Installing Visual Basic 6 on Windows 10. Legacy Support, Workarounds.

rproffitt 1 4K Views

Yes, you've been told it's dead, gone and to move off this old beast of a system from 1998 but here you are, tasked with fixing an old legacy app so let me share that I've been there and how I got around some of the issues. These are:

  1. Install issues on Windows 10.
  2. A workaround to code that seemed fine but failed.
  3. What may never work again.

Installing VB6

Installing Visual Studio 6.0 from 1998 is a challenge. Be sure to have your media ready and if need be, print out the instructions so you can follow them step by step.
I used this search for how to isntall -> https://www.google.com/search?q=Install+Visual+Studio+6.0+on+Windows+10

This seems to work but badly and you have to deal with the install appearing to fail but I was able to pick up the pieces by copying the missing dao35.dll from my Visual Studio 6.0 CD (or VB6 Media) to the folder where the VB6.EXE is. This might be C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98 on a stock install.

Before you try to run VB6, be sure to install Service Patch 6.

When you run VB6 for the first time it may cough up errors and complaints but plow ahead and when it's done, quit and try again. Here it stoped complaining on the second run.

Be sure to experiment with the Compatibility Tab on the VB6.EXE file. For me the usual sluggish behavior in dragging items around vanished when I set compatibility to Vista Service Pack 2.

An odd workaround

Our old app uses images for some buttons and VB6 would complain the images couldn't be found. The images were there but the fix was simple but unintuitive. The current directory appeared to be somewhere else and I have yet to find out why CurrDIR() returns what we expected yet the following code was required. Let's hope this helps a few out there.

Debug.Print CurDir()    ' Show in IDE
Debug.Print App.Path    ' Show in IDE
ChDir (App.Path)        ' Set the CurDir()

What may never work again

So that's the basics to get VB6 up and running again and the odd issue I bumped into and now to what we had to forget about. What I can't seem to find a fix for is the old SQL interface system. That's in DAO but that doesn't seem to have a patch or fix so if you rely on any SQL you need to inform your management that it's dead.

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ddanbe 2,724 Professional Procrastinator

Yes, conservative, afraid to change anything managments.
That is why COBOL is also still around, I guess.

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rproffitt 2,662 "Nothing to see here."

Microsoft issued the following at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/visualstudio/visual-basic-6/visual-basic-6-support-policy

Executive summary

The Visual Basic team is committed to "It Just Works" compatibility for Visual Basic 6.0 applications on the following supported Windows operating systems:

Windows 10
Windows 8.1
Windows 7
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 including R2
Windows Server 2008 including R2

"The Visual Basic team’s goal is that Visual Basic 6.0 applications continue to run on supported Windows versions. As detailed in this document, the core Visual Basic 6.0 runtime will be supported for the full lifetime of supported Windows versions, which is five years of mainstream support followed by five years of extended support."

While the support for the development system is gone and there are issues, the runtime and if you know what you are doing, you can keep your app running for a very long time.

What is gone and I can't find a fast workaround is SQL support. Also known as DAO.

Hope this helps if someone tells you it's dead. While I think it's unacceptable for a new project, just like Cobol, it lives.

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Julius_5 0 Newbie Poster

I already installed vb6 on windows 10 and no problems occur

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