At Altavista's UseNet,search for VB6 and Beta program. Ther's a postage from a developer who get involved into it. He lists the new features of VB6. I don't remember he talks about standalone app installs. But you could write to him.
But I hardly believe in such a fact : MS isn't that fool to permit something you can do with MS C++...
BASIC is always an interpreted language, needing a huge runtime, and OCX's to improve windows and its abilities.
Regarding my usage of VB, I deliver the entire install the first time (including DLLs OCxs, and so on). Then I maintain the apps by distributing ONLY the EXE. I just have to maintain compatibility between ActiveXs and Clients, by registering them each time. And I don't use MS SetupWizard except the first time.
You can reduce the size of your apps by using generic form storage into DLLs, by creating control arrays at run time, and so well known other techniques. MS has an article talking about those techs.
Bye