Where is the VB6 Student Edition?

[VB-only]

I know this has been covered before as I searched thru the old posts, but I cannot find where the student edition went. I have a retiree friend who want s to learn VB6 but neither of us can find the older VB6 install. He started doing the free version from Microsoft, A 7 GB INSTALL!!!! Holy Cow!!
I told him that is not the VB6 edition. He wants to write code that can be ported to Mac and Linux too.
An older previous posting gave a link to a German university but that link is dead. And I could not find anything on eBay either.
Anybody know how to get this?
Thanks much.

[DataMiser]

Student edition was only available to students and is not legal to use for other purposes.

VB6 does not create apps for mac nor linux so perhaps he should be looking at something else.

[VB-only]

VB6 runs apps under Wine, with the run time libraries installed.

[techgnome]

I know this has been covered before as I searched thru the old posts, but I cannot find where the student edition went. I have a retiree friend who want s to learn VB6 but neither of us can find the older VB6 install. He started doing the free version from Microsoft, A 7 GB INSTALL!!!! Holy Cow!!
I told him that is not the VB6 edition. He wants to write code that can be ported to Mac and Linux too.
An older previous posting gave a link to a German university but that link is dead. And I could not find anything on eBay either.
Anybody know how to get this?
Thanks much.

As noted, VB6 isn't going to run on anything else other than Windows.
If you want something that will run anywhere 1) learn a different language like JAva or C (not C#) ... 2) Be prepared to write it multiple times, as there's going to be variations between the platforms, there's almost no such thing as write-once, run-everywhere ... 3) Then learn Objective C for Mac. Actually, that's problably not a bad place to start since it can run on Windows... I'm not sure about linux though.

VB6 runs apps under Wine, with the run time libraries installed.

Oh,but of course! Everything runs on Wine. Heck even I can run on Wine.

-tg

[DataMiser]

VB6 runs apps under Wine, with the run time libraries installed.

But that is not really running under Linux now is it? It is an emulator. I can run Andriod apps on windows if I use an emulator, I can run arcade games, console games, CE apps WM apps and so on all under windows but only if I have the right emulator installed. For that matter I can even run Linux under Windows if I have the right software installed. Yet none of those are really running in Windows nor do they support Windows.

Bottom line is if someone wants to build multi-platform apps VB is not the right tool, especially not VB6.

If you are dead set on VB6 it is available but be prepared to spend at least $400 and even then you may not end up with a version you can legally use. There is no free legal download for VB6

[Carlos Rocha]

But that is not really running under Linux now is it? It is an emulator.

No, Wine stands for - (W)ine (I)s (N)ot an (E)mulator. What it does is redirect API calls to their own libraries (it can use native windows libraries, tho).

[dilettante]

It sounds like his best bet might be something like B4J.

This is a language somewhere between VB6 and VB.Net in syntax that generates Java bytecode executables for high portability.

Despite the dog in the manger remarks above about a lack of portability, these programs are actually quite portable between Windows, OS X, and many Linux distributions. With some care people are even using this to write programs that will run on a stinking little Raspberry Pi! And you can even use Jet MDBs ("Access databases") multiplatform thanks to libraries such as Jackcess when you need to.

It is completely free, but a bit of a work in progress so be prepared to follow along as it evolves. However at this point it is quite mature and breaking changes should be rare from here onward.

Also there is a documentation page and you will find links to a pretty active community forum site.

Like anything there is a learning curve, but it ought to be a far easier transition than to VB.Net. Plus you don't have the platform lock-in!