Classic ASP and COM debugging

Question

I have inherited a classic ASP project and a VB6 Component (ActiveX .dll) that goes with it.

I would like to be able to debug this component by running it locally on my machine.

I have a Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit) laptop.

I have setup IIS 7.5 locally (production is running IIS5), however, when I browse to the site (locally) I get:

Active Server Pages error '00000000'
Create object failed
?
An error occured while create object 'OBJECTNAME'
Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01ae'
Class does't support Automation: 'ID of object in global.asa

I'm not a server guy, so I don't have a lot of experience setting up IIS. I want to setup this project locally so I can step through the COM object using the debugger.

What do I need to do to get this running?

Just as an FYI :

In the global.asa I have the following:

<object runat="server" scope="session" id="ABC" progid="prjABC.clsABC"></object>

Then in the ASP I have the following call:

if ABC.propertyName = True then

...

It fails at that line.

Answer 1

Sounds like the application pool your site is running in is configured for 64-bit mode (the default).

Switch it to 32-bit by right clicking on the pool and choosing Advanced Settings:

Set Enable 32-Bit Applications to True.

You might also want to configure the Managed Pipeline Mode and set that to Classic, not all Classic ASP apps are happy running in Integrated mode.

Answer 2

If all you need to do is debug the component it may be easier writing a COM Application that uses this COM component. Especially if you have the source to the component you can launch your test application from your vb6 component project as your debug application.

Since it's VB6 though you may have to set up a XP virtual machine to be able to run visual studio 6.0 (I've never been able to get 6.0 working on windows 7). Either that or upgrade the component to visual studio 2010.

Answer 3

If you want to run 32 bit components in a 64 bit environment, you can do it. The trouble with setting IIS to allow running 32 bit components as described above is that you end up having all of iis running 32 bit - which if it's a webserver means the main app you're running is 32 bit so reduces the speed advantage of a 64 bit machine.

To run a 32 bit component in a 64 bit IIS, you need to put it in Component Services. Start->Run->"comexp.msc" runs component services. Then just expand down the tree until you find COM+ Applications, and create a new empty application (with all the defaults set as are). Then expand that application and right click on components and then "new">component. The install new component and select the DLLs. This should allow a 64 bit component to just use the 32 bit ones.