Microsoft Woes

Started by chalky, October 10, 2020, 00:31:15

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chalky

[rant:start]
A couple of years ago I decided to take the plunge and move from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Everything went a lot smoother than I expected, and I even managed to get my beloved Visual basic 6 installed and working, meaning I could continue maintaining several applications created with it during the previous 2 decades.

Everything had been working fine - and I had been able to apply several bug fixes to old code and recompile the programs without problems. Until today, when I spent a couple of hours debugging and fixing an issue to a 14 year old application - after which the compiler bombed out with the error: "Cannot load control rtbEditor; license not found." ('rtbEditor' is a RICHTX32.OCX object - and has never been a problem until now). Not understanding how this could suddenly be an issue, I tried adding a new instance to the form, and received the error: "License information for this component not found. You do not have an appropriate license to use this functionality in the design environment.".

WTF? I *DO* have an appropriate license - and have been using it for over 20 years!

Searching for a solution online suggested running VB6Cli.exe, which apparently fixes this error by reinstating the missing licenses. I therefore ran it, only to receive the error: "Could Not Load A Support Utility Library". Unfortunately, no amount of investigation on the internet has revealed any useful information on what this means, or how to fix it. Something which DID come to light, however, is that uninstalling Microsoft Office has been known to cause issues with some installed OCX developer licenses. Aha - a sudden realisation as to what may have caused my problem: When I worked as a teacher, I was granted a Microsoft Office 2003 teacher's license which I have been using at home as well as at school. As I retired from teaching this year I decided to 'do the right thing' and uninstalled it from my home PC last week. This, it would seem, is what has corrupted my developer license for RICHTX32.OCX (and maybe other controls - only time will tell).

Several internet solutions claimed that regsvr32.exe was the way to fix it, so I unregistered the OCX, re-registered it, rebooted the PC and tried once more to recompile my program. Sadly, the same error occurred again. In fact, nothing I have tried has fixed the issue - and I am now left with a 'broken' VB6 developer environment.

By the time I gave up, I had spent almost 4 hours attempting to fix an issue with a Microsoft product created by another Microsoft product. I have no idea why uninstalling Office 2003 involves the removable of a developer license for controls which come as part of a development package - but my only hope is that I can find my original Visual Studio installation disks so that I can reinstall VB6 and fix the issue.
[rant:end]

PS: If anyone can shed any light on what the VB6Cli.exe "Could Not Load A Support Utility Library" message means (and how to fix it) then I am all ears!

Steve Elliott

#1
Quote
A couple of years ago I decided to take the plunge and move from Windows 7 to Windows 10

A couple of years ago?  Windows 7 came out in 2009, it's now 2020.

Quote
I spent a couple of hours debugging and fixing an issue to a 14 year old application.

14 year old application??!  Try that with MacOS...More like 14 months, and that's not an Operating System we support in 2020.  Please upgrade to the latest version, kind regards, Apple.  And even Linux is 64-bit only!

Windows 10 is the worst of Microsoft's OS's I grant you that - 8.1 was the best IMO, so fast...Have you tried the compatibility modes for older Windows Systems?  Have you updated all drivers?

It's justified ranting when you're talking about 2020, but not when you're talking about 14 year old applications and an OS produced in 2009 - when the year is late 2020.
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chalky

#2
QuoteA couple of years ago?  Windows 7 came out in 2009, it's now 2020.
Windows 7 wasn't broken, so I had no reason to change it - until Steinberg dropped support (I use Cubase & Wavelab professionally) at which point I moved to Windows 10.

QuoteHave you tried the compatibility modes for older Windows Systems?
Compatibility mode for what? My [14 year old] program runs fine in Windows 10 (as does VB6) - the problem is that I am now unable to recompile any modifications to it since I uninstalled Office 2003 last week due to a broken .ocx developer license.

QuoteHave you updated all drivers?
Which drivers would need updating in order to fix .ocx developer licenses broken by the Office 2003 uninstall?

QuoteIt's justified ranting when you're talking about 2020, but not when you're talking about 14 year old applications and an OS produced in 2009
The 14 year old application is my own (and although created 14 years ago, had a complete re-write in 2019, so a lot of the source code is very recent), and is running fine. I am talking about an issue with the Office 2003 uninstaller - my reference to Windows 7 was purely historical.

Matty

I might have an old boxed copy of vb6 by my bedside table - if you can't find your discs I can send you the cds.  It came with an install cd plus two msdn documentation cds one of which was scratched badly when I bought it.

col

Microsoft constantly find ways to break stuff after their so called 'updates'.

Just updated VStudio Pro and now it craps out when I hit 'Save'. We've gone from the blue-screen-of-death to the blue-spinning-icon-of-I-can-see-the-future in that the OS then close your app, as if that was what you wanted. I just want stuff to work, can it be so hard with hundreds (possibly thousands) of programmers for an OS maker to get this right - fuck me they've been doing it for decades now so you would thought they would have some experience of creating a rock solid OS by now.

I suppose I'm supposed to be grateful that the whole OS doesn't die and kill your installation, but then again it may as well when you take into account how long this these things take in time to resolve. *sigh*
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Xerra

Erm, why install vb6 again? Perhaps reinstalling office 2003 again. Probably more chance of getting hold of that than VB6. I remember getting a free copy of VB6 with a book I picked up in 2001 and writing a database program with it. As I recall the book and language were quite old even then.
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chalky

@Matty: Thank you - really appreciate the offer. Thankfully I have located my VS6 Pro discs and reinstalled VB6, so everything is back to normal.

@Xerra: The Office 2003 on my PC was owned and installed by the school I worked for, but since I no longer work there, I am not entitled to use their license. You are quite right about VB6 being ancient - it's a credit to MS that a product release in 1998 still runs on Windows 10, albeit with a few tweaks required during the install process.