TabList control not displaying correctly - vb6

Question

I have a TabList control on a form that derives from COMCTL32.OCX.
On development machines it displays fine, but on clean VMs of XP and Win7 one of the tabs comes up in strange colours.
What could be the problem?
EDIT: I have discovered that the problem is related to Themes. In XP when I change from default theme to "Windows Classic" the problem disappears. How can I make this control properly colour itself taking into account changes in Themes? The only thing I can find is this discussion: Common Controls Tab Control Defects when themed

Answer 1

Although I have never observed such behaviour I would hazard a guess that you may be able to resolve the problem by using one of the following approaches:
Create a manifest file with the content below. Name the file to match your project EXE name with a .manfest extension. Eg. Project1.exe.manifest. Place the manifest file in the same location as your executable and run it.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<assemblyIdentity type="win32" processorArchitecture="*" version="6.0.0.0" name="mash"/>
<description>Enter your Description Here</description>
<dependency>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity
type="win32"
name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" version="6.0.0.0"
language="*"
processorArchitecture="*"
publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
/>
</dependentAssembly>
</dependency>
</assembly>
Or, you can try adding the following code to the form that contains the MS tabbed control:
Private Declare Sub InitCommonControls Lib "comctl32.dll" ()
Private Sub Form_Initialize()
InitCommonControls
End Sub