INFO: VB6 Readme: Part 6 Wizard Issues

ID: Q190046

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, version 6.0

SUMMARY

The information below includes the documentation and workarounds for Visual Basic 6.0. This information can also be found in the README.htm file that ships with Visual Basic 6.0 on the Visual Basic 6.0 CD-ROM. Please see the REFERENCES section of this article for a list of the Microsoft Knowledge Base articles relating to the Visual Basic 6.0 readme.

Following is a list of all parts of the readme file:

Part 1. Important Issues Please Read First!
Part 2. Data Access Issues and DataBinding Tips.
Part 3. Control Issues.
Part 4. Language Issues.
Part 5. Samples Issues.
Part 6. Wizard Issues.
Part 7. Error Message Issues.
Part 8. WebClass Designer Issues.
Part 9. DHTML Page Designer Issues.
Part 10. Extensibility Issues.
Part 11. Miscellaneous Issues.
Part 12. Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) Issues.
Part 13. Dictionary Object.
Part 14. Visual Component Manager.
Part 15. Application Performance Manager.

MORE INFORMATION

Package and Deployment Wizard (PDW): Automatically Picks Up Files From Redist Directory

A new feature of the Package and Deployment Wizard is its ability pick up files from the Redist folder. An example of how the feature is used would follow the steps below:

You have created an application that is ready for packaging.

The application depends on a certain system file "MySysFile.dll" which, until recently, has been a stand-alone file. But now a recent system update has made that file dependent on other files to function properly.

However, a stand-alone version of the system file is also supplied.

To simplify setups, you place that stand-alone version into the Redist folder.

When creating your deployment package, you navigate to the system file to instruct the wizard that the system file should be included.

Instead of picking up the system file (which is dependent on other files), the Package and Deployment Wizard will pick up the stand-alone version that is in the Redist directory.

By default, no files are placed in the redist folder.

Package and Deployment Wizard Has [Do Not Redist] Section

A new section has been added to the Package and Deployment VB6Dep.ini file: [Do Not Redist]

Two kinds of files are listed under the new section:

Files that are not needed at run-time. For example, ActiveX designers often require two file references, one for design-time, and one for run- time. Since the design-time reference is not needed, it is listed in the section and is not included in the package.

Files that cannot be redistributed by the Package and Deployment Wizard. Some dependent files are not installed by Visual Basic, but must be installed by another component. For example, the following files are installed by Internet Explorer 4.x: Shdocvw.dll and Mshtml.dll.

Package and Deployment Wizard: In Silent Mode the Notification Window May Not Be First in the Window Z-order

With Visual Basic, it is possible to run the Package and Deployment Wizard in silent mode from a command prompt. When doing so, you can also set a path for logging the wizard's output (/l ). With the path set, the wizard will create a log of events. If you do not use the argument, the wizard will instead display a dialog box to notify you of the wizard's completion. However, the window is not always obvious because it may be underneath other windows. In order to see it, you may need to close or minimize all other windows.

For more information, search online for "running as a stand-alone" in Visual Basic Concepts in the MSDN Library Visual Studio 6.0 documentation.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Command Line Mode Argument Added for Specifying Executable Path

An argument has been added to the command line mode of the Package and Deployment Wizard. The argument is shown in the table below:


Argument       Description

/e path        Use the argument to set the path for the project's
               executable file if it is different from the project's
               path.

The argument allows the command line mode to be used in a multi-developer environment where a computer is dedicated to compiling the project and creating the package.

For more information, search online with Package and Deployment Wizard selected, for running as a stand-alone in the MSDN Library Visual Studio 6.0 documentation.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Manually Add User Control License Files

When creating a package for a user control that requires a license key, the license file (.vbl) is not automatically included. Instead, you must add the file manually.

When you are at the dialog titled "Package and Deployment Wizard Included Files," click the Add button and search for the appropriate .vbl file.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Steps in the Web Deployment Process

When you post an Internet package to a Web server using the Package and Deployment Wizard, the wizard uses a technology known as WebPost to copy your package to the server and process it appropriately. These are the steps that the WebPost process goes through when processing your .cab:

It extracts the .cab file into a temporary directory.

It locates the .inf file for the .cab file.

Based on the contents of the .inf file, the WebPost process installs application files (based on the RInstallApplicationFiles section of the .inf file), installs system files (based on the RiinstallSystemFiles section), and installs shared files (based on the RInstallSharedFiles section). In the process, it registers any necessary files.

