Avoid Microsoft Office 2000 Installation Prompt When Opening VB6 Project File or Dialog

Question

I suddenly am tasked to debug an old project in Visual Studio 6. My PC setup contains an IME Microsoft Office 2000. Each time I try to open a .VBP file using Visual Studio, a Microsoft Office 2000 Installation CD dialog is shown. I could cancel the installation process but it does get bother some in repeating this again and again. I found a Microsoft Windows Installer Cleanup in the Microsoft KB page but it does not work. Any ideas for people who experienced this with Visual Studio 6 and Microsoft Office?

I cannot uninstall the MS Office. Are there any registry hacks for smooth VB programming?

Answer 1

Oh, man, this is an old problem. I think that this is due to some licensing snafu between Office 2k and VB6 for some of the controls shipped with both.

Assuming this is the case, you can try downloading and running the VB6Cli.exe file at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/194751. IIRC, this'll fix the issue.

Answer 2

I posted this same answer to a similar thread.

Vb6 apps have this quirk when some msi installer got its registry settings hosed. Have you run a regcleaner recently? Anyway the solution is usually to insert any CD that may be asked for (MS apps such as Office) and let it do its thing once, then it usually never reoccurs. You may even have to to a repair install of the Office app concerned.