which DLLs should you register/not register

[batman321]

Hi,

I made a mistake. I registered all my DLLs in my program (during INNO setup) and now my app displays runtime errors. I should have registered only 1 DLL (long story).

My question: which DLLs are you meant to register. If I unregister my DLLs then register the DLLs I'm meant to, it should fix the problem.

Regards,

Simon

[dilettante]

Is this a VB.Net with COM Interop project or a VB6 project?

If VB6 I'm not sure why you are using Inno, for VB.Net Express I could understand since Microsoft intentionally doesn't include setup tools. They want you to use ClickOnce.


When you use something like Inno you're expected to know what you're doing. Copy/pasting examples for application deployment can be hazardous.

In VB6 you get the Package & Deployment Wizard. This was meant to be "smart enough" to figure out what to deploy and register based on the "hints" that ship with VB6 components. Those hints are located in .DEP files and in VB6DEP.ini, however even then you can have trouble because Microsoft has never updated these hint files. Instead they have published MS KB articles telling you what's changed over time, and expect you to update the hints yourself.

That can break down too though, because many 3rd party components (in DLL/OCX libraries) do not ship with appropriate .DEP files. For that matter as Microsoft added new components to Windows they haven't always provided .DEP files.


There is no "master list" of files that must be deployed, must not be deployed, and when deployed require registration. You can only determine such things from the existing .DEP and VB6DEP.ini files, and by reading things like the component documentation and those MS KB articles on topics such as the PDW and those with "redist" (redistribution) topics.

This has been a problem for a long time. Microsoft has gradually improved "System File Protection" in Window versions from Win2K forward, to try to help by causing the system to ignore attempts to deploy and register things you shouldn't (or when it can't just ignore your attempts it backfills by putting the original versions back). This only works for components Microsoft has deemed most critical though, and placed into System File Protection... now known as Windows File Protection.

[batman321]

I'm getting the error: "run time error 429 activex component can't create object"

This runtime error occurs straight away after my program launches.

My program worked on this machine before. I know its a .DLL, .OCX error. Incompatibility or unregistered.
I have registered comdlg32.ocx (and other .dlls, .ocx files) no luck.

My program works fine on my XP machine (computer that has visual basic 6 installed, source code etc) and my vista machine, except the "old" XP machine (slow specs, outdated .dlls)

Thanks

Simon