Sorry if this question sounds stupid, but i am brand new to windows programming, and am still trying to get the hang of everything. What I am wondering, is exactly how powerful and common are visual basic programs in windows. For example, are very large and complex programs, such as AOL, MS Office, Norton Utilities, ect. programmed in visual basic, or if they aren't, then could they be? Another question. I have been working on a small, very simple notepad type program, in VB, and the other day i decided to show it to my friend and emailed it to him. When he tried to run the program, he got the error:

'Component mscomctl.ocx, or one of it's dependinces not currently registered; a file is missing or invalid.'

So, i am assuming that windows 98, is lacking the runtime files (or whatever they are) to run visual basic, and so if he wants to run the program, then he will have to get the files.

So, since he does not have the files needed to run the program, does that mean that he has no programs installed that are made in visual basic, or require these files? Also, since microsoft makes VB, and windows, and visual basic programs are obviously made to run on windows, then then why are these files not already included in windows?