Thank you for the detailed reply.

I am using the Installshield installer. Would it be acceptable or wise to
use one of it's options "Never write over existing files" ?

I'm pretty confideent that would not harm the target system, but I'm not
sure what effect it would have on my application.

Bob

"mayayana"  wrote in message
news:lTbvc.7867$Yd3.2443{at}newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>    There was a post about this last week. Someone
> had trouble on just a few Win98 machines. The trick is
> to be careful about not shipping XP versions to older
> machines. You can do that by putting appropriate file
> versions in the Wizards\PDWizard\Redist folder so that
> the PDW will use those instead of the system versions.
> VB service packs have done that for some files
> with known problems.
>   I'm using VB6 with SP3. The service packs have put
> the following versions in my Redist folder:
>
>  C02C4EN.DLL -  4.6.1.106
>  COMCAT.DLL - 4.71
>  MFC40.DLL - 4.1.6140
> MSVCRT.DLL - 6.00.8397.0
> MSVCRT20.DLL - 2.11.000
> MSVCRT40.DLL - 4.22.0000
> RICHED32.DLL - 4.00.993.4
> MDAC_TYP.EXE - last modified 3/18/99
>
>  Maybe it also makes sense to add the
> SP5 runtime file versions to the Redist folder
> if you're distributing those, since you had
> trouble with OLEAUT32.DLL. The publicly available
> runtime installer should have appropriate file versions
> for all machines.
>
>
> > Are VB programs distributed from an XP development platform more likely
to
> > encounter DLL problems on a range of target user's systems?
> >
> >
> >
> > I have been distributing applications developed in VB5 and VB6 for a
> couple
> > years now.  Recently I switched my development from a Win'ME  platform
to
> a
> > Win'XP-Home  platform
> >
> >
> >
> > I am now occasionally seeing a user install the program and report that
> > their computer is in some way messed up.  In one case the target system
> was
> > Win'98 and the problem was corrected by reverting one of the DLL's
> > (OLEAUT32.DLL) to it's original state.
> >
> >
> >
> > The OLEAUT32.DLL problem on Win'98 is well known and documented in many
> > places on the net.
> >
> >
> >
> > My questions are -
> >
> >
> >
> > 1.) Are problems like this more common if developing on an XP system?
I.E
> > are XP DLL's and the like worse in terms of backwards compatability? I
> never
> > had this happen when distributing from an ME machine.
> >
> >
> >
> > 2.) When distributing the application, would it be wiser to invoke an
> option
> > in my installer to not automatically upgrade DLL's, or would that cause
> more
> > problems?
> >
> >
> >
> > 3.) Would this be any better/worse if I moved all my applications to
VB6?
> >
> >
> >
> > I am assuming in the above that the DLLs are 'native' to XP and are not
> > installed on my development system as part of the VB 5/6 installations.
> >
> >
> >
> > I have the option of going back and doing distribution on an ME systems,
> so
> > that only DLL's from the ME system are distributed, but I'd like to
avoid
> > that if possible.
> >
> >
> >
> > Any suggestions are comments on all this?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks a lot,
> >
> >
> >
> > Bob Kochem
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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