It seems like a lot of the merge modules that I was using in InstallShield 2012 Spring are missing (e.g. Windows Common Controls ActiveX Control DLL, MSMAPI Controls, etc.). Am I not seeing something? Does anyone know what I have to do to get these back? Right now, I'm tempted to just copy them over from my old InstallShield files, but I'd rather avoid that if I can.
This sounds like what we cover in the release notes under Removal of Outdated and Obsolete Items.
InstallShield no longer has support for a number of outdated technologies. Many of these technologies have reached their end-of-life milestone and are no longer supported by Microsoft. For a full list of items, see Knowledge Base article Q212461.
It should be safe enough to copy your existing merge modules around, but we will no longer provide them, and I would encourage you to consider dropping your use of these technologies.
We also have customers using Windows XP. It seems like you got a bit carried away with removing stuff. One of the items listed is the "Microsoft Visual Basic Virtual Machine 6.0", which, as far as I know, is the VB6 runtime. I think I would have heard if Microsoft had dropped support for VB6.
Well, they are teetering on the edge of dropping it - you can no longer get logo certification on the most recent OS if you are using VB6. But as to your main point, VB6 still usable on Windows XP. My understanding is Windows XP itself comes with the VB6 runtime pre-installed. Many of the redistributables we removed are only necessary for even older platforms that we and/or Microsoft no longer support.
(To fully prove one way or the other, you could try creating an installation without the "Microsoft Visual Basic Virtual Machine 6.0." Then install it on a clean XP machine of whatever lowest version you support, and see if everything still works.)
If I've read this Microsoft Support statement ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ms788708 ) correctly, you are right and the basic VB6 runtime is no longer required. We only go back as far as XP SP3.
