Registering OCX Fails

I have several OCX files that fail to regtiser. I recently upgraded to Windows7 and many of my programs have been broken.

I've attach an image of the error message.

Thanks in advance.

For whatever bizarre reasons none of the major community support forum sites has been willing to treat this as a separate topic. "VB6 continuity" is a major issue for hobbyists, small software vendors, and business users from very small to very large.

The issues began as early as Windows 2000 and became more serious in Windows XP. Lots of those were masked for a time by letting people run with Power User or Administrator rights or letting Windows apply Compatibility shims to make the environment look a little more like Windows 9x or NT 4.0. By the time Vista came on the scene the changes began to really pile up though, and things like UAC and other system protection schemes have radically changed things. Add in the fact that 64-bit processors running in 64-bit mode are more common now...

Well, there are many new things a VB6 programmer must consider at this point. Deployment can no longer be treated so casually for one thing.


In your particular case you haven't provided enough information to suggest a solid fix. We might take a stab at some guesses though.

The first question is what you are trying to do. Have you tried to install VB6 on the Windows 7 machine, and are now trying to compile and run programs there? Are you trying to put existing precompiled VB6 programs on the Windows 7 machine and run them there? Is this really VB6 rather than VB5 or something else?

If I assume (a.) VB6 and (b.) trying to install and run a precompiled program we can branch to a second question. How are you trying to deploy these programs? Running a P&D Wizard setup package? Something else? Are all steps being run elevated?

From there more questions will flow, like: What folder are you deploying these OCXs to? Is this Win7/32 or Win7/64?


Without more details it is hard to offer specific recommendations. Sadly no knowledge base has been developed for VB6 continuity, so there is no list of suggestions to let you browse through, no general decision tree to navigate on your own to discover a remedy.

Thanks for the reply. I got my answer on another forum. Here it is if any else needs it.


"In the search box, type CMD, and at the top, right-click on CMD.exe.

Select the RunAs Administrator option, and left-click

UAC (User Access Control) will ask if it's OK to proceed. Click OK.

type CD \path\to\my\ocx and then ENTER

from there, enter your command: REGSVR ... "

This really should not be necessary if you use a decent installer.
The installer should then prompt you that to continue it need adminstrator rights.