NOTE: The DefaultInstall section of the .inf file is not run, because the instructions it contains often require user input. The WebPost process also does not create a virtual directory for your application, if one is required; directories must be set up in advance.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Web Deployment Tips for HTTP or FTP Protocol

If the .cab file you are attempting to deploy to a Web server is copied to the server but is not unpacked, make sure you included the .cab file on the Items to Deploy screen, and that you used HTTP Post as the protocol on the Web Publishing Site screen. In addition, you must have checked the Unpack and Install Server-Side Cab check box on the Web Publishing Site screen. If you did not, try re-deploying your package again with this option selected.

NOTE: Cab unpacking is supported by Posting Acceptor 2.0 running on IIS 4.0. If you receive an error saying that the Web server you selected does not support the service provider you selected, there are several things you can do to try to fix this problem:

If you are using the HTTP Post protocol, make sure that Posting Acceptor is installed on your Web server. If you are running IIS 4.0, install Posting Acceptor 2.0. If you are running IIS 3.0, install Posting Acceptor 1.0. Cab unpacking is not supported by Posting Acceptor 1.0.

Ensure that your URL is correct. If you are using HTTP Post, ensure that your URL begins with http://. If you are using FTP, ensure that your URL begins with ftp://.

If you are uploading to a server location that has Posting Acceptor 1.0 installed, you cannot select the option to unpack and install your cabinet files when you deploy your package using the wizard. If you receive an error C0042115 that the query string INSTALL is invalid, check your server configuration to determine what version of posting acceptor is installed. If it is version 1.x, deploy your cab again, making sure to deselect the Unpack and Install Server-Side Cab option.

If you need to use the FTP protocol to post to a URL beginning with http://, you may be able to resolve this error by adding the following entry to the end of your Web server's postinfo.asp file, usually located in the scripts directory on the Web server: [{02B5E1D1-8B7C-11D0-AD45-00AA00A219AA}] ServerName=" <%= Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME") %>"

MDAC installation requires DCOM95 to be installed. Setup programs created with the Package and Deployment Wizard install the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), which includes OLE DB, ADO and Jet, via the MDAC installer program: Mdac_typ.exe. This EXE requires that the machine being installed to have DCOM95 (or the newer DCOM98) installed on it.

If the MDAC intaller fails with a "DLL registration failed" message, this is because DCOM was not found on the machine. To restore functionality of existing data components, install DCOM95 and run the installer again.

If you use the HTTP Post protocol and receive an error that you do not have write access for the Web server, open the Internet Service Manager on the server computer, access the node for your Default Web Site (Console Root \ Internet Information Server \ machinename \ Default Web Site), choose Properties, select the Home Directory tab, and check the Write check box.

If your files are read-only when you try to post, you will receive an error C0042116 announcing that processing has stopped. Change your file attributes to proceed.

Be aware that if you post a file to a directory where the same file already exists, the file on the server will be overwritten and no warning message will be displayed.

If you use the FTP protocol and receive an error that access is denied, open the Internet Service Manager on the server computer, access the node for your Default FTP Site (Console Root \ Internet Information Server \ machinename \ Default FTP Site), choose Properties, select the Home Directory tab, and check the Write check box.

If you use the FTP protocol and receive additional errors besides the one described in the previous bullet, make sure that you have properly configured your FTP service on the Web server. To do so, start the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), then follow these steps:

Right-click on Default FTP Site and choose New Virtual Directory.

Enter an alias to be used to access the virtual directory, then click Next.

Enter the physical path of the directory to which to map the virtual directory (for example, c:\inetpub\ftproot) then click Next.

Select the appropriate access permissions, making sure to allow write access so that your deployments can proceed without errors, then click Finish.

Right-click on Default FTP Site and choose Stop.

Right-click on Default FTP Site and choose Start.

When you deploy to the FTP server using the Package and Deployment Wizard, use the site FTP://servername/alias where alias is the alias you assigned in step 2. Use the username "anonymous" and the password "me@somewhere" for anonymous login.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Start Menu Items: Run Option Not Supported

When creating a package for deployment, you can also create a Start menu item. Although it is mentioned in the Help topic for the dialog box, the Run option is not supported.

System Configurations for WebPost's Posting Acceptor

When you deploy your packages to a Web server, the Package and Deployment Wizard uses a technology known as WebPost to move your files to the desired location. WebPost consists of two main components:

The Package and Deployment Wizard, which sends your content to a qualified site.

A Posting Acceptor, located on the Web server, that enables the posting of content to an IIS server.

