How to share VB project with another programmer overcoming the vbp "reference" issue?

vb6

Solution

This sounds like "failure to maintain binary compatibility." Normally you only do this to yourself, but of course it can be a bigger headache if multiple people are compiling your libraries from the source Project files.

When you create ActiveX EXEs, DLLs and OCXs you need to create a "base" version where type and class ID values (GUIDs) get assigned. The documentation even suggests that you do this leaving the procedures empty: just a comment line or something so the IDE does not remove the empty declarations.

You don't have to use an "empty" base reference library, it can be one with full code in it.

Once you have compiled this baseline library, you'd exit and save your Project. Then rename this "empty" library as something else and from there keep it along with your Project source files.

After this you re-open the Project and go into Project Properties and on the Component tab change the Compatibility setting to Binary Compatibility and in the box there enter the full path and name of your compiled baseline library. Save the Project. Now you can add code and compile the "real" library to be used by other programs.

When you distribute these libraries (DLLs, OCXs) to somebody else in source code form so that they can compile them you must provide this renamed compiled baseline library along with the source code files, VBP file, resource files, etc.

From there your GUIDs will be stable until you make a change to something that breaks binary compatibility (changing a method's argument list, etc.).

There is more detail on this in the online Help (MSDN Library). See:

Using Visual Basic|Component Tools Guide|Creating ActiveX Components|Debugging, Testing, and Deploying Components|Version Compatibility in ActiveX Components

Problem

Original source