I feel your pain.  As Sage 500 gets older and the operating systems get newer and more secure, it is becoming difficult to simply install Sage 500, Visual Studio 6, and the SDK.  

One thing we're finding out ourselves is that the Sage 500 client doesn't work too well on the newer server operating systems, so we make it a practice to create development machines on Windows 10.

Other steps we do to create a new development machine are the following

1. Turn UAC off
2. Set the following registry entry for UAC

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SOFTWARE, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, policies, system/'EnableLUA and set this to 0

        3.  Ensure the OS has .NET 3.5 installed

        4.  Install Visual Studio 6 using the instructions found at Install Visual Studio 6.0 on Windows 10 - CodeProject*.  Note:  Install to c:\Program Files and not                         c:\Program files(x86) as SP 6 will not find it there when it is installed.

• Install Visual Studio 6 SP 6
• Register VB Controls (VBCTRLS.REG)  - You'll find this in the SDK installer
• Install Farpoint
• Ensure VB 6.EXE is set to Windows XP SP 3 and start with Administrator privileges.            

        5.  When installing Sage 500 client, ensure it is done as administrator and using a compatibility mode of Windows XP SP3

        6.  Change the following registry folders giving FullControl to everyone:

• • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ODBC\ODBC.INI\acuity-app  
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\State Of The Art  
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Wow6432Node\State of the Art Or Sage Software Or odbc\odbc.ini\mas 500 
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Sage MAS 500 Or Sage ERP mas 500 Or Sage 500 erp 

         7.  Copy the following items:  

            Source Directory 

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Sage Software\Sage MAS 500\Shared  

           Destination directory: 

• C:\Windows\SysWOW64 

            Files 

• AppConfig.dll 
• soadblib.dll 

• AFPrintDlg.DLL (server environment)         

        I hope some of this information helps.

Interesting. Here is my question: In VMWorkstation, I set up a v.2021 development environment, using Windows Server 2016 and SQL Server 2016, and in that case, the above DLLs registered successfully. I am now branching off that environment to build v.2023 as well as the SDK, and in THAT version, the above DLLs do NOT register. Since the OS is the same for both environments are the same, is there enough difference in v.2023 that is causing this registration issue?

Jimmy Thomas

It sounds like you might be in DLL hell because of branching from the Sage 500 2021 VM WorkStation to a new VM WorkStation that you intend to use for Sage 500 2023.  We normally don't do that but instead have clean machine images (basically just windows) that we use to spin up and configure new VMs on Azure.    

What you could try if you haven't already is uninstall any instances of Sage 500 2021 and the SDK from your new VM including folders and cleaning up the registry.   You could use a program such as CCleaner to do the registry cleanup.  You may want to run it repeatably until it finds nothing to clean up in the registry.  Sage 500 leaves a lot of garbage behind when it is uninstalled, so if remnants of Sage 500 2021 still exist and are registered, this might cause issues with trying to run Sage 500 2023 and the SDK.  

Once you are satisfied you have cleaned everything, manually install the Sage 500 client and then the Sage500 SDK  for 2023 to see if that resolves your issues.

It sounds like you might be in DLL hell because of branching from the Sage 500 2021 VM WorkStation to a new VM WorkStation that you intend to use for Sage 500 2023.  We normally don't do that but instead have clean machine images (basically just windows) that we use to spin up and configure new VMs on Azure.    

What you could try if you haven't already is uninstall any instances of Sage 500 2021 and the SDK from your new VM including folders and cleaning up the registry.   You could use a program such as CCleaner to do the registry cleanup.  You may want to run it repeatably until it finds nothing to clean up in the registry.  Sage 500 leaves a lot of garbage behind when it is uninstalled, so if remnants of Sage 500 2021 still exist and are registered, this might cause issues with trying to run Sage 500 2023 and the SDK.  

Once you are satisfied you have cleaned everything, manually install the Sage 500 client and then the Sage500 SDK  for 2023 to see if that resolves your issues.