Alternative methods to access controls that aren&#

Question

I am writing CodedUI tests for an App that was written in VB6 and need to do an assertion on a number of different labels. Labels in VB6 do not implement MSAAA and so they do not appear in Spy++ or Inspector. Changing the application code for automated testing will be an uphill battle.

The tests were originally written in Rational and Rational's object inspector is able to get the label and most of it's properties. So I know that it is possible to get the information that I am looking for. I assume that Rational uses something in the winapi to get access to the label's properties, I assume something has to draw the label on the screen.

Any one else run into this problem? I am open to any idea that doesn't involve changing the source code of the application I am testing.