There was one other peculiar thing. I must edit the generated .VBR file and comment out the 1st and 4th registry lines or registration will fail.

VB5SERVERINFO
VERSION=1.0.0

;HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\arscom.maincom =
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\arscom.maincom\NotInsertable
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\arscom.maincom\CLSID = {09C5790E-774D-11D3-A631-006067349483}
;HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{09C5790E-774D-11D3-A631-006067349483} =
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{09C5790E-774D-11D3-A631-006067349483}\ProgId
.......