How to fix the error “Cannot load control SSPanel; license not found” in VB6 program

Just a couple of tips to help isolate the problem....

Look at the control with OleView

Examine the name: if it is one of the reserved words such as 'Menu', vb6 will fail to load it. (Although vb6 will happily let you create (and use) one with a bad name until it is saved and reloaded)

Examine the interface: does it describe the functionality? You may have a damaged or unlicensed ocx.

Attempt to load it with the ActiveX Control Test Container... If you can, the problem is with VB6 and not the ocx.

This is almost certainly an interface compatibility problem. COM interfaces are versioned entirely separately from your Major/Minor/Revision numbers, which are little more than comments except as used by Installer.

Somewhere along the line you broke binary compatibility, and you are trying to deploy a library with a newer interface than your application was compiled against.

These version numbers are found in keys such as:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{class Id GUID}\VERSION

Your program needs to have its old reference to the OCX removed, a new one set, and then it must be recompiled. This also means deleting any instances of the control and adding them back one by one.

I doubt this is a Windows 7 issue.