Visual Basic 6 Tries to Complete Other Application Installs

Question

Visual Basic 6 sometimes tries to install or complete the installation of other applications when it starts up. Why?

I've seen this a number of times over the years and it's very annoying. Recently, I installed Business Objects, just the SDK, plus all service packs to 3.5 on a VM and the first time I go into VB6 it says Windows Installer, "Preparing to Install...". The CPU is pegged at 100%. Then it asks where the Visual Studio 2003 Disk 1 is. I can cancel out, which takes 2-3 times and get to work. The whole process will start up again when I open another VB6.

This has happened before, because MS Office XP and Office 2003 were updated, I think.

Does anyone know what's going on and how to fix it?

UPDATE: Using Explorer to Search causes a similar box to open only it wants to install a MS Office 2003 component, which is really a bit mystifying seeing that the only added bit was a BO SDK.

Little things like this make me LUV Windows.

UPDATE: It's trying to install something from Disc 1 of Visual Studio 2003. Where would the list of "Install Me" COM objects be kept? In the registry?

Answer 1

I just uninstall and reinstall VB6 when this happens. You can look in the Application log of the event viewer (eventvwr.exe) to see what is actually causing the issue. The MSI Installer should put some messages in there. But I haven't seen this in a long time. You did install service pack 6 for VB6, correct?

Answer 2

Generally, what happens is that there's a COM component that was registered with "install on first use" option. On the apps of that time, the applications start and check to see if the necessary COM components are there. If they are, then great. Otherwise, COM is supposed to install the component. However, if you're getting this error, this usually means that the install failed for some reason. I would recommend you take a look with the program called Process Monitor (see sysinternals.com, now part of Microsoft) and see which COM component it is trying to load.

Answer 3

Two error messages were in the Application event log.

Detection of product '{20610409-CA18-41A6-9E21-A93AE82EE7C5}', feature   'Visual_Studio.NET_Professional' failed during request for component '{DD68FEE8-C369-11D1-A173-00A0C90AB50F}'

and

Detection of product '{20610409-CA18-41A6-9E21-A93AE82EE7C5}', feature 'Visual_Studio.NET_Professional', component '{66CD2C91-2A15-4DA4-BBD2-5EC1075F3C0E}' failed.  The resource 'HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.pip\' does not exist.

I added the .pip registry key with a value of PIPFile. The install messages went away. This might not work for every problem like this. Thank God, I don't have to reinstall VS6.

Answer 4

Hey guys,

I think i figure out just what happened, it has something to do with the problem with the Microsoft Office 2003 that is affecting the way VB6 is loading. I have removed my Office 2003 and guest what, i was able load vb6. I hope this may help you.