VB6 application will not install on Windows 8.1

[BobbyCFromEP]

I have a VB6 application that my customer has been using for a decade. She recently got a laptop running Windows 8.1 (64-bit). Whenever we attempt to run the installer it fails to load key VB6 runtime files.

This message is in the log file:

[03/06/2015 14:42:03] Info
VB6 SP6 Module: Current version of MSVBVM60.DLL detected.
The VB6 SP6 runtime is already installed.

Dependency Walker, the application breaks saying it cannot find the file MSVBVM60.DLL. I looked for the file and sure enough there it is:

C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_...[boring stuff]...\msvbvm60.dll

How do I properly install this app when I cannot even get passed the preinstalled runtimes...? I am using Setup Factory 9.1 and have attached the installation log and Dependency Walker's results. For this test I chose to include only the first runtime file - msvbvm60.dll. It never gets passed this...

Any help would be appreciated...

[Ulrich]

Runtime support for Visual Basic 6 applications is provided in all current operating systems. Unless you are targeting pre-Windows XP platforms, you shouldn't need to add the Visual Basic 6.0 dependency module to your installer.

Also, if you have the dependency module, it makes little sense adding the runtime files msvbvm60.dll again to the files of your installer. As you can see in the installation log file, it was skipped, and it can be safely removed from the package.

The Visual Basic 6.0 runtime files are actually stored in the Windows "component store", the WinSxS folder. The file you see in Windows\System32 (32-bit OS) or Windows\SysWOW64 (64-bit OS) are simply links to the component store - leave them alone.

My guess is that the dependency walker you are using is too old and does not know how to handle Windows 8.1 and/or the links to the component store. Right now I would concentrate on your own application. What errors are you getting? Are you using third party components? Are you sure that these are all compatible with Windows 8.1 and that their own requirements were met? You state "cannot install", yet there are no fatal errors in the log, so I would say that the installation went well. There may be problems with your application itself, or something it needs to run properly. Please provide more info.

Ulrich