Visual Basic 5.0 Control Creation Edition (and the other free VB/Delphi editions)

Status 2026-09-22: VB5 CCE installs, opens the IDE in design mode, and runs a shipped sample (F5). VB6 Working Model and Delphi 6/7 Personal are blocked on licensing (see the end).

Source

• archive.org/download/vb5ccein/vb5ccein.exe: the free 1997 CCE installer, 7.48 MB. It is a self-extracting cabinet around an ACME-style setup.exe driven by SetupAPI INFs. Downloaded into downloads/, which is not committed.
• The installer needs a SetupAPI. Win95 has none, so the run mounts the one DirectX 7 redistributes: test/binaries/candidates/deus-ex-demo/DirectX7/SetupAPI.dll. Copy it next to the exe and pass --vfs-include='setupapi.dll'.

Reproduction

Install with --winver=nt4, persisting C:\ and the registry. On the 9x version, setup takes a different path that we have not driven.

node test/run.js --no-build --winver=nt4 --exe=$DIR/vb5ccein.exe --vfs-include='setupapi.dll' \
  --quiet-api --max-batches=120000 --max-seconds=500 --stuck-after=1000000 \
  --input=10:dlg-cmd:6,200:dlg-cmd:6,35000:dlg-post-cmd:1,37000:dlg-cmd:6,100000:dlg-cmd:1 \
  --no-close --overlay-dir=$OV/c --reg-export=$OV/reg.json

The inputs answer, in order:

1. the two extractor Yes/No questions;
2. the "Directory" OK. It appears around batch 29,600. It must be dlg-post-cmd: its handler opens a nested MessageBox, and a synchronous dlg-cmd abandons that after 64 rounds;
3. "create directory?" Yes;
4. the final "installation complete".

Installed files land under c:\program files\vb5cce and c:\windows\system, and the OCXs self-register into the registry.

Run the IDE on a sample and press F5, then ">>" and OK:

node test/run.js --no-build --exe="$OV/c/program files/vb5cce/vb5cce.exe" \
  --exe-guest-path='c:\program files\vb5cce\vb5cce.exe' --cwd='c:\program files\vb5cce' \
  --args='"c:\program files\vb5cce\samples\axlstpik\testgrp.vbg"' \
  --overlay-dir=$OV/c --overlay-flush-ms=0 --reg-import=$OV/reg.json --quiet-api \
  --max-batches=60000 --stuck-after=1000000 \
  --input=30000:keydown:116,30010:keyup:116,45000:mousedown:470:283,45020:mouseup:470:283,50000:dlg-cmd:1 \
  --no-close --png=out.png

Expected results:

• The title reads "Project1 - Microsoft Visual Basic [run]".
• Form1 shows the AXListPicker UserControl.
• ">>" raises MsgBox "Moving 5 items to the Destination!".
• After OK, all five items are in Destination.

--exe has to be a host path; vfs5/ in the session was the overlay's blobs copied out under their guest names.

What it needed (all covered by test/test-vb5-setup-com-apis.js unless noted)

• lstrcmp/lstrcmpi use CompareString's word sort, not a byte compare. SetupAPI keeps INF strings in a table sorted with lstrcmpi and binary-searches it. With byte order, CommonFilesDir was never found, and setup failed in the directory-ID phase. Ties are broken by case (lowercase first); the skipped -/' decide last, with the string that has them sorting after ("coop" < "co-op").
• DeleteFileA/W and SetFileAttributesA/W set the last error on failure. On a missing file that is 2, otherwise 5. Setup deletes a temp file that does not exist and then checks GetLastError() != ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND. The stale 8 left behind by an earlier call produced a "Delete Error" box.
• CLSIDFromString is strict. It takes a 38-character braced GUID or a ProgID looked up in HKCR\<progid>\CLSID, and returns CO_E_CLASSSTRING otherwise. The IDE passes it "VB.PropertyPage" from a .pag file. The old lenient parser "succeeded" on it with garbage, so the page failed to load.
• IIDFromString, and OleSetMenuDescriptor(NULL, ...). OleSetMenuDescriptor's non-NULL (install) form still crashes as unimplemented.
• ImageList_* additions, %#x in wsprintf, DS_SETFONT dialog templates, CreateMDIWindowA, CreateItemMoniker and IsTextUnicode (earlier in the same session).
• The button→parent notification is a guest tail call ($ctrl_notify_parent / $ctrl_dispatch_with_tail in 09c3a-dialog-runtime.wat). Clicking ">>" delivers BN_CLICKED to a VB form whose handler opens MsgBox, which is a modal loop. Sent through $wnd_send_message's nested $run, that loop was abandoned after 64 rounds and the click did nothing. When a BUTTON is entered through CallWindowProcA or DispatchMessageA and the parent is an x86 wndproc, the WM_COMMAND is now queued as the guest's continuation of that call, so the handler runs on the real guest stack and can pump messages. No unit test covers this yet; the VB5 route above is the coverage.

Known gaps

• A plain launch with no project argument shows a bare Open dialog instead of the New Project tabbed dialog. The IDE uses an OFN hook plus a custom template, and we do not support that combination.
• The IDE chrome: toolbar button images, and the project-explorer labels (tree items draw their expand boxes but no text).
• msi.dll's Invoke loop runs MsgWaitForMultipleObjects with a real handle array (host_wait_multiple). The CCE setup does not need it, but the VB6 path touched it.

VB6 Working Model / Delphi 6 & 7 Personal

• VB6 Working Model (archive.org/.../visual-basic-6-working-model-edition): setup requires the Product ID printed on the CD sleeve. The archive's scan does not contain it, and we do not fabricate keys, so it is blocked here.
• Delphi 6 Personal and Delphi 7 Personal (magazine cover-CD ISOs): setup requires a serial and authorization key that Borland issued per registration. Blocked for the same reason.