FIX: More Than One Sub Main May Cause EXE to Crash

• Microsoft Visual Basic Control Creation, Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, version 5.0

SYMPTOMS

If a project contains more than one Sub Main in different modules, it may run as expected in the IDE and compile without errors in either native or p- code, but will crash when run as an EXE. Visual Basic 5.0 will generate an application error, such as:

   "The instruction at <address> referenced memory at <address>. The memory
   could not be "written"."

CAUSE

To avoid this problem, either include only one parameter-less Sub Main in the project, or install Visual Studio 97 Service Pack 2 (SP2).

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a bug in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This bug has been fixed in Visual Studio 97 Service Pack 2.

For more information on the Visual Studio 97 Service Pack 2, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q170365
   TITLE     : INFO: Visual Studio 97 Service Packs - What, Where, and Why

   ARTICLE-ID: Q171554
   TITLE     : INFO: Visual Basic 5.0 Fixes in Visual Studio 97
               Service Pack 2

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

1. Start a new Standard EXE project(Project1) in Visual Basic 5.0.

2. Go to Project | Add Module, and add a .bas module(Module1) to Project1.

3. Add the following code to Module1:

         Sub Main ()
         End
   
   

4. Click on menu Project | Project1 Properties, select the General tab, and set the Startup object as Sub Main.

5. Click on Project | Add Class Module, and add a class module (Class1) to Project1.

6. Add the following code to Class1:

         Sub Main ()
         End
   
   

7. Make Project1.EXE, using either p-code or native code.

8. Run Project1.EXE. Note that Project1.EXE should crash with an Application Error.

Keywords          : vb5all VS97FixlistSP3 VS97FixlistSP2 VB5FixlistSP2
Version           : 5.0
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbbug
Solution Type     : kbfix kbservicepack