VB6 compile to portable executable

Question

I have heard about portable applications, and I would like to make some of my utility application portable. Does anyone know if it is possible to make an app developed in VB6 portable?

I plan on replacing most controls with usercontrols, thereby no need for most MS ActiveX controls except the runtime files.

Any ideas?

[EDIT] When i mean by portable, is that there is no need for installation, and mostly a single .exe; or at most all files needed by this application reside in the same directory.

Answer 1

While NT 5.0 was being developed Microsoft was working on what became known as Registration-Free COM, and one application for this was VB6 programs.

Reg-Free COM was not ready when Windows 2000 was released, but was featured in NT 5.1 (Windows XP) and later. However by then VB's fate was to be shelved, so we never got a "VB7" toolset supporting VB developers.

It is still alive and well though, and XP SP1 and SP2 as well as VB6 SP6 incorporated improvements in Reg-Free COM for VB6.

The upshot is that you can create portable (XCopy-able) VB6 applications for Windows XP and later, you just have to struggle with tools from later versions of Visual Studio that aren't very VB6-friendly or use a 3rd party tool. These generate appropriate isolation manifests and optionally embed them as manifest resources.

Look here under Reg-Free COM or try a search engine to find some of the tools available.