PRB: "Locate" Dialog Appears When Running Setup Wizard

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

SYMPTOMS

When running the Microsoft Visual Basic Application Setup Wizard, a dialog titled "Locate Kernel," "Locate User," "Locate GDI," etc., is displayed after you click the Next button on the "Setup Wizard - Select Project and Options" form.

CAUSE

The Visual Basic Application Setup Wizard scans a project's files for Declare statements to determine if any additional dependency files need to be distributed. If any such files are found, the user is prompted for the location of the files with the "Locate" dialog.

If any declarations for 16-bit DLLs are found in the project's files, the user is prompted for the location. For example, if the following 16-bit declaration appears in the project:

   Declare Function GetWindowsDirectory Lib "Kernel" _
      (ByVal lpBuffer As String, ByVal nSize As Integer) As Integer

This is a very common problem with applications converted from 16-bit Visual Basic to Visual Basic 5.0, which is 32-bit, or with Visual Basic 4.0 applications that use conditional compilations that have been converted to Visual Basic 5.0. Setup Wizard does not take into consideration the compiler directives when looking for Declare statements resulting, for example, in a "Locate Kernel" dialog for the sample code below:

   #If Win32 Then
      Declare Function GetWindowsDirectory Lib "Kernel32" _
         Alias "GetWindowsDirectoryA" _
         (ByVal lpBuffer As String, ByVal nSize As Long) As Long
   #Else
      Declare Function GetWindowsDirectory Lib "Kernel" _
         (ByVal lpBuffer As String, ByVal nSize As Integer) As Integer
   #End If

RESOLUTION

Convert all 16-bit declarations to their 32-bit equivalents and recompile the project, or, if conditional compilation was used to select between pairs of 16-bit and 32-bit declarations, the conditional compilation statements and 16-bit declarations can be commented out or removed and the project recompiled.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

1. Create a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic.

2. Add a new module (Module1) to the project.

3. In the General Declarations section of Module1, add following code:

         Declare Function GetWindowsDirectory Lib "Kernel" _
            (ByVal lpBuffer As String, ByVal nSize As Integer) As Integer
   
   

4. Save the project, compile it, and then exit Visual Basic.

5. Start the Visual Basic Application Setup Wizard and proceed to the form entitled "Setup Wizard - Select Project and Options," click the Browse button, and select the project you compiled.

6. Click the Next button. A locate file common dialog box entitled "Locate Kernel" is displayed.

Keywords          : vb5all VBKBSetup VBKBWinAPI VBKBWiz
Version           : WINDOWS:5.0
Platform          : WINDOWS
Hardware          : x86
Issue type        : kbprb