BUG: Visual Basic Project Window Not Displaying Project Files

• Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions of Microsoft Visual Basic, 16-bit and 32-bit, for Windows, version 4.0
• Microsoft Visual SourceSafe for Windows, version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

If the VBX files are not properly installed, Visual Basic normally displays a "File didn't load, do you want to continue" dialog when a Visual Basic project, which uses licensed VBX files, is opened.

However, when opening a Visual Basic project via the "Open New SourceSafe Project" add-in menu item, if the VBX cannot find its license, the VBX fails to load. Visual Basic stops loading the project at that point. There are no error messages displayed, however, the Project window is empty.

CAUSE

Visual SourceSafe uses the Visual Basic Add-in model Application.LoadProject command when loading the Visual Basic project. Visual Basic goes into "silent" mode, and does not inform the user or the add-in control about any errors it encounters while loading the project. If errors are encountered, Visual Basic just stops the loading process at the point the problem is encountered.

This problem can occur if the VBX software is not installed properly on the machine where the problem is appearing. Therefore, the VBX refuses to load because it cannot find a license file in the Windows system directory when trying to load.

WORKAROUND

You can work around this problem by properly installing the third-party VBX files. Verify all the license files are properly installed in the directory where your Windows system files are stored. The loading problems should cease.

If properly installing the VBX files does not fix the problem, then make the project files available on your local machine by starting up the SourceSafe Explorer and executing a Get of the project files to a location on your machine. Then start Visual Basic, and open the project via the File Open Project command. If Visual Basic has any problems loading files, then the "File didn't load, do you want to continue" dialog displays and you will know what file is causing the problem.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a issue in Visual Basic version 4.0 for Windows. We are researching this issue and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.