Is VB6 suited for mass market application?

[jdk]

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

[dglienna]

Take a look at the Application Deployment forum. You will see that Inno Setup with Inno Script is a good choice, and it's FREE!

[jdk]

Thanks dglienna for the answer.

I am aware about InnoSetup. My company already has license for WISE as well.

But I wanted to avoid the installation, if possible. Installation of application just introduces new set of test matrix for application which will be installed across OSes. And as my application is not complicated, I think I can get away with installation.

Though my actual question is this:
Will it be wise to select Visual Basic? Anyone has created a mass market application in VB? Any tips/suggestions for developing application so that it's very stable.

[Hack]

Will it be wise to select Visual Basic? Anyone has created a mass market application in VB? Any tips/suggestions for developing application so that it's very stable.

I'm a commerical software developer and my company has numerous commerical applications written in Visual Basic 6. The largest division in my company markets and sells applications to the Department of Defense. I dont work in that division, I work in the Financial Services Group which markets and sells 6 different products dealing with Risk Management. All of them are written in Visual Basic 6. There is a team in my group that is working on a .NET version of our applications but at the moment, we haven't sold any of that version. Thus far, all of our clients request the VB version.

[si_the_geek]

Any tips/suggestions for developing application so that it's very stable.

Make sure all required files are registered correctly. The best way to do this is to use an install package. If you use a decent system you should not get problems with different OS's (but you should still test this if you can).

Ensure any API's you use are compatible with the OS's you intend to support. At various times API's have been added, or replaced. You can find information on this in the documentation for the APIs at www.msdn.microsoft.com

Effective error handling, which can solve/stop as many problems as possible. If something can't be fixed "On the fly" by error handling, log it and allow the user to send the log to you (this way you can fix it). Also, provide a method of automatically updating the program if you can, there are examples of this in the CodeBank.

Avoid hard-coding any paths in your program, as the user may not have the same paths that you have - especially if they have a different version of Windows.

Try to avoid anything which requires Admin rights on the PC - some of your users may have "locked down" computers that don't let them do what you can. You can test this by testing with a limited user account on your own PC.


Once you have finished and tested your application, get Beta testers to try it out. This could be friends/colleagues etc, potential users of the final application, maybe even people from this site if they are willing to try it (most of us aren't after previous experiences), and if you have the budget there are some companies that specialise in testing.

[DelcoJoe]

FYI, I just saw that molebox is beta testing a version with OCX support. You can find it in their forums.