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Thread: Visual Basic 4.0 and Windows 10

  1. #1

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    Question Visual Basic 4.0 and Windows 10

    Hi!

    We all know that is possible to install Visual Studio 6 on Windows 10 no matter if x86 or x64, by VS6Installer or manually.
    Me personally have installed.

    In few days ago I installed NTVDMx64 - version of NTVDM for 64-bit Windows 10 (I'm using Windows 10.1803 Pro x64).
    It allows me to run 16-bit applications, most of them working and not only DOS applications - also 16-bit Windows applications. Simple example, I know that's game, but Sim City Classic for Windows, of course also others.
    Even I can run and work in Visual Basic for DOS - without problems and can test and build my apps.

    I tried to use Visual Basic 3.0 Enterprise Edition by copying installation folder from virtual machine, it works not.
    So, I tried Visual Basic 4.0 Enterprise Edition and started installation from NTVDM console.
    Setup file was found and executed, but that's all.
    Why I'm talking that file was found: when I start some applications directly from File Explorer they reports that file was not found and prompts for find correct path.
    When I start these applications from NTVDM console file is always found.

    Why Visual Basic 4.0?
    I want to build 16-bit applications for Windows, not only for DOS.
    I know that 4.0 requires DLLs and other, but they're commonly stored in installation folder except some.
    Also is known that folder stucture of 16-bit Windows is other than 32-bit since Windows 95 for which was VB4 developed - and Windows 95 is 32-bit so here's higher chance.
    VB4 like we know is first version with possible selection to build 16 or 32-bit applications.
    I don't know how it is with Visual Basic 5.0 (or named 97).

    VS6 has for installation VS6Installer - but it failed everytime I tried it, so installed VS6 manually.

    Is possible to do it by similar way for VB4?

    Thank you for your patience.
    Miro

  2. #2
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    Re: Visual Basic 4.0 and Windows 10

    VB4 was the only version that did both 16 and 32 bit options. VB5 and 6 are 32 bit VB3 and earlier is 16 bit. 4 was kind of a transition piece to migrate 16 bit code that used VBX files to 32 bit using OCX files.

    I barely used VB4, moved to 5 ASAP and never looked back.

  3. #3
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    Re: Visual Basic 4.0 and Windows 10

    Running an executable, and installing an IDE or two completely different things. I don't have a lot of hope for being able to install a 16-bit development environment on a 64-bit system trying to depend on NTVDMx64 to somehow make that possible. It may make running some 16-bit processes possible, if all the libraries the executable depend on are compiled in as NTVDMx64 is hacked to always use the 386 CPU emulation built into it, rather than use the V86 mode of the Intel CPU which is not supported when the CPU is being operated as a 64-bit processor.

    This makes NTVDMx64 slower than other Virtual Machine implementations, and also limits the type of 16-bit executables that will actually manage to run with it.

    I don't know. If you really want to take a stroll down memory lane and develop 16-bit applications, I would think, at least for the development environment, you would need to have a virtual, older windows based environment to develop in. Even then, I wouldn't think the resulting 16-bit executable built from VB4 or earlier would work with NTVDMx64 as the executable would depend on older Windows provided dlls that aren't available outside the virtual development environment. But perhaps since NTVDMx64 works by injecting code into a process, perhaps it can provide enough support in the process the code is injected, to provide an environment the 16-bit code is happy with.

    Using something like Oracle's VirtualBox to guest a DOS operating system, is a fairly small footprint virtual machine. I did that as a quick test some time last year I believe. I had file backups of my Windows 3.11 disks from years ago and that installed in that DOS emulation fine. I then used some file backups of my VB3 disks that I had hanging around to install on the DOS virtual machine, while running Windows 3.11 of course, and that went fine. I could then load and run some of my old VB3 programs in the VB3 IDE for a trip down memory lane.

    So, I still have that virtual machine sitting on my machine if I wanted to revisit some old stuff, but in general I don't. Don't remember the last time I ran it.
    Last edited by passel; Jun 10th, 2018 at 09:53 PM.

  4. #4

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    Re: Visual Basic 4.0 and Windows 10

    Yes, I'm using virtual Machines too, in all - I don't want to have OS full of programs used sometimes only, not frequently. These apps I'm installing into VM.
    But development IDEs and tools are on real machine primary.

    So, no way with VB4... ok. And Visual Studio 97 (5.0)? It was mentioned in VS6Installer...

    Miro

  5. #5
    gibra
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    Re: Visual Basic 4.0 and Windows 10

    Quote Originally Posted by MIRKOSOFT View Post
    VS6 has for installation VS6Installer - but it failed everytime I tried it, so installed VS6 manually.
    You probably did something wrong.
    VS6Installer 5 (the latest version) worked perfectly for me. I tested it again today, as Windows has been updated again.

    As a ROOT folder I used the old 'prepared' folders with an old version of VS6Installer and I installed Visual Basic 6.0 + MSDN Library + Service Pack 6.
    As shown in the image below:


  6. #6

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    Re: Visual Basic 4.0 and Windows 10

    I did all steps in documentation and following it. Source files were prepared and when I tried to install VS6EE failed, then MSDN - failed, SP6 - failed.
    So, I did it manually and no problem found.

    Miro

  7. #7
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    Re: Visual Basic 4.0 and Windows 10

    Why I'm talking that file was found: when I start some applications directly from File Explorer they reports that file was not found and prompts for find correct path.
    When I start these applications from NTVDM console file is always found.
    It sounds like NTVDM is setting some special path(s) so that files can be found which is not set as standard - and so can't be found when started from File Explorer. You may need to set additional paths in Environment Variables.
    All advice is offered in good faith only. You are ultimately responsible for the effects of your programs and the integrity of the machines they run on. Anything I post, code snippets, advice, etc is licensed as Public Domain https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

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