - but we haven't found any problems running, debugging and compiling as yet.
Any comments, updates - feel free to e-mail me on james@callmap.co.uk
Cheers.
Update (March 2007)
Now that retail VISTA is out, we've had no major problems installing and running VB6 + SP6 on a CLEAN install of VISTA RTM. We have, however,
had these problems on an UPGRADE installation of Vista (not to mention the other problems you get on an upgrade - but these are documented
well elsewhere on the web). We've also had to do a fair bit of work on Font Metrics and sizing routines to make sure everything works/displays OK.
(Had a lot of fun with the CCRP wrapper of the COMCTL32 Calendar). In the main, MS has done a great job in providing the 'it just works'
support for VB6/WIN32 apps in Vista (although I must admit that I find the 'it just works' ethos a bit worrying for critical enterprise
scale applications ... major regression testing required). VB6/SP6 and SQL 2005 SP2 also work well. I'll leave it to other commentators
(of which there are many), as to the value of upgrading to Vista ... although the current hullabaloo does remind me a bit about the
jump to XP (and having to rip out the VB6 common controls kludge). Here we go again ...
Good luck!
Update (May 2007)
Couple of notes that may help - once you've installed VB and SP6 (for best and quickest results, do this first after a clean Vista install), set your VB6 program shortcut to run in 'Administrator' mode (VB needs this for registry access, and you won't be able to compile OCX or DLL code without it). If you're using the CCRP Calendar OCX, I've a workround for the window placement on the drop-down (if you've the same problem, e-mail me and I'll send the fix). Other than that - it all seems to 'just work'! Well done MS.
Update (June 2007)
Just a quick note on using the updated Vista common controls (I'm sure most of you out there know this one, but ...)
- Components - Use Microsoft Common Controls 5 (SP2), not the VB6 ones.
- In your Project, Declare InitCommonControls Lib "Comctl32.dll" (), and Call InitCommonControls at startup.
- Embed your Manifest XML as a resource (type 24, Name 1, Language {language ID number}) - I use Resource Hacker for this - brilliant tool!
- Also, don't use the Aero theme when you're in design mode (the VB IDE really doesn't like it!) - use Windows Classic.
Hope that's of use to someone.