Installing VB 6 on Vista

[Grady]

I am attempting to install a full version of VB 6.0 Professional on a new Vista PC from the purchased CD. There is an immediate message stating that there is a known incompatibility problem and Visual Studio is the reference. The installation stops at that point and I cannot proceed further with it. Several in this forum have mentioned that they are able to install and run VB 6 on Vista. Also, software produced with VB 6 on an XP machine will install on Vista but immediately hangs up the PC when executing it. Is there a way of accomplishing either installation?

Thank you for any advice you can give.

[RobDog888]

Welcome to the Forums

Thread Moved

Its a compatibility issue with VC++. If you dont install that part of VS then you are good.

Install VS with Administrator credientials to help prevent issues. Right click on the setup.exe installer file on the CD and select "Run as Administrator.

[Grady]

Your suggestion was a good one and I no longer get the compatibility issue. However, I now immediately get the message: Unable to open Setup\acmsetup.stf followed by the message Unable to read configuration from first section of setup\acmsetup.stf. I am starting setup from the CD using Windows Explorer. Any more thoughts?

[RobDog888]

Did you right click the correct setup.exe? To determine which is correct to start off with, open the autorun.inf file and look for the entry

[Autorun]
Open="somefolderpath\setup.exe"

Whatever file is targetted in the Open setting is the one to kick off with admin credientials.

[Grady]

RobDog,

Checking the Autorun file I get the following:

OPEN=SETUP.EXE/AUTORUN

I would appear that the key file is SETUP.EXE, but there appear to be several and there does not seem to be a sub folder called AUTORUN. Under the maion diredtory of the CD, there is a file called SETUP.EXE. Trying to install it by right clicking on it and Run as Administrator gives the original incompability issue with Visual Studio. Is there another setup file that I should be using?

[bogie]

I installed VB6 Enterprise on Vista Ultimate and got the same incompatibility issue during install. I just ignored it and let it complete the installation.

Once finished I looked at the compatibility properties of VB6.exe and found it would run just fine if I checked the "Disable desktop composition" box. I don't know exactly why this lets it work but it does so I'm happy.

Edit: I also checked the "Run as Administrator box.

[RobDog888]

No, that one sounds like its the correct one.

Just run it anyways when presented with the Compatibility warning. Then choose the custom install and deselect VC++.

Still, run as Admin and if you turn off the UAC it will install at least twice as fast. Then just turn it back on after you are done.

[Grady]

Bogie,

I did get an installation when I ran setup.exe as an administrator and then clicked the Run program button when the incompability message appeared. Both seem to be neccesary. How are you checking the VB6.exe file? Is this a right click action on the file?

[bogie]

Yes. Find the VB6.exe (probably in the VB98 folder) and right-click, then properties, compatibility.

It does some screen adjustments when it starts up but resets everything when it closes.

[RobDog888]

Again, there is no issue with VB 6 itself on Vista. Not even setting the Compatibility is required either. The compatibility is from VC++ so if you dont need it and have VC++ 2005 then there is no loss of anything at all.

I have been running VS 6 Ent. on Vista Ultimate RTM for 10 months now with no problems.

Dont forget to install SP-6 for VS 6 too.

[Grady]

Making great progress! VB6 loaded. However, when importing previous programs prepared on XP with VB 6, errors such a problems "Accessing system registry" and GRID32.OCX cannot be loaded occur. Any thoughts on these?

I very much appreciate your help.

[Hack]

There are a number of things about VB6 that Vista doesn't like (SendKeys is one of them). GRID32.OCX may be another (I don't know this for sure, but that seems likely).

Do you get the registry access error when running your program, or just loading it into the IDE?

[Grady]

For now, the access error occurs when loading the program.

[bogie]

I find that if I don't have that "Disable desktop composition" box checked the screen is verrrrry sluggish when I try to draw a control on a form. It can take 10 seconds for the screen to catch up to the mouse if I draw a one inch square button.

As soon as I check that box the problem goes away. I have VB6 Enterprise, not VS Enterprise so the C++ issue doesn't apply in this case.

I'm running on an ASUS mobo with an AMD 4800+ dual core CPU and an Nvidia 7600 PCI-E video card but I'm also running the original video drivers that came with Vista. There are updated drivers available but I can't use them because Vista then says my hardware has changed and I must re-activate. I try to do that and the Web site says my key is already in use and I must buy a new copy of Vista.

I already dropped $300 on the copy I have and I refuse to spend another $300, so I can't upgrade to newer video drivers. I have to have automatic updates turned off since MS tries to load new video drivers during the process.

Perhaps the old drivers are the reason I need that compatibility box checked.

[Grady]

Boogie,

I did as you said and I now have VB6 running. I did resolve the custom control problem as the controls had to be recovered from previous VB versions going back to Ver. 4. This solves the registry problem as well. However, I now find that I cannot write to a file in the root C-drive of Vista as access is denied. This was not an issue in XP. Any thoughts on this?

[RobDog888]

The root drive, program files, and a few other areas are now protected areas. You should not need to write to these locations for your app. If you have shared data for your app then it needs to go in its own folder under the C:\Users\Public\YourAppFolderName\Whateverfile.??? Or if its user specific the it needs to go in the C:\Users\UserName\AppData\ directory.