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Thread: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

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    Thumbs up Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    I am new to this site and in my retirement I want to learn to use this environment (VB6 or Visual Studio) to communicate through PC ports (serial, parallel etc). I started with VB6 enterprise downloaded but now I believe I want to obtain Visual Studio 6 Pro or a legal copy of VB6 Pro to use on an XP operating system. I have both XP and win 7 systems and thought it might be better to start by learning parallel communications under XP. I eventually want to be able to communicate through usb ports. I have also downloaded Visual Studio 2013 and have learned a little about .NET. Can anyone give me any advise on how to go about my self education. Like do you think I should start by learning .NET or is it a good idea to learn by starting with the older Visual Basic 6 or Visual Studio?

    thanks for any input

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    People will disagree, but if you are this new to it then it may not be worth your time to invest further in VB6.

    Legit copies are hard to come by these days, and many of those are pretty costly.

    Good tutorial and self-training materials are just as hard to find, and as a result a lot of VB6 code being written by hobbyists now is more like QBasic than Visual Basic. We see this most painfully in attempts at communication programs using serial ports or TCP/IP, which often end up as a mess of infinite loops packed with Sleep() and DoEvents() calls that "sort of kind of" work sometimes and lose data or hang willy-nilly.

    Once you turn your back on VB there is nothing to bind you to VB.Net or C# or other .Net languages. Those might be decent enough choices, but you could just as easily move to Java or a VB-like Basic dialect that compiles to JVM bytecode such as B4J. Then you get portability to other OSs with very little friction.


    Stop using XP ASAP. It is dead, dead, dead and unsafe to use. Windows 7 is now very near the end of its extended lifetime and presents a number of development issues making it a poor choice. It will be as dead as XP and Vista in less than 2 years.

    Soon Visual Studio .Net releases won't even install on Windows 7 if past experience is any indication. I'm not sure recent releases will install on XP at all.


    Parallel port operations usually require some sort of 3rd Party driver and interface DLL on an NT-based system, Windows tends to grab these as printer ports. DOS-based Win9x is long gone.

    I'm not sure what you mean about "USB ports" because USB is not much like legacy serial and parallel ports at all. It is a peripheral bus like ISA, PCI, etc. You don't communicate with "USB ports" but with "USB-connected" devices. These can appear as high-level common devices, proprietary devices with their own drivers, or in some cases you can read/write using raw protocols at a low level.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    Stop using XP ASAP. It is dead, dead, dead and unsafe to use.


    It's only unsafe to use... if it's connected to the Internet.

    I have 4 dedicated XP SP2 systems on LAN with NO Internet Connection.
    They have been running for years & years, and will probably run for many more to come, perfectly.


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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    don't listen to dilettante, he is a windows 10 lobbyist.
    windows xp + vb6 is a great choice. vb6 is easy to learn, theres millions of examples and is still going strong.
    vb6 > .net, theres no choice here.
    if not vb6, i would try with something similar, theres languages that try to mimic vb6, i would just try a vb6 alternatives google search.
    but if you already started with vb6, well, continue.
    i mean, serial/com ports is very old and of course vb6 can deal with it!

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Quote Originally Posted by baka View Post
    don't listen to dilettante, he is a windows 10 lobbyist.
    windows xp + vb6 is a great choice. vb6 is easy to learn, theres millions of examples and is still going strong.
    vb6 > .net, theres no choice here.
    if not vb6, i would try with something similar, theres languages that try to mimic vb6, i would just try a vb6 alternatives google search.
    but if you already started with vb6, well, continue.
    i mean, serial/com ports is very old and of course vb6 can deal with it!
    I'll actually second all of that. You can pick up legit copies of VB6 easily on eBay. They tend to run about $200, or a bit less if you shop. Either Visual Basic 6 or Visual Studio 6 will do for you, and it really doesn't matter whether you get some Pro version or possibly an Academic version. The only thing you don't want to get is a "Learning Edition". The full editions have everything the Learning editions have. These Learning editions were just originally cheaper but they didn't have the ability to create a compiled executable (i.e., you could only execute your program from within the IDE [integrated development environment]). Also, you probably don't want an Upgrade, unless you have an even older copy of VB lying around. The Upgrades will require that you "Validate" with an older VB copy, which can be a pain and always requires that you have a CD-Drive. The full (non-Upgrade) versions can be copied from the CD and installed from a USB drive or just off your hard drive.

    As far as learning, it seems that you already have some fundamentals down. If I were starting from scratch, I'd just let people help me out within these forums. There are tons of great people here who completely enjoy answering questions of all levels (absolute beginner to very advanced questions). Just as an FYI, we occasionally do bicker among ourselves. However, all in all, it's an exceedingly sharp group of programmers, who are usually quite gracious about answering questions. I suppose the one thing that occasionally grates on all of us is when we give someone all the information they need to accomplish some task, and then they come back with something like, "will you just do it for me?" We're not here to actually write your completed applications for you, but (and I think I can speak for the vast majority of us), we delight in helping you to learn how to do it yourself.

    Doug, it's always exciting to have a new participant in the forums. You've obviously been around for a little more than a year, but have finally decided to participate. So ... welcome.

