WPIE15.exe Error Installing or Modifying VB6

If you have gotten the WPIE15.exe error installing VB6 the reason is probably the install source. Visual Studio 6 comes from an era where we were installing on a physical computer, which of course, had a physical CD drive, which of course, had a drive letter assigned that almost never changed. So, when you installed any Visual Studio language from a CD, which you almost always did (even if you had an iso you burned a CD for the install), the installer remembered that drive letter.

Now it may be a physical computer and it probably has no CD drive. You are likely just mounting an iso and installing from it. The problem is every time you mount an iso it gets the next drive letter available.

The first attempt to install VB6 remembers that drive and the path as the ‘Source Directory’ and subsequent installs must be from that drive and path. If not, you may get a message starting the install that a previous install may be corrupt. Whether or not you get the corrupt message near the end of the install the message pops up and the install ends:

error
wpie15.exe error

The issue is not with a system directory but that setup cannot find the wpie15.exe file. Change your install drive to the original ‘Source Directory’ path, this error disappears, and the install completes.

What if you don’t know what the original source directory was? look at the setup.stf file to find out. It is in the: ‘Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\Setup\1033\’ directory (assuming it is an English install). If it is another language, ‘1033’ will be replaced by the code for that language. Note: if you have more versions of Visual Studio than Visual Studio 6 installed, those directories area all suffixed with the version. I.E. ‘Visual Studio 14.0’. The VS6 (98) directory has no suffix. The ‘Source Directory’ entry in the setup.stf file shows the path:

setup file

If you have MSDN installed the structure is similar:

msdn setup file

It may be obvious but this is not a Windows 10, 11 error. It is a legacy installer issue. It effects installs on all Operating Systems. Windows 7, 8, 8.1 etc.

Could you just change the setup.stf file entry? Maybe, but I have not tried. For me it was too simple to change the drive letter of the mounted iso with Disk Management. What I don’t know is whether the path is also stored somewhere else. If someone tries it, let me know if it works.

-Nick

Leave a Comment