It is possible to use VB6 ActiveX controls – such as ADO Data Control, Chart Control, Comm Control, and the Windowless controls – with the designer of Visual Studio .NET, but you may encounter problems when doing so because VS.NET doesn’t come with the design-time license for these controls, therefore you will receive an error when you try to add these controls to a Visual Studio .NET form or when you run the Upgrade Wizard. This problem doesn’t occur only if you have installed Visual Studio .NET on a system where you also installed Visual Basic 6.0.
You can solve this problem by installing Visual Basic 6.0 on the system where Visual Studio .NET is installed or, more simply, by merging the necessary license keys in the registry. These license keys are provided with Visual Studio .NET in the form of the VB6Controls.reg file that you can find in the ExtrasVB6Controls folder on your Visual Studio .NET Installation CD. Just locate this file from inside Windows Explorer and double-click it to merge all the necessary license keys in the registry.
