Hi Guys,

I have been programming for more than 4 years but all of it has been inside the bounds of a corporate building.

It's the first time, I have been asked to develop application which will be mass deployed on customer's PC in _wild_ and application needs to support OS starting from Windows 98SE. So I thought I would ask for some suggestions from you guys. First, a little background:

Application's purpose is simple. It needs to connect to our web server, find out files which user has selected for download and download them one by one. It should support resuming file download in case connection gets lost. Basically it's a download manager kind of program for the company's site. Nothing fancy.

Now I already wrote application prototype in VB using 'Microsoft Internet Transfer Control' which can connect to server, download files, support resuming of download etc. But with VB comes the installation headaches related to run time files and OCXs. I investigated a bit and I found following alternatives:

Thinstall: Does exactly what I am looking for. It creates a standalone EXE which doesn't need installation and runs by itself. Though the pricing (at 5000$ per desktop/application license) is bit prohibitive.

PGWare Alloy, UPX, MoleBox Pro: Can help me pack VB runtime files along with my main application file, but they don't support OCX registration.

So my question is, are there any other options?
1. Is it a good idea to pack VB runtime files along with your main exe file?
2. OR it is better to create installer using InnoSetup or NSIS setup and install VB runtime files and ActiveX control?
3. Should I ditch VB and go with something else? Say VC++ or Delphi?


Any other tips or gotchas I should lookout for?

Any tips/links on how to develop bullet proof VB application which won't crash easily in the 'field'.

Your input is appreciated,
Thanks,
JD