MikeD
2/29/2012 2:19:00 PM
"BeeJ" <nospam@spamnot.com> wrote in message
news:jijftr$2em8$1@adenine.netfront.net...
> From Win XP basic onward ...
>
> What is normally done?
> (1) A user does not update the OS and I want to install a VB6 app using
> a) Packaged install (say Inno)
> b) reg-free com manifest (MMM) or PDW
> What do I include or what can I include, how do I know?
> (Let's assume the the installer is not smart, or is it?)
>
> e.g. quartz.dll, sapi
>
> (A) probably cannot include in installer.
> (B) do I demand that the user pre-intall DirectX or SAPI?
> Should I check for the .dlls etc or does the installer do that?
Well, it's somewhat ridiculous to expect that anybody can tell you exactly
what you can and cannot distribute without knowing exactly what your app
uses. You mentioned DirectX and SAPI. As far as I know, both of these are
included with Windows XP and later, but they may not be the same versions as
you used during development and so your app *might* require updated versions
to be installed. You cannot distribute individual files from either of
those. However, DirectX for certain, and I believe SAPI too, has
distribution packages you can obtain from MS and include as part of your
installation. Or you can instruct users to obtain them from MS themselves.
DirectX can be updated via Windows Update, not sure about SAPI.
For a list of files that you CAN redistribute, see the REDIST.TXT file. This
should have been installed by VB6's installation, but I think exactly where
varies depending on your installation choices and the exact product you have
(such as VB6 by itself or whether you have Visual Studio and maybe only
installed VB6). But keep in mind that REDIST.TXT is fairly outdated and will
only list files that were relevant back in 1998 when VS6/VB6 was released.
And in some cases, there may be files that REDIST.TXT says you can
distribute but now you are no longer allowed to redistribute for various
reasons.
>
> Do any of the installers help do this?
> Where do you find the info needed to do any of this?
> I think Inno has the ability to run any .EXE during install so is that
> where something is done?
Your best bet for finding info is an SDK. For example, the DirectX SDK and
the SAPI SDK. They're going to contain the information you need on how you
can redistribute those packages, or even IF they're redistributable.
>
> I have found that even using an installer for one of my apps that if I
> install on a development PC it installs just fine. If I install it on a
> clean XP Pro PC the install completes but the app won't start. This I
> believe is because the VB6 app.exe checks for or tries to load missing
> references etc and just quits without message or warning leaving me in the
> dark. So I am having difficulty determining what is wrong. Unfortunately
> this app uses a lot of references, some that I created like ActiveX EXEs
> and other .dlls from third parties or MS.
Well, only you know what your app's dependencies are. All dependencies that
your app has will need to either already exist or be installed on target
PCs. They might also have to be a specific version if you didn't write your
app to be compatible with older versions. For example, you said you use
DirectX. If your app is using functionality specific to say DirectX9c, then
even you will need to update a target PC to have DirectX9c (which maybe only
has DirectX8 currently installed). OTOH, if you wrote your app to be
compatible with DirectX7, you're probably safe because I think that's the
version of DirectX that is already part of Windows XP (not positive about
that though).
You might have to add some debug code into your app to log it's startup
progress.
Mike