vb6 xcopy deployment

Question

Can any one tell me how to convert an legacy application which is vb6 ( COM dll's ocx and exes) to use Regfree COM .

I tried opening the dlls in visual studio and created manifest file, but some of the dlls it is giving error.

Is there any tools out there which will help me to do this process?

I tried a tool from codeproject which is called regsvr42, which is not creating the manifest fully.

I used tools like PE explorer where I get all the typelib information , but converting them into manifest files is too difficult.

We have started migrating that to .NET, for some months we have to deploy it, it will easier if it is xcopy based deployment.

Answer 1

To create manifest files you can try to use Make My Manifest from http://mmm4vb6.atom5.com/.

EDIT The MMM website is down. I see here that the author was having trouble with their hosting and has provided another location to get Make My Manifest - download it here.

If you can control creation of objects you can use DirectCOM from http://www.thecommon.net/10.html

Keep in mind that if one of used DLLs or OCXs is creating other COM objects dynamically with CreateObject calls, that reference will not be stored in vbp project file and you won't get full manifest file. Probably you will have to catch object creations while the application is running. Depends.exe application can profile running application and report all used dlls. I don't know if there is tool that can find additional COM related information.