how can i create a setup file in visual basic 6 after completion of my progamming work?

Question

how can i create a setup file in visual basic 6 after completion of my progamming work?

Front End language is Visual Basic 6, Backend : MS Access 2003 and Report Tools : Crystal Report 8.5. Operating System Windows XP.

Need Help

Answer 1

You can search google for package and deployment vb6 and you will find millions of links showing in steps how to do that.

Answer 2

The Package & Deployment Wizard is quite primitive and not well-suited to distributing things like the MS Access runtime and Crystal Reports. You'd be better off using one of the more powerful commercial products like InstallShield or Setup Factory. However, these can be pricey (especially InstallShield).

There are also free products like Inno Setup and Nullsoft, but these may not be as easy to use or may lack some important features.

Answer 3

You need to be a little clearer about some of this.

"Front end/back end" is really terminology and a thought pattern from the MS Access world. It doesn't really apply to VB6 development in any meaningful way unless you're doing something really odd like automating instances of MS Access.

That's about the only place where any "MS Access runtime" comes in as well. If you're actually using Access Reporting you might be doing this though - which seems odd but anything is possible.

See Deploying Complex Microsoft Office Access Runtime-Based Solutions.

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Much more likely what you are trying to say is that you have a VB6 program that is using a Jet MDB as an embedded database, and using Crystal Reports 8.5 for reporting.

There should be no issue about any "runtime" for Jet on Windows XP, since Jet 4.0 is shipped as part of the OS even as far back as XP RTM (gold). It is also extremely unlikely that XP will have an MDAC release any older than 2.7 (see Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) release history).

So this leaves you looking for a way to package your VB6 program, any immediate dependencies such as possibly the VB6 runtime components, and the Crystal Reports 8.5 runtime components. You may also have INI files, etc. to bundle in there.

A long, long time ago (1998?) the PDWizard was replaced for most purposes by Visual Studio 6.0 Installer 1.0, and shortly after VSI 1.1 was released (1999?) which made up for a number of ills. This is a pretty basic tool for authoring Windows Installer packages, but it should meet your needs.

Along with this you'll want the recent merge modules for your dependencies: Merge Modules for Service Pack 6 for Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual C++ 6.0.

Then of course you need a merge module for Crystal Reports 8.5, and for this we have to turn to the community because BO didn't start releasing them until CR9. One place to look for this is InstallSite: Seagate Crystal Reports 8. Your real problem is that CR8.5 is ancient.

If this doesn't work out for you, you can always hope that CR8.5 Dev installed on your machine with a "good enough" set of .DEP files (which tell setup authoring tools what subdependencies each dependency has, among other things). This may still let you use VSI 1.1 to succesfully package your application with CR8.5.

You might also look at for-pay packaging tools as already suggested. If desperate enough you might look at some legacy installer technologies too, just in case their communities have addressed your issues.

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If I misunderstood and you really do use your VB6 program to automate an instance of the "MS Access 2003 Runtime" you'll probably have to build some hybrid package.

But normal VB programs do not use Access or Access Runtimes to open and work with Jet databases.