There are multiple versions of Posting Acceptor available. You must make sure you install the correct version on your Web server based on your machine configuration. The following table lists the appropriate configurations:


Use this                  if you are running        Comments
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posting Acceptor 2.0     Windows NT 4.0 with SP3   Posting Acceptor 2.0
IIS 4.0                                            supports both content

                                                   posting and the
                                                   unpacking of cabinet
                                                   (.cab) files on the
                                                   server.

Posting Acceptor         1.0 Windows NT 4.0        You cannot unpack .cab
                         with SP3                  with this version
                         IIS 3.0                   files of posting
                                                   acceptor. Use this for
                                                   content posting only.
                                                   You can move your
                                                   files to the server
                                                   and then manually
                                                   register any necessary
                                                   files that would have
                                                   been registered by the
                                                   .cab process.

NOTE: Posting Acceptor does not work on any platforms that are using Personal Web Server or Peer Web Server. You must use IIS. Steps for installing Microsoft Posting Acceptor 2.0 if you have Visual Studio or Visual Basic Enterprise Editions.

Launch Visual Studio or Visual Basic setup from your installation CDs.

When prompted to choose options to install, click Install Server Applications and Tools, then click Next.

Click Launch the BackOffice Installation Wizard, then click Install.

Now select the radio button for Custom, then click Next. You will see the options to install and their sizes. Click Next.

Select Microsoft Posting Acceptor 2.0.

You can install Posting Acceptor 2.0 from the Deploy folder of Visual Studio installation CD number 2. Posting Acceptor 1.0 can be installed from the Microsoft Posting Acceptor Information Website. If you want to install Posting Acceptor 2.0 on a computer that already has the Windows NT Option Pack, you should first check to see if version 1.0 of the Posting Acceptor is already installed. If so, remove it before installing version 2.0. To determine if 1.0 is installed, select the NT Option Pack on the Add/Remove Programs mechanism of the Control Panel. Click Add/Remove, then look for Posting Acceptor 1.0 among the components listed. You may find it under Microsoft Site Server. If it is installed, remove it. You can then install version 2.0 by running PASetup.exe.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Edit Setup.lst File If You Rebuild Cabs From Batch File

After creating a standard setup package using the Package and Deployment Wizard, you can manually recreate the setup files (Setup.exe, Setup.lst, and all .cab files) by running the batch file found in the in the Support folder. Doing this allows you to manually customize the package or to recreate a package without running the wizard again. Running the batch file will copy setup.exe and setup.lst from the Support folder to the Package folder and will generate the cab file(s) in the Package folder. However, once the batch file is finished, setup.lst will not know how many .cab files were generated. Unless this problem is remedied, the setup program will fail.

To remedy this situation, do the following:

Before running the batch file, delete all .cab files in the Package folder.

After running the batch file, count the number of cabs produced by the batch operation.

Open the Setup.lst file in the Package folder with a text editor. NOTE: There are two Setup.lst files. One is found in the Support folder. The second is found outside the Support folder, in the Package folder where the .cab files are created. Be sure to open the Setup.lst file in the Package folder.

In the text editor, look for the following lines, which are at the top of the file):


   [Bootstrap]
   SetupTitle=Install
   SetupText=Copying Files, please stand by.
   CabFile=Projec1.CAB
   Spawn=Setup1.exe
   Uninstal=st6unst.exe
   TmpDir=msftqws.pdw

After the last line (TmpDir=msftqws.pdw), insert the following line where N equals the number of cabs generated:


Cabs=N

Package And Deployment Wizard: Error 80042114

If you are creating a package for Internet deployment and you get the following error:

"Unexpected error 80042114 has occurred: The Web server you selected does not indicate support for the service provider you selected. Do you want to proceed anyway?"

This error occurs because you have specified that your package should be posted to an FTP site using an HTTP URL. If you are certain that you have access privileges to the web server, you can click "Yes" and the deployment will proceed.

To avoid this error in the future, when creating a package for deployment on the same server, specify the site and its protocol. When you do so, the following dialog box will appear:

"The specified URL and publishing method can be saved in the registry as a Web publishing site. This ensures that the URL and publishing method are valid and saves you time in future deployments to this site. Do you want to store this information as a Web publishing site?"

