Why is SymbologyControl missing symbols in XP?

Question

I'm using the the code form SymbolForm.vb in this sample: Change layer rendering using the SymbologyControl It's working great on my developer machine with Windows 7, 64bit.

But when I deploy the solution to an Win XP SP3 32bit the symbols in the SymbologyControl are missing (Text is shown and the symbol can be choosed) when I show the Form in my app.

If I use the designer and add a new SymbologyControl to the MainForm, it shows the same *.serverStyle file correctly.

The problem is caused by the "Enable XP visual styles" in the visual studio project application setting:

When I disable this setting the symbols are shown but not when this is enabled. This is in VB and the code effected by this setting is Application.EnableVisualStyles Does any one know a way round this problem? I don't want to have to disable this on my main project. Actually what's happening is that System.Windows.Forms.Application.EnableVisualStyles() gets runned in the WindowsFormsApplicationBase class.

Update: Been able to pin this issues down a bit further, this problem only occurs when I show the symbol dialog from events in .Net for example a Button_Click event, when using the events on ESRI components for example OnMouseDown on the TocControl the dialog shows up correctly with the symbols.

I didn't realize it but the problem problem also appears in windows 7, but that issue it's not as big, it only causes the symbols to gets shown in my case two instead of three columns. That's not ok but at least all symbols are shown.

I still haven't found any working work-around, having to remove the call to EnableVisualStyles() is not an option.

Answer 1

The solution is to add a Manifestfile that makes sure that the right version of common controls get used Enabling Visual Styles:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<assemblyIdentity
    version="1.0.0.0"
    processorArchitecture="X86"
    name="CompanyName.ProductName.YourApplication"
    type="win32"
/>
<description>Your application description here.</description>
<dependency>
    <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity
            type="win32"
            name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
            version="6.0.0.0"
            processorArchitecture="X86"
            publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
            language="*"
        />
    </dependentAssembly>
</dependency>
</assembly>