Wine 0.8: VB compatibility !!

[Roderick Colenbrander]

To demonstrate some important VB problems I made a few VB test apps. Those 
test apps are located at http://www.xs4all.nl/~sailsup/wine-vb.tar.gz

The package contains some database applications using various MS database 
implementations (DAO, ADO), two simple tests. Next to this the package 
contains one of those tests combined with a VB installer application.

To run these apps the VB 6.0 runtime library should be installed and perhaps 
dcom98. The app that is bundled with an installer contains the vb runtime 
library and most of the files from dcom98 I think. (get dcom98 from here if 
you need it: http://www.microsoft.com/com/dcom/dcom98/download.asp)

Now I will tell about problems when running those very basic apps. I'll start 
with the app with installer. When this app starts the installer, the 
installer first tries to install parts of the VB 6.0 runtime and some other 
files. It crashes somewhere during the extraction of the files. (I think it 
crashes because builtin oleaut32.dll is used and not the to be extracted 
native oleaut32.dll). When installing dcom98 before running this setup the 
setup app still doesn't run, but when you tell wine to use native oleaut32 
from dcom98 it works fine.

After the app is installed, it doesn't runIt crashes while loading the activex 
database control which is needed for this app and then launches winedbg. 
(control is installed by the setup)

After this there are two very simple apps one containing only an empty form 
and one containing a button on a form that run well. The only minor problem 
is in the button app. When you click on the button it should show a 
messagebox containing a text. On windows the text in the messagebox is 
alligned to the left or perhaps to the center, but on wine the text is 
alligned to the right. (looks ugly)

Next to these two simple apps there are three database apps (db1, db2 and 
db3). (one of them called db2 is the one bundled with the setup package) 
Neither of those apps works well. These apps report various errors "runtime 
error 335: can't access the system registry" and more of this crap.

I ran all these apps on a Wine CVS version which I compiled about two weeks 
ago. My wine install was clean. I started with a fresh fake c: drive and a 
fresh wine registry (imported from winedefault.reg ofcourse).
The problems on my test apps seem to be related to missing functionality in 
wine builtin dlls, problems with registering activex controls, registry 
problems and more.

I hope these simple apps already help a lot. Most VB problems are very similar 
to these. If more and better tests are needed, just ask.

Roderick Colenbrander