VB6 DTPicker Control date not showing when Enabled=false on Win7 and Win7 SP1

Question

I've got a strange behavior on one of my Win7 machines when using the DTPicker date control. When the control is not enabled (myDTPicker.Enabled=false) the date text does not show up,it is blank.

The same program on my other Win7 SP1 machine works as expected when (myDTPicker.Enabled=false) the date text is visible and the control is grayed out; this is good.

Originally, the Win7 machine where the date text is blank did not have SP1, so I thought that may be the issue. I upgraded to SP1, but the issue has not gone away. Also rebooted just to make sure.

Do you happen to know what may be causing the date text to be blank when DTPicker.Enabled=false on one Win7 box vs another?

Answer 1

The DTP in VB6 gets its foreground text color from the system's "Disabled Item" font color – so if that's set to a pale gray rather than the more usual dark gray, it will have the effect of making the DTP look blank when it's disabled. You need to go to the Advanced Window Color and Appearance settings dialog to check it.

Answer 2

Not sure if this is your issue, but here my shot in the dark. I've seen this problem before with Windows 7 when DPI was anything other the default. Some laptops these days come with 125% as the default DPI. Try resetting it to 100% and see whether it fixes it.