Unusual behavior with AcroPDF viewer
I'm working on an old VB6 application and I'm trying to include a .pdf viewer in my application. Previously we were using .snp extensions, however, we decided to make a switch to PDF's since Win10 does not like .snp.
Anyway, I'm trying to have two controls in my form, 1 for snaps and 1 for pdf, so I'm using snap viewer, and AcroPDF viewer. The Component name I'm using for the AcroPDF is
Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Browser Control Type Library 1.0
on Form_LOad i check for extension, and depending on what it is, that's the control i display.
Here's the interesting part - when I create an .exe and run it, it works like a charm, no issues whatsover. The weird behavior I get is when I run it out of IDE, regardless of whether I try to view the .pdf or .snp file, I get an empty message box. Also, if it happens to be a .pdf document, it doesn't display anything in the viewer, however, snaps work.
Here's the image of the message box...
I am not doing anything unusual with this... on form load, i simply check the extension and either make set it to Visible or not...For the directory, i do something like this..
pdfViewer.src = C://...directory
Like I said, this works fine when run out of .exe but gives me the message box when running out of IDE> Any help will be appreciated.
The PDF problem maybe because Adobe has migrate the library to 64bit, this break the compatibility with applications (written on any programming language that use this components). A simply solution is to avoid to add the reference of Adobe library in your project (early-binding), and use instead on late-binding as explained on the below article (with sample project for VB6.0 and VB.NET) where you can load a PDF in Form or PictureBox:
PDF in VBForm with no OCX/DLL (late binding)