Develop on XP, crash on 98, fail on 2000!!

[ptj]

I have tried distributing a vb6 project which I've developed on XP under MDAC2.7. I've put MDAC 2.7 on a win98 & a win2000 machine. On the window 2000 it repeatedly tells me to reboot as it is upgrading files, never getting past mscrvt.dll installation point. On the win98 it totally wrecked mscrvt.dll and said I needed to reinstall windows!!!

Is this a 'known' issue, or have I made some error when creating the package (I used the package & deployment wizard supplied with vb6)

Thanks in anticipation,


Phil.

 

[MarkSweetland]

On the Windows 2000 there is a Microsoft "feature" that protects system files called, quaintly, Windows File Protection service. It prevents the replacement of certain system files (actually all the files that are installed via the Windows installation CD). When you (re)boot the machine, Windows checks the version of the file in the system32 directory against the "saved" version, and if different, replaces it with the "saved" version--hence the continual installation of the msvcrt.dll.

W2K updates system files through the service packs and hot fixes. Either ensure the client machine has the latest in service packs and hot fixes installed, and remove the reference to msvcrt.dll in the distribution. If I'm not mistaken, the msvcrt.dll is OS dependent and shouldn't be redistributed anyway.


Mark

 

[ChrisHirst]

You would be safer using the Windows Installer for VB (download from MS) especially for the newer OS versions, as this uses the MSI files for distribution and install and as such should handle the system file updates and 'self-healing' aspect of Win2k & XP. For Win98 a recompile and repackage on a Win98 OS machine should solve that problem. You have to be aware that Win9x and Win2k are only loosely compatible (close enough to say they are) from a programmers point of view anyway. If you work on the principle that Win2k is NT 5.0 and XP is NT 5.1 you can't go far wrong.

Chris.