Installing VC++ 6 over an earlier version.

[Zafir Anjum]

Share your experience of installing VC++ 6 over an earlier version. What were the problems you encountered? What workarounds did you come up with? Did you encounter any MFC version incompatibility? etc. etc.

[Skip Sailors]

I have some middleware in the form of a Automation DLL that I used to compile in 5.0. With 6.0 version, it runs fine on the machine where compiled, but fails to register on the alpha test machine. Both regsvr32 and Access have trouble loading them.


After considerable time looking at file versions and dates, and causing enough mayhem to re-install the alpha test machine from bare glass, I gave up and called Microsoft.


When I got support from MS, they told there there is a wait time of maybe a week or more before they can help me.

[sue]

Installation went fine and I have had no further problems


Sue

[Gladywin Yap]

I had some problems. After the installation of VC6.0 and if you keep the VC5.0, you can't compile your old project in VC5.0 using SharedDLL. It will crash immediately!


Does anybody experience this too?

[rick]

I have another question - Do we have yet another incompatable version of mfc42.dll to deal with ? This has been, and continues to be, a real pain for me. I guess I should also ask what version is MFC up to with VC++ 6 ?


Rick

[Rick]

I have another question - Do we have yet another incompatable version of mfc42.dll to deal with ? This has been, and continues to be, a real pain for me. I guess I should also ask what version is MFC up to with VC++ 6 ?


Rick

[Scott M.]

I installed in concurrently with Visual Studio 97. They both seem to work fine together, except the help files for VS97 got blasted. I did run into some problems when installing the ADO 2.0 libraries (I have the Enterprise Edition). It seems that the dll names are the same between versions 1.5 and 2.0, i.e. MSADO15.dll. This killed some of my apps that referenced the old version. Other than that, everything is great.

[Don]

You might want to check out the October issue of MSJ, specifically the Visual C++ 6.0 Brings Home a Full Bag of Tricks and Treats for MFC Developers article available at http://www.microsoft.com/msj/1098/vc6/vc6top.htm


It states that "MFC 6.0 is backward-compatible with existing applications without requiring re-compilation. You can plop the new MFC42 DLLs onto any machine and all the existing MFC apps will run just fine. You'll also be relieved to learn that MFC is now compatible with the new versions of SDK header files".

[Thomas Lewandowski]

I have big trouble with Visual C++ 6.0.

In my project I use 2 COM modules, which I must load on program start. It's been working with vesion 5.0 very fine.

I've installed 6.0, recompiled my project and then my program couldn't load any COM module. The answer was always the same: "COM is not registered in system". I don't believe it and have removed version 6.0 from my disk, but now I can't start my program anymore, it crash immediatelly (it use shared DLL's ).

I've reinstalled 5.0, but without any success, then I've remove some Visual DLL's from system32 directory, once again reinstalled 5.0 together with Service Pack 3, and now my program works again. I did'n touched any COM module, it seems that version 6.0 don't understand what's going on.


Regards,


Thomas

[Donavan Stanley]

You may be running into the same thing that bit me. If your installer installs the new MFC DLLs then it has to reboot the machine before they go into place.


Check to see if regsvr32 can register the com object after a reboot. If it can make sure that you add a run once key to register your DLL after the reboot and install of MFC 6.0.


Donavan Stanley

Usenet Development Lead Engineer

CompuServe Interactive Services Inc.

[Neal Glover]

I keep seeing posts about existing applications, including some of Microsofts, breaking once the new DLL's are installed. Gotta wonder why they bothered to keep the same name...I can't see a reason myself.

[Skip Sailors]

Thank you for the reply.


There is a requirement, then that I must use an installer to put the new DLL in place, rather than a mere file copy operation, at least the first time.


So my boss is now creating an installer package and we have yet another component to manage and another step in our publishing process to document. Ain't programming fun!


TA

[Donavan Stanley]

Yeah it's great... You should have been there when I was trying to figure out why my app ( Which worked great on all my dev machines ) refused to run on the Beta Testers machines.


A little tidbit for future reference: If a COM component refuses to register during an Installshield Express install then Installshield doesn't bother to register any of the other components after it. Grrrrr!

[Karl T. Tseu]

Be sure to back up all of your ver.5 projects on a network share or zip drive before installing ver. 6, which automatically migrates ver. 5 project workspaces.

[Long John]

"Installing Over Visual Studio Beta, Pre-Release, and Technical Preview Installations

Do not install the final release of Visual Studio 6.0 on computers that have pre-release, technical preview, or beta versions of any Visual Studio product.

File copy targets and registration settings have evolved over the development cycle. Installing the final version on computers with a technology preview,

pre-release, or other beta version can result in some final components not being installed, while the earlier beta version remain on the system.

The outcome could be an unstable product or worse, an unstable system.


Reformat the hard disk and reinstall the operating system before returning a machine used as a beta test platform into the production environment. "


Friend of mine have troubles wirh Visual J++.

1. He installed J++ pre-release.

2. He couldn't uninstall J++ pre-release after expiration.

3. Installing the final version success, but VJ++ doesn't work


I think Microsoft solution (reformat and reinstall) is not feasible solution.

Any hints??

[shellreef]

Where can I get a beta version of VC++ 6?

[Jeff Kohn]

Why would you want to install a beta version, when the release version has been available for several months now?

[pradeep bidkar]

I didn't install VC++ 6.0, but I did use MSVCRT.DLL runtime library from VC++ 6.0 for my VC++ 5.0 project. The problem was the MSVCRT.DLL in VC++ 5.0 was

not working properly. I was using locale settings to format date. You can

set date and time using control panel->Regional Settings->Date, Time tabs.

When I changed the time format in TIME tab, I was not getting right format.

Microsoft fixed problem (saying strftime doesn't work properly) in next version

i.e. VC++ 6.0.

[shellreef]

Where can I get a release version of VC++ 6?

[Jeff Kohn]

If you mean where can you purchase it, you can try Programmer's Paradise at

http://www.pparadise.com


or VBXtras at

http://www.vbxtras.com/microsoftshop.asp?


If you mean where can you download it, you can't (the same was true for the beta, unless you are an MSDN Universal Subscriber, in which case you should already have your copy).

[Sabine]

We have a similar problem with this compiler,

we built one dll with vc 5.0

and some dll´s with 6.0


we can not load our program anymore because ntdll crashes while loading

with mfc42d.dll


did you find a solution yet ?

[Thomas Lewandowski]

Hi Sabine,

I've recompiled all dlls with 6.0 and now my program works. Yes I know it's not quite good, but it works.


Regards,


Thomas

[kelly doyle]

I have the same problem. Any idea where I can get the 1.5 old versions?