Is re-registration required for new version of activex exe component?

Question

When you deploy a new version of an activex exe does it need to be registered again? The exe was created in VB6.

Answer 1

VB6 ... been a while. Here's how I remember it:

You only have to re-register if you change the binary interface. If I recall correctly there's a checkbox on the project to retain binary compatibility. If you check that, the key things that get registered such as the progid and classid's don't change unless they have to, and I believe VB6 uses something called interface forwarding to register a new interface on top of any previous interface if you make non-breaking changes to your interfaces (such as adding a parameter to an existing method but not removing an existing parameter).

If you have added new methods or extended existing methods in a compatible manner, the existing registration still won't know about them so you would have to re-register to expose those.