Is this worth the time and even possible? 3rd party VB6 runtime?

So earlier today I got the idea of attempting to reverse engineer the "MSVBVM60.DLL" VB6 runtime and recreate the runtime. Basically, create a 3rd party custom runtime for VB6 applications. My reasoning behind this would be to allow the community to ultimately determine the fate of VB6. If we had total control over the runtime, we could potentially allow VB6 applications to run on future versions of Windows beyond the support of Windows 7.

Theoretically, if one was to create a DLL that exported all the same functions (about 600) as the vb6 runtime and replicated its functionality, we could run VB6 exe's without the standard runtime dll. And with the advancements in compilation technology, we could possibly see a huge performance increase in the final product.

The EXE's produced by VB6 are really no different than any other Windows PE, they just import a butt load of functions and routines from the runtime.

Thoughts?

Is this idea pointless?

Pretty much been done, there are pirated versions of VB6 runtimes out there. And yes, reverse engineering the DLL is pirating it. As far as your reasoning, I don't necessarily understand or agree. VB will die when Microsoft's future O/S will no longer let it run. Whether a legit copy of it exists or not, it won't matter, will it? It won't run or won't allow its ocx/tlbs to be registered.

Huge performance increase? That comes with loss of security. One of VBs strengths is its performance weakness... It does a lot of grunt work to ensure you don't crash and system resources are restored when they go out of scope and this means overhead. Advanced programmers can get VB to match or come very near to some of the fastest routines out there. This can be achieved via really good coding, APIs, thunks and other techniques. Additionally, the speed of today's processors and amount of memory installed in pcs can even mask poor/inefficient coding to make it appear faster than it really is which really allows good/efficient coding to appear lightning fast.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

By the time Windows won't run existing VB6 programs Windows will have changed a lot. Even now you have to move to a 64-bit version of Windows before most old DOS and Win3.x programs won't run.

I expect VB6 to still be supported in the next Windows as much as it is in Win7-64, i.e. a little clunky but still possible. After that I'd like to think most of us will have moved on.

Windows 7 Pro Lifecycle

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Originally Posted by dilettante

I expect VB6 to still be supported in the next Windows as much as it is in Win7-64, i.e. a little clunky but still possible. [/URL]

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Agreed. Probably won't be able to use some of the latest O/S DLLs or special effects, but at the minimum, continue using stuff from Win7 on down. For example, without Microsoft providing the flat version of GDI+, we'd have difficulty using GDI+. For us VBers, that may mean we'd have to become good TLB writers to possibly use future version O/S fluff/eye-candy. Moving on is inevitable especially if you are young. Us old-timers that are about 1/2 century old may hang on longer ;)

With the number of VB legacy apps being used by the corporate world, I don’t see Microsoft not supporting VB6 apps for quite a while.

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Originally Posted by MarkT

With the number of VB legacy apps being used by the corporate world, I don’t see Microsoft not supporting VB6 apps for quite a while.

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You may be forgetting that this is the main reason for XP Mode virtualization in Windows 7. It was not intended for home users and is not supported in Home editions of Windows 7 at all.

Windows 7 editions

Microsoft is getting weary of the cost and effort of writing appcompat into each new version of Windows. This is why I expect the next version of Windows to break most VB6 applications that have not been written and deployed following the requirements for a Vista (Win7, etc.) -aware program. Such programs probably won't run well or at all except in XP Mode down the line.

How long we have XP Mode is another question. Since it requires XP, that means Microsoft will have to at least continue making security fixes for XP. That's another expense I'm sure they won't tolerate forever.


The guys who will really get burned are those who have VB6 mid-tier and server software. XP Mode can't help them at all. They will have the option of running Server 2003 or Server 2008, or at least run one of them as a VM.

After Server 2008 I believe there are no more 32-bit Windows Server versions planned. I'm not sure WOW64 is planned for those new Server OSs, but it probably won't be installed by default.