Using CoolBar crashes my system

Last updated: January 21, 2007

The problem with ReSize and the CoolBar is due to a bug in the CoolBar control. ReSize interrogates each control on a form to determine if it is a 1st generation child of a Tab control. It must do this because 1st generation children of Tab controls need special handling. When ReSize performs this interrogation on a child of the CoolBar control an access violation is generated. In the internal ReSize code a NULL pointer being returned by a Microsoft function called IVBGetControl can be seen. The access violation was obtained by executing the following line of code:

Debug.Print Picture1.Container.Name

The support people at Microsoft were also able to produce the problem by executing the above line of code. They were not able to offer any solutions to the problem however. Unfortunately, Micosoft has a poor track record of fixing such bugs. Larcom and Young hasn't been able to code around the problem and still provide support for SSTabs and SSIndexTabs. There are similar controls made by 3rd party vendors, it might be a consideration to look at an alternative.

Copyright © 2007 by Larcom and Young.
All rights reserved. Revised: January 21, 2007.