Question About TLB files

[bhushan1980]

Hi all,
Coming back to CG forums after a long time. I am currently refreshing my past dev experience using the interop article at:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/COM/cominterop.aspx

I have D/L the sample code from the article. In first sample in \..\COMClassic directory, there is a ATL COM project called AirlineInformation and it generates AirlineInformation.tlb file. I am running everything on Windows 7 OS / Visual Studio 2008 and earlier on I got an error PRJxxxx which was related to insufficient rights. So I ran VS with admin privileges and got rid of that error. I was able to successfully build the project. However, it does not generate any tlb. I have a tlb that came with the source code download. So I removed the existing tlb from the current location and rebuild the project. Now it generated a tlb. But when I run tlbimp.exe to import the tlb file contents to a dll as metadata to expose it to .NET, some how it does not find it. I migrated the entire VS solution from VS 8 to VS 2008. I also checked the MIDL output directory in the properties for the project and it is ./debug. But the tlb is created only in top level folder with the solution and not in the \debug.
My Questions:
Why do I not get a new tlb in ./debug folder?
Why does tlbimp not recognize the tlb file?
How to run a program like tlbimp as an admin from command prompt if at all that is the problem?
Did the migration of the project that was developed in VC++6 to 2008 need any more fixes?
Thanks,
Bhushan

[cilu]

You probably don't get a new tlb if one already exists, because there was no change to the project that should trigger a new rebuild. Try modifying the IDL and see if you still don't get a new tlb.

Does tlbimp return some error? Are you sure you called it with the right parameters?

You can run tlbimp As administrator from a console by running the console As Administrator.

[bhushan1980]

Thanks Cilu. Tried that. The error message is:

TlbImp : error T10000 : Unable to locate input type library: 'C:\Users\USER\Documents\Visual'

I dunt know what that means. I had no problems running tlbimp or any .NET tool on Windows XP or 2003. One thing to note here is...the path is not a complete path. Why is the error message showing incomplete path? The complete path to tlb is as under:

C:\Users\USER\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\COMInteropWithDOTNET\COMInteropWithDOTNETSource\ClassicCOM\AirlineInformation

Are spaces in Visual Studio 2008 directory name creating problem?
Let me know...
Thanks,
Bhushan

[Eri523]

File paths containing spaces could always lead to problems when entered (improperly) on the command line. That's neither specific to any Windows version nor any VS version.

Enclose the file path in double quotes when invoking TlbImp.