>From: "Shannon Sustar" <shannons@d...>
>Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 16:29:25
>
>Does anyone know of software that will test the compatibility of vb6
>programs with the various versions of windows.  What I'd like to know is
>what versions (ie. Win98, 2000, NT, XP, ME, etc.) and what service packs
>and updates are needed to run the app.

Inno Setup is a start: http://www.innosetup.com/isinfo.php

I strongly reccomend using the "Inno Setup Extensions" 3rd party add-on 
which can be downloaded from http://www.wintax.nl/isx/ You get the standard 
Inno compiler *and* the ability to add a [Code] section of your setup 
script which gives you nearly complete control of your installation. For 
example: use of APIs; a specific example is the GetVersionExA() API which 
you need to call in order to be able to determine the Windows version.

A word of caution, however: the coding is done in a Pascal dialect; OTOH, I 
had *no* knowledge of Pascal and was able to learn enough from the examples 
to write a script which installs OS-specific versions of a VB application, 
checks for dCOM, ADO and Jet versions and installs them as needed, etc., etc.

As a minimum - ie. if your app does not use any non-standard controls (OCX) 
-you'll have to install the VB runtimes which can be accomplished by 
running VBRun60sp5.exe.

VBRun60sp5.exe installs the following core files, which ship with Visual 
Studio 6.0 Service Pack 5. These files are the base dependencies for any 
component or application created in Visual Basic 6.0:

File           Version         Size
Asycfilt.dll    2.40.4275.1     144 KB (147,728 bytes)
Comcat.dll      4.71.1460.1     21.7 KB (22,288 bytes)
Msvbvm60.dll    6.0.89.64       1.32 MB (1,388,544 bytes)
Oleaut32.dll    2.40.4275.1     584 KB (598,288 bytes)
Olepro32.dll    5.0.4275.1      160 KB (164,112 bytes)
Stdole2.tlb     2.40.4275.1     17.5 KB (17,920 bytes)

The VBRun60sp5.exe installation can be run as part of your Inno Setup. Note 
that the version numbers of the above DLLs is critical; in particular with 
respect to the COMCAT.DLL: the comcat.dll is version 4.71.1460.1. Do NOT 
use a higher version!!! Version 5.0 of COMCAT.DLL does not work on Windows 
95 or NT 4.0.

You might also want to have a look at this list of "unsafe files" which I 
compiled using information gathered from Wise, MS and Inno.

http://www.carpet-sharks.com/ziparch/unsafefiles.txt

Regards,
-Toby