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Greetings,
So I created a program in vb6 and it works flawlessly on my computer on a few others. However, on some it does not want to install correctly. I told my boss this is because either some of the dll's are missing or need to be registered and that the users would need to install and/or register them. What are your experiences with installing your program on other users computer? Have you had the same issue as well.
Make sure you include all necessary files for your program to work in the installation file so that if they are not on the client machine he/she can install them along with your program. I will allow the program to run on the different operating systems without the user having to download a lot of different files in order for the program to install and run.
You have created a program and you want to distribute it to the users, right ?
Then, you have to create an installer/setup file. You can use on of the following tools for that:
- VB's Package & Deployment Wizard (it's an old tool. better not to use that one)
- Inno Setup (Free)
- Install Shield (not free)
- etc...
I'm using Inno. But I think, the other two will automatically detect the resources needed for your program and add to the setup file. While, Inno needs to be done manually, while creating the setup file.
....:wave:
Also, you can use CIS - Cyber Installer Suite (http://www.silvercybertech.com/)
CIS is a good installer where you can 'load' the VB6 project file, and CIS retrieve all components used automatically.
It can be used with any developing environment (.Net, C, C++, Delphi, Java, PHP, Visual Basic, ecc.) .
Some of its functionalities:
proprietary engine for small sized packages usable in any Winodws version, support to .Net (1.x, 2.x, 3.0, 3.5), esclusive roll-back system to take back the system to the condition previous the installation, wizard for assisted packages creation with automatica dependencies detection, multilanguage support, support to Winoddws Installer (.msi and .msm packages), support to Microsoft Winodws Vista (also 64 bit) and UAC.
:wave:
Thread moved tothe 'Application Deployment' forum, which is where questions about installing/distributing your software belong
Went and checked it out and found it has four versions, Free, Personal, Professional, and Enterprise.
http://www.silvercybertech.com/english/index.html
download http://www.silvercybertech.com/english/download.html
prices (in euros) http://www.silvercybertech.com/english/registered.html (current rate at time of posting is 1 euro = 1.21 USD)
and from the sounds of it, most of the small programs we can do, the free version should be okay...
however, if you have the patience of an angel (meaning this page takes a long time to load since it is now only hosted at an archive site), you can download the Visual Studio Installer 1.1 (the thing that replaced the PDW) and it is free and creates msi's from here...
http://web.archive.org/web/200805131.../aa718352.aspx
Good Luck
For a lot of programs that haven't been written to work properly under Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 anyway they end up running with appcompat shims that try to simulate a Win9x environment anyway. In such cases PDW installs are probably fine, and for casual users it is less likely to produce a faulty setup than some "advanced" tools.
Even so you need to be aware of some PDW issues, since the tool was never updated to understand that things have changed since 1998. For example it may try to package and deploy libraries that are OS-specific and shipped with the OS now. There is no "book" to read. You really need to go through the 12 years of MS KB articles on the subject of the PDW.
I'd recommend that you start with the PDW. Usually you will want to look at the list of the files it "decides to" include and if you are deploying to Win2K or later exclude anything like VCRT*.dll files and MDAC. In most cases you can also exclude the VB6 Runtime and OLE components. More complex cases require more reseach, for example you should not deploy most scripting components this way.