If you select "yes," this saves the site information and you will no longer receive the 80042114 error.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Use Mdac_typ.Cab and Mdac20.Cab to Distribute Data Access Components

When your Internet Package includes any of the following four files, the wizard will by default set these files to be downloaded from:

http://activex.microsoft.com/controls/vb6/mdac_typ.cab

MSDAOSP.dll
MSADO15.dll
MSADCF.dll
ODBC32.dll

Similarly, the wizard will, by default, set the following files to be downloaded from:

http://activex.microsoft.com/controls/vb6/mdac20.cab

MSADOR15.dll
MSADCO.dll

In both cases, these defaults are indicated as the "Download from Microsoft Web site" option on the File Source screen. These cab files (mdac_typ.cab and mdac20.cab) perform special handling that should not be attempted manually. In order to ensure that the proper handling takes place, your Internet cab should not include these files but rather should reference the cabs. Therefore, you should never choose the "Include in this cab" option for any of these files. In addition, if you choose the "Download from alternate Web site" option, you should be careful to specify cabs that are copies of these cabs to ensure that the proper handling takes place.

Do not change the default settings for these files.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Manually Include .ASP and .HTM Files For IIS Applications When Using Standard Setup

If you use the Package and Deployment Wizard's standard setup to deploy an IIS application, you must manually include any .asp or .htm files with the package. Add the files using the Include Files dialog box.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Bad Date and Time Formats

In certain situations, the Package and Deployment Wizard will incorrectly write time and date information to the Setup.lst file. When this occurs, the setup will fail because the dates will be written in a form that the setup.exe can't read. The problem occurs when you create a deployment package using the US version of Visual Basic on:

A computer using the German version of Windows (NOTE: the German version of Visual Basic will work correctly.)

Any computer where the date separator isn't either a forward slash ("/") or a dash ("-").

To fix the bad formats:

From the Start menu, open Control Panel.

Click the Regional Settings icon.

On the Date tab, change the Date separator to "/".

On the Time tab, change the Time separator to ":".

Run the Package and Deployment Wizard.

Restore the date and time settings.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Unable to Run Setup.exe on First Windows 95 Version

Any setup package built with the wizard will not launch on certain installations of Windows 95 due to lack of support for an API in the original version of the Oleaut32.dll. This failure will not occur on OS release 2 of Windows 95 or any versions of Windows NT 4.0 and later, and will not occur if Microsoft Office 97 or Internet Explorer 3.0 or 4.0 has been installed. Any installation of a Visual Basic 5.0 application will also remedy the situation. You can also work around this failure by first overwriting the older version of Oleaut32.dll with the latest version. Be sure to shut down all applications before attempting to manually update Oleaut32.dll.

Package and Deployment Wizard: Packaging ActiveX Documents

The Visual Basic 6.0 Package and Deployment Wizard can insert CODEBASE= and VERSION= information directly embedded into the .vbd file for your ActiveX Document project. This eliminates the need for having the extra .htm file previously used to launch ActiveX Documents. The embedded information allows Internet Explorer to read the .cab file name for your ActiveX Document code and version information from the .vbd file and carry out the installation. You can now navigate directly to the .VBD file and your User document code will download if necessary.

The same functionality was available for Visual Basic 5.0 setup using the SetCodeBase utility found on the Visual Basic Owners Area.

The following are some issues with Visual Basic 6.0 Package and Deployment Wizard generated setups for User documents:

Internet Explorer 3.x. 4.0, and 4.01 cannot read the embedded information in the VBD file. The wizard also generates an old (VB5) style .htm file. This .htm file can be used to launch ActiveX Documents. You must first modify the .htm file, however, since most of the code is commented out. After removing the comments and an extra <A> tag (<a href=xxxx.VBD>xxxxx.VBD</a>) from the top, from the top, the file will only be an OBJECT tag with the CLSID of your User document and some script code for Window_OnLoad event.

Internet Explorer 4.01 with Service Pack 1 and later will read this information correctly from the .vbd file.

REFERENCES

For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q170164 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 1: Important Issues Read First!

Q170163 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 2: Data Access/Databinding Issues

Q170162 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 3: Control Issues

Q170161 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 4: Language Issues

Q170160 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 5: Samples Issues

Q170158 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 7: Error Message Issues

Q189539 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 8: WebClass Designer Issues

Q190249 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 9: DHTML Page Designer Issues

Q170154 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 10: Extensibility Issues

Q170157 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 11: Miscellaneous Issues

Q170156 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 12: Transaction Server (MTS) Issues

Q191792 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 13: Dictionary Object

Q191791 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 14: Visual Component Manager

Q191790 INFO: VB 6.0 Readme Part 15: Application Performance Explorer

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbreadme kbwizard kbActiveX kbAppSetup kbInternet kbMDAC kbVBp kbVBp600 kbVS600 kbWebServer kbVBp600FAQ
Version : WINDOWS:6.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo