VB6 Package & Deployment Wizard Update?

[WeezelDS]

Hello,
I just installed VB6 after not using it for several years. I installed SP5 and SP6 from microsoft. Is there SP1-4? If so, where do I find them? In particular, the one thing I want them to fix is the abysmally poor user interface for the package and deployment wizard's installer. After you make the setup package, the setup program itself is terrible. In order to install the program you need to click on this stupid square icon, rather than just hitting another "next" button. Is there anyway to fix this via service packs, or some other package?

Thanks,
WeezelDS

[dglienna]

Sure. Check out the Deployment forums. You will find that the Inno Setup and Inno Script utilities will create very nice installation packages. There is a bit of a learning curve, but there are many people that will be glad to help. randem wrote Inno Script, and he is a member of the forums.

[WeezelDS]

Thanks man

[kleinma]

FYI

the PDW (yes it does suck and I never use it) is nothing more than a VB6 program. The initial setup file is a C++ application which installs the runtimes for VB so that it can run setup1.exe which is a VB6 app (which is the user interface you see)

if you go to
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98\Wizards\PDWizard\Setup1

you will see the full source code for the PDW UI. You can modify it if you would want and write your own installer. This would be more if it was just to learn than something you would really want to undertake as a serious project. Only reason being that there are already a hand full of really good installers out there that have been time tested to work well. INNO is by far the best one for the poor programmer as it is free, but still I would rather use it over InstallShield anyday because its not all overbloated and I was never a big fan of the windows installer... it makes single setup exe files which is a must for internet distribution.