VB6 Question/Problem...

[bob4432]

it has been a long time since i did any programming so please be gentle

i wrote a small program in vb6 that does some computations. i just wanted to make it myself, the ones i have used in the past work but i didn't like their layout. nothing too complicated.

now when i give it to a person as an exe, they get an erro that says that xxx file is needed. if i use the deployment wizard that is bundled with vb6, i get a setup and cab file and they are about 1.4MB in size where my exe is just 25KB.

my question is is there a better install suite that is free and will make the install file smaller, and just one exe to run instead of having to have people run the setup.exe and also have the .cab file in the same folder. this program is very small and very simple and all it does is some simple math.

 

[igowerf]

You can create an autoextracting zip archive that runs the setup after extracting all the files to a temp folder.

 

[bob4432]

thanks for the reply, i found the visual studio installer on the microsoft site and can now create a full msi file. the only problem is the install file size @ ~1.3MB, but my exe is only 25KB. since i have vs6, i am sure i could figure out how to program just enough in c++ for this little project, but am wondering if c++ still uses all the dependant files like vb? would i gain anything in terms of install files size by going to c++?

thanks

 

[MrChad]

I'm guessing that most of the 1.3 MB is coming from the installer file overhead rather than your executable and its dependencies. How are you distributing the program? What's your goal for file size?

 

[bob4432]

distribution will be through ftp. the goal for file size is just as small as possible, i just can't believe that for a small program that has a 4 text boxes, 6 labels, an icon and 1 command button that just performs some equations it comes out to be that big with the dependant files. is there any free less bloated installers or are they usually this size?

 

[tfinch2]

standalone vb6 applications will run with just the exe if the vb6 runtimes area already on the users machine. the bloat comes from those runtime libraries...

 

[bob4432]

is there any idea of knowig if the runtimes are on the users pc? or should i just make the msi and not worry about it. the software i am making is free and there won't be any tech support, so i guess i should just give them the full msi so it will all work happily. if i programmed it in c++ would i run into the same problem with the libraries?

 

[igowerf]

VB6 runtimes are pretty common so most people shouldn't have problems running your program. You can also upload a copy of the runtime installer in the FTP folder just in case.

If you made it in C++, it'll depend on the dependencies. If you use MFC in VC++, then you MIGHT need to install some runtimes if the user's computer isn't very up to date.