Visual Basic: finding out dependent OCX/DLL files

[lanux128]

this is a topic in view of the ongoing NANY 2009. anyone programming in Visual Basic need to include all DLL/OCX files manualy if they're not using the PDW (package deployment wizard), so i prepared a simple guide to ensure that all the necessary files are distributed together.

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[mouser]

nice work lanux 

[CWuestefeld]

I was always running into problems with missing DLLs. Here's one of the ways I'd diagnose the problem -- and you could do the same to get the list of what you need.

There's a program called Depends that spits out tree showing all of the (linked) dependencies of a module. One weakness is that it only knows about dependencies that the linker knew about -- stuff that's dynamically loaded by your app code won't be caught.

[PPLandry]

Another interesting way to get away of the DLL issues on your VB6 apps is to open it in VB.Net. You then get a list of references. If you then select each of these references, you can, in the properties pane, set that you want to use a local copy. Compiling your app will generate a manifest file (even if the compile fails, which it will inevitably)

With this manifest file you can set up a totally portable app in XP and Vista. No installation and no DLL hell.

More details can be provided if desired

[wizard43]

Although I haven't tried it, I understand the instructions for building a manifest file for a VB6 program, but I am completely lost as to how to use the manifest to create a portable, ie. no installation, exe.  This is something I have often wanted to do, and I have at least one client who still insists on doing everything in VB6.

[PPLandry]

But this is a pure VB6 solution. You use VB.net, to help you create the manifest file, nothing else. You could create the manifest file yourself by hand, but it is a lot of work...

Once you have your manifest file, copy all referenced DLL / OCX, the .exe and the manifest file to a folder. The .exe will run!

You can manually edit the manifest file to change paths of the DLLs/OCXs. You can check out the portable version of InfoQube for an example of this. http://www.sqlnotes.net