Can anyone tell me how to "export" a windows application written in visual studio w/ VB to make it a stand alone executable windows program? Any help is appreciated, thanks.

May or may not help. in VB4 after creating a VB executable, for it to run on another computer, I have to include the VB40032.dll support file. You should need it's counterpart for your version. To make it a nice package, I bundle it into an installer called "Inno". Inno is free for downloading on the web..

In Visual Basic 6, Just go to: File -> Make Project EXE... or something like that.

You cannot make a standalone VB executable. Depending on what functions your application uses there are other support files that may be needed. There was a third party application around a few years ago that attempted to combine all the support files into a single executable but it was unreliable. It had problems dealing with third party OCX controls and could produce enormous executables. The only foolproof way of ensuring that a VB application will run on another computer is to package it in an installation package. VB comes with its own setup application that can be accessed from the Deployment and Setup wizard. It will automatically ensure that all suport files are automatically included. It is basic but it works. Stuart

This is an interesting subject because I did have problems putting VB created programs on different computers and then they didnt work. As I recall, the computer usually asked for a file or told me it couldnt find the DLL I did a search on the creating computer and then just coppied and pasted the requested Dll,I never thought to make it part of the packaging. Stuart do you know if this is only a problem when you are moving the program to an older version of windows as i had, IE.. from win melinium creation computer to an old win 95. Do you think that if the program is created on an older version of windows and transfered for use onto win XP that win XP will already have the drivers or dlls?

Moving the executable from one computer to the other creates different problems with different versions of Windows. If you create the programme on Windows 98 and move it to Windows PX it probably has a better chance of working than the other way round. However, you still need an installation package whichever way you do it. There is no guarantee that all the Dlls that the application needs are on the receiving computer. Even if they are, the newer DLL may have differing entry points with different calls than the older version which could cause your application to crash. Just copying the DLL may or may not work. Most DLLs and certainly all Active-X DLLs and OCXs need to be registered in the registry before they will work. That means running regsvr32. The installation package does this automatically. The VB setup application comes with its own DLL called VBStkit.dll. This contains a lot of useful API calls that will setup an application properly, ensure that all DLLs are registered and put an entry in the Start Menu and an icon on the desktop. Essential if you are thinking of distributing an application to third parties. If you create an application on windows XP and then try to move it to windows 98 you bring in a whole different set of problems even with an installation package. When the installation programme runs it checks for the existence of the DLL it is trying to install. If it finds it, it checks the version and if the version is older than the one that is being installed then it is over written. However, if the DLL is coming from Windows XP it will be newer than the 98 version and it will overwrite the 98 version which there is a very good chance wont work on 98. I have just had that problem with wininet.dll. I compiled the application and generated a setup package on windows XP. Attempted to install it on Windows 98. The XP version of wininet.dll replaced the version that was already there because it was newer and completely clobbered all Internet connections on that computer requiring a complete new install of Internet Explorer. The only way to create an installation package that would install on Windows 98 was to create it on the Windows 98 machine so it included Windows 98 DLLs. If you are only creating an application for your own purposes, most of this doesn't apply. However if you creating an application for distribution then there is only one way to make sure it will work and that is to test it on every platform you intend the application to run on. Windows has just to many gotchas to assume that it will work. Stuart

Thanx for the quick reply stu It seems microsoft should start paying more attention to compatability issues,,but then, why would anyone buy windowsXYZ I am just hobbyist with coding anyway, but When I do create a program I like to show off and share them with friends, Imagine the embarrasment when they dont install properly, Not very good for my ego