Register ocx files remotely

Question

I have some VB6 .ocx files that I would like to register. These .ocx files would be on a remote machine.

What is the best way to register these .ocx files programatically?

string arg_fileinfo = "/s" + " " + "\"" + "\\<remotemachine>\\<directory>\\<ocx>" + "\"";
Process reg = new Process();
//This file registers .dll files as command components in the registry.
reg.StartInfo.FileName = "regsvr32.exe";
reg.StartInfo.Arguments = arg_fileinfo;
reg.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
reg.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
reg.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
reg.Start();
reg.WaitForExit();
reg.Close();

I'm not getting any errors but it isn't registering the .ocx either. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Take this as a warning you're free to ignore (because I know you will anyway):

Doing this isn't a good practice. Just to begin with "run from network" PE files (EXE, DLL, OCX) need to be specially linked for it or you risk high network activity and crashes due to intermittent network interruptions. And registering anything not on the boot drive or at least a local hard drive isn't sensible anyway. Doing any of this ranks high on the "poor practices" list even though it might seem to work most of the time.

Why not just do normal deployment following accepted practices?

My guess would be that you are doing a lot of Mort development, throwing together version after version of some program hoping one of them will eventually "stick." So you want to dump some or all of it onto a network share, thinking "Installation? Installation? We don't need no steenking installation. I can just plop new files out there and have everything magically work with no effort."

I'll assume you don't have the luxury of a managed network you can use to push out updates via Group Policy, and that you aren't creating the necessary MSI installer packages handling the Product and Upgrade Codes in them.

One alternative would be to use reg-free COM, which will solve a lot of small issues for you.

Now, you could do this and still ignore the hazards of PE files run from a network share, or you could bypass that using a small launcher program. That launcher could check a network share for a new version, and if found copy the newer files to the local PC before starting the actual application and terminating. This is basically an auto-updated XCopy Deployment technique.

You can get as fancy as need be. For example if your application accepts command line parameters it might do the new version check itself and if found then start the small updater (passing it the command line parameters), then terminate. The updater app could restart and pass those parameters to the new version.

But yes, life as Mort (or even an official on-the-payroll developer) can be a pain. It can be extremely difficult to get the attention of your friendly neighborhood box jockeys to do things properly even if you are working in a managed corporate LAN environment. That goes double if your application isn't part of some highly engineered sanctioned Major Project.

Answer 2

If you want to register a remote file for use on a local machine, there is nothing special required for registering a file on a UNC path, but you do need to make sure that the UNC path or mapped drive is still available to all users, especially the user that is running regsvr32. Presumably, this will be the local admin which (by default on Windows Vista+) will require elevation which can disconnect network connections.

Also note that your example is missing the extra \ from the beginning of the UNC path. Your code will result in arg_fileinfo containing /s "\<remotemachine>\<directory>\<ocx>".
You can add the extra \, or use the @ decorator which makes it a lot clearer when entering Windows paths:

string arg_fileinfo = "/s \"" + @"\\<remotemachine>\<directory>\<ocx>" + "\"";

Or just use it for the entire string and the alternative quote escaping method:

string arg_fileinfo = @"/s ""\\<remotemachine>\<directory>\<ocx>""";

Answer 3

I had to do this several years ago. As best I can remember, UNC names wouldn't work, a mapped drive letter was required. Whether it was strictly a regsvr32 issue, or was caused by something else (e.g. Windows 95) is lost in the fog of time.

Answer 4

If you want to register the file for use on the remote machine, you you need to run the code on that remote machine.
You can either do this by physically sitting in front of the computer, using remote control software, or a remote admin tool like psexec.exe.