HOWTO: Find VB32.EXE Without Searching the Hard Drive

• Microsoft Visual Basic Professional and Enterprise Editions, 32-bit only, for Windows, version 4.0

SUMMARY

The sample code below demonstrates how to find the location of VB32.EXE by checking the registry rather than searching the entire hard drive.

MORE INFORMATION

Because customers occasionally install Visual Basic with a pathname other than the default suggested by SETUP, it may be necessary to search for the directory in which VB32.EXE has been installed. While simply searching the local hard drive with an equivalent to DIR/S serves in most circumstances, the presence of multiple large volumes makes a brute-force search of all the directories on each volume impractical.

Because Visual Basic Setup stores the fully-qualified path name to VB32.EXE under the key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\VisualBasic\Shell\Open\command," it is a fairly simple task to obtain that pathname with the RegQueryValueEx() API.

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Open a new project. Form1 is created by default.

2. Add a Code Module and, in the General Declarations section, place the following code:

      Declare Function RegOpenKeyEx Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias "RegOpenKeyExA" _
      (ByVal hKey As Long,  ByVal lpSubKey As String, ByVal ulOptions As _
      Long, ByVal samDesired As Long, phkResult As  Long) As Long
   
      Declare Function RegQueryValueEx Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias _
      "RegQueryValueExA" (ByVal hKey As Long, ByVal lpValueName As _
      String, ByVal lpReserved As Long, lpType As Long, lpData As Any, _
      lpcbData As Long) As Long
   
      Option Explicit
   
      Global Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
      Global Const KEY_ALL_ACCESS = &H3F
      Global Const ERROR_SUCCESS = 0&
   
   

3. Add a CommandButton to the default form.

4. In the Click Event of the CommandButton, place the following code:

   Dim RegKeyHandle As Long Dim RetVal As Long Dim KeyType As Long Dim Data As String * 255 Dim DataLen As Long

   RetVal = RegOpenKeyEx(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, _ "Software\Classes\VisualBasic\Shell\Open\command", _ 0, KEY_ALL_ACCESS, RegKeyHandle)

   If RetVal <> ERROR_SUCCESS Then

          MsgBox "Can't Open Key"
   

   Else

          MsgBox "Opened It!" & vbCrLf & "Getting Default Value"
          DataLen = 512
          RetVal = RegQueryValueEx(RegKeyHandle _
                                  , vbNullString _
                                  , 0 _
                                  , KEY_ALL_ACCESS _
                                  , ByVal Data _
                                  , DataLen)
   
          If RetVal <> ERROR_SUCCESS Then
              MsgBox "Missed It!"
          Else
              MsgBox Left(Data, DataLen)
          End If
      End If
   
   

5. Run the program. If Visual Basic is installed, the fully-qualified pathname to VB32.EXE appears in the message box.

REFERENCES

"Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Win32 API", Daniel Appleman, PC Magazine Press; c1996.

Keywords          : APrgOther vb432 VB4WIN
Version           : WINDOWS:4.0
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbhowto