>I'm looking to create a fairly simple (3-5 screens) application. The main requirement is that it must run on just about any Windows machine without requiring an installation process. It'll be run from CD-ROM, and I don't want to mess with any files on the user's hard drive. Is this possible with VB? If not, is C my alternative? Thank you in advance for any advice...


Hi Eric,

So long as the VB app is pure VB alone, and does not do any database stuff or use external 3rd party controls, you can run it off a CD, without having to write anything to the users hard-drive.

Build the EXE, and then burn it to the CD, along with the following files:

OLEAUT32.DLL
OLEPRO32.DLL
STDOLE2.TLB
ASYCFLT.DLL
MSVBVM60.DLL

These files can be found in the Windows\System folder on your development machine. These 5 files are the bare minimum runtimes required to activate a VB executable. So long as they are in the same folder on the CD as the VB application, it will run. Again, no functionality external to VB would be allowed here.