Andrea, thanks for the suggestion. Here's an update on additional steps I have taken. I found a 1996 version of VB40032.DLL in the \Windows\System folder on my old Windows 7 PC and a 2000 version of the same DLL in the \Windows\System32 folder, so I copied those two versions of the file to the new Windows 8 computer and put them into the folders of the same names. Still getting an error.
The link you referred me to has the following note: "If you use a 64-bit version of Windows, you should also place vb40032.dll in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\", so I did that as well. Still getting an error. It is, "Error accessing the system registry". Clicking OK on that error message produces another message, "Unexpected error, quitting".
The last line of the link you referenced says the following:
If the problem still occurs, try the following:
1. Open Windows Start menu and select "Run...".
2. Type CMD and press Enter (or if you use Windows ME, type COMMAND)).
3. Type regsvr32 vb40032.dll and press Enter.
I am always very cautious of doing anything with the Registry. What does the last line do? Is there any risk in trying this? Will it possibly fix my problem? Do you know in which Windows folder the regsvr32 program expects to find the dll file - System, System32 or SysWOW64?