[RESOLVED] VB App Giving Error Message During Install on Vista

[Hassan Basri]

Hello everybody,

I have an application that works well on windows. I have a friend trying to install the application on windows Vista, it gives the following error:

There was a problem registering this file
msxml.dll

Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks,

[the182guy]

Remake the app in .Net as Vista does not fully support VB6 apps. Besides, even if you fix that error, you will probably find you get another different error after that, and so on...

[sessi4ml]

Does any know if a program compiled on VB6 / XP and move it to Vista with no problems ?

[randem]

It's probably mostly in the installation. Most of the files people were deploying (INCORRECTLY) will probably come to haunt them now...

[Hassan Basri]

Remake the app in .Net as Vista does not fully support VB6 apps. Besides, even if you fix that error, you will probably find you get another different error after that, and so on...

Actually that is not a solution at the moment. There are lots of large applications built in VB6 which don't have to be converted to .NET to work. How many companies out there have large applications, do you think Microsoft doesn't know that? And wants to lose all those users?

Maybe in the version after Vista they won't work, but Microsoft says that any VB6 application that works on xp will work on Vista. There are some things to change in the installation package, like the location of where the dll is installed, etc...

Besides, the VB6 application works in Vista, it is ONLY the installation of the msxml.dll that is causing the problem.

Any ideas besides rebuilding the whole application in .NET anybody?

[randem]

Did you check the Vista installation for the existence of that file?

And did you try to self register it to see if you get a more detailed message?

[RobDog888]

Did you run the installation using an Admin account and right click on the setup.exe and click "Run as Administrator"?

[Al42]

Actually that is not a solution at the moment. There are lots of large applications built in VB6 which don't have to be converted to .NET to work. How many companies out there have large applications, do you think Microsoft doesn't know that? And wants to lose all those users?

They may make the claim but, as of the initial release of Vista, it's not completely true. Which is one of the reasons a lot of companies have no plans to change to Vista.

[Hassan Basri]

Thanks for the comments.

I don't have Vista, it is a friend of mine who is testing it out for me.

I am using Tarma Installer, the installation package installs the msxml.dll in WinSysDir.

My instalation package has the option of requiring Administrator rights from the user. I have this option set, so user must have administrator rights to install the package.

[RobDog888]

Ok, then perhaps its got an error code too?

Can you manually register the dll?

[Hassan Basri]

I'll have to see with my friend.

I was thinking also that maybe msxml.dll (version 2.0) is too old a version for Vista? Maybe if I try version 3 or 4?

I know there is a version 6 of msxml out there however I do not know if it would work on win95 (as my application must be compatible back to win95).

Could those be possibilities?

[MaxRaceSoftware]

Does any know if a program compiled on VB6 / XP and move it to Vista with no problems ?

i just received an Email from one of my Customers
who just purchased a new Laptop with Vista,
he said no problems installing my VB6 Program in Vista.

Customer reply...
"Nope it works just fine, it was easier to load up on Vista turning off the
firewall as needed than XP."

[randem]

What's the firewall got to do with installing your app?

[RobDog888]

Its a user so he probably meant tunring off the UAC as it speeds up installations as you dont need to confirm things for security approvals

[MaxRaceSoftware]

What's the firewall got to do with installing your app?

randem....absolutely nothing



i asked him if he had any problems running or installing my
VB6 .EXE Program ..and he replied
"Nope it works just fine,....."

he added additional info about the Firewall,
which i did not ask about .

[RobDog888]

If you are accessing some protected area of doing anything that could invoke a firewall to block your request then it may be that its a permissions issue when running your app. Request that your app be run under Administrator permissions.

[Hassan Basri]

I solved the issue by doing the following

If your application uses msxml make sure you are using a minimum of version 3.0, under that i.e. version 2.0. Vista does not let the installation complete.

I have tested msxml version 3 SP7 and it works on Me, Xp and Vista.

Make sure to include the three files in your setup

msxml3.dll
msxml3r.dll
msxml3a.dll

[vbmom]

I am a compatibility quest. So far, my vb6 app installed great, no problems, I was so darn excited. But guess what....

I have not even scratched the surface of what Vista is all about, but get this: by default, even if you're an "administrator" your app (vb6 at least) will run as a standard user. Not only that, even if you are an administrator you cannot write to the Program Files directory. In my case, my app installs with several folders used to write logs and other data, and those functions either report nothing so it looks like they worked, or report an "access denied" error--depends on what's going on.

I started my journey with this blog:
http://west-wind.com/WebLog/posts/4983.aspx

I came to this forum hoping for some wisdom. My feeling is that we're all pretty stupid right now. I would recommend a new forum just for Vista on this site.

[RobDog888]

If you right click on the shortcut to your app you can specify that it run as Administrator. This will help with most of the access issues. Yes, the File Virtualization is challenging but still possible to work with. Just remember that each user will have their own separate copy of whateveer files you are reading/writting to in the PF directory. If you need shared data then the files should be moved to the C:\Users\Public\ directory.

[vbmom]

Thanks RobbDogg, I would guess that would work, but it's impractical. I see that if you want to avoid having the user enter an admin user name and pw, you need to add them to the local admin group--a step that I personally would do anyway for my clients.

It's still impractical because you're never going to get users to remember to do that. I appreciate the info though as it helps in the understanding.

[RobDog888]

Np,

You could test your app under a limited user account and tweak it til it runs without admin permissions. This is the suggested method for making it Vista compatible without admin permissions.

You can set the security level with a manifest file as there are three levels of access that can be required.