I've been struggling with my install for a week now. This is a legacy app that I've upgraded and added features to. My app uses ADO, Jet 4.0, the Data Report object (no DE), an Access 97 database, ImageList control, buttons with bitmaps loaded, APEX TrueDBGrid 6.0, and VB 6 (SP 6). There's also a Palm interface that uses the DSN I create for the app, but I get crap results without even bringing the Palm into it. I'm using WISE 9.02 Standard Edition, which is fine, but on my Windows 98 SE test machine, nothing's been consistent. I'm using the WISE runtime includes and scripts for requirements. My target users will most likely install this app on a used PC with clean 98 SE installed, unfortunately, so I'm constantly FDISK'ing my test machine and testing my install from scratch, which takes forever. I've not had one problem with Win2000 or XP installs. I've spent 200 hours since the first of the year on this one install, and I've gone nuts. Many experts here have helped me out on the project, thankfully, but I'm still running into the same old crap on 98. Here's what my app uses and what I'm including:
VB 6 SP 6
MDAC 2.6 SP 1
MSJet 4.0 SP 8
MSDE
DAO 3.5
DAO 3.6
One time, it has installed fine. One time out of 500 tries, my app has launched and worked out of the box on the 98 machine. I didn't change anything from that moment, except attempt to install the Palm interfaces (conduit, P. Desktop, etc.), which may have had something to do with the further problems, I'm sure. I didn't alter the runtimes.
My question is, what's the right route for creating an install for 98 machines?
How do you avoid the mscomctl.ocx 379 error? How do you avoid the 429 errors? How the hell do you get DAO 3.50, which NEVER registers (not even manually) on this machine, to run????
I'm developing on XP SP 2. The old InstallShield 6.3x installer for the old version manually installed and registered every dll and ocx used. I'm not sure what OS they were developing on, but they never had the installation problems I'm running into, and unfortunately, those developers are LONG gone, so there's no one to query. Do I follow that lead and install/register everything manually? I'm really at a loss, because 98 seems so f'd-up, but I have to support it.
What do you experts do with your ADO, VB 6 SP 6 apps? What control versions should be trusted and installed on 98? How do you possibly get the right magic combo of all of these crappy MS dll's going? Any insight would be appreciated. I really need a solid lead here. A Magic Bullet. I'm already a week behind on other projects because of this POS, and wonder if I should have ever started improving the thing.
Thanks,
MT