    All The Best,
    Elroy
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    I bought a learning edition of VB6 pro in College.
    It could do everything VB6 Pro could (including compiling to EXE), it just didn't have the license needed to sell your programs.

    @Elroy is probably thinking of the VB5 Control Creation Editions.

    or my memory is going. this is a good 20 years ago now we're talking.
    Last edited by DEXWERX; Mar 19th, 2018 at 01:55 PM.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    If somebody doesn't already have much invested in VB6 (or perhaps hopes to get a job supporting existing code) then I would think they are in a wonderful position to look at alternatives.

    Why not?

    Considering the state of VB6 at this late date I'm sure why it should be anyone's first choice.


    Seems like I can't win. Half of the time I am a Microsoft hater. Half of the time I am a Microsoft shill. Half of the time I am a VB6 bigot. Half of the time I am a VB6 naysayer.

    That's four "halfs."

    Could it be that the world is a far more nuanced place than some people want it to be?

  8. #8
    PowerPoster Elroy's Avatar
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Well dilettante, I do think you're trying to give heart-felt advice to Doug53, with very little hidden agenda.

    I suppose we all just have our own opinions.

    What I saw in the OP was, "in my retirement" and "want to learn to use this environment (VB6...". I suppose, I'm thinking that all of this is more of a hobby rather than a new career for Doug. And personally, I think VB6 (with its strong type-casting abilities, tight IDE integration, zippy execution, and excellent debug abilities) is an excellent language, especially for a hobbyist (but even possibly for someone even more serious). It's still (basically) the language used in the Microsoft Office VBA, and we all know it works just fine on Windows 10. The only "true" downside I see is that it can't create 64-bit executables.

    And you're the one who's always saying that VB6 is like Flash-Gordon with .NET being the Pillsbury-Dough-Boy. And I agree.

    Doug, I would encourage you to procure a legal copy of it though. What you need to be legal is a jewel-case with a legit yellow CD-Key tag on it. It's also nice to have the MSDN disks so you can get your F1 key to work for language help, but updated and corrected versions of all of it are online.

    If I were looking for another copy, I'd be looking for something like the following on eBay:

    Name:  vb6.png
Views: 1863
Size:  164.3 KB

    There are a few different versions, but, for my money, I'd make sure it didn't say "Learning" or "Upgrade". Pro, Standard, Academic, Basic vs Studio, none of those difference really matter if it's truly the VB6 IDE in which you're interested.

    When I'm interested, I tend to search eBay for "Visual Basic 6" (in quotes), and I filter for between $100 and $400, so as to get rid of most of the books on VB6.

    You'll need to get the Service Pack #6 (SP6) for it, but that's available from Microsoft or several other places (for free).

    Best Of Luck,
    Elroy
    Any software I post in these forums written by me is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, and permission is hereby granted, free of charge and without restriction, to any person obtaining a copy. To all, peace and happiness.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Actually I think it would be great if Microsoft would sell a VB6 SP6 Pro (or Enterprise) with an updated installer that runs normally on UAC systems including the October 2001 MSDN Library stuff all on one DVD. They could also toss in a folder with their library of samples, add-ons, etc.

    Even priced around $200 it would be a big seller. Drop that to $100 and they'd run out of their first run. Or sell it as a downloadable ISO for $50 or so...

    ... or just bundle it as a preinstalled part of new Windows 10 releases!


    But yeah, that'd be nuts. Makes too much sense I guess. Ok, maybe just to me.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    or, similar to gog.com, let another company make a nice package online/offline with all the candy you can wish, latest patch/update/fixes and a installer that works in all versions of windows. im sure people would buy it plenty.

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    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    I read the original post more the way Dil read it than the way others read it. If the OP is interested in programming, I'd like to hear why they settled on VB6. They may have some very good reasons, but they also may not. If they have prior experience with VB6, then VB6 may well be the best choice. If they have just read somewhere about VB6, then it could be they read something from 98 (anybody around retirement age won't think that was quite so long ago). I'd want to know more about what they want before I'd say one is better than another.

    This part of the forum consists largely of people who have stuck with Vb6, which is a fairly effective filter. For somebody who didn't have a dog in the fight, I'd say that any .NET language is a better choice simply because you can get the Visual Studio Community Edition for a superior price ($0.00), and then use it for a variety of languages covering a variety of platforms.

    As for which language to choose, I'd certainly argue against JavaScript for anybody starting out, cause why bother with THOSE headaches? However, if you don't have any prior history with any language, the choice between C# and VB.NET doesn't have much to go by. There are excellent tutorials and references out there, and far more resources for those languages (especially C#, unfortunately, but it barely matters) than for pretty much any other language in current use. If you have a background in any language in the C family, then C# would be more familiar. If you have no background with any language, then VB.NET would likely be a bit more accessible. But without knowing more from the OP, that's about all I could say.
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    I wonder if part of VB.Net's problem for beginners might stem from obsolete overcompensation?

    When it was new fans were sort of desperate to emphasize many of the things that are different. Don't get me started on the "drunk on OOP" mentality.


    VB6 is plenty "OOP" enough for serious purposes. A lot of people here seem to have barely scratched the surface of it and even after decades of use are still "discovering" simple feature after simple feature.

    VB.Net could be introduced the same way, i.e. just leaving out features that aren't mandatory in order to create a program. Sure, this is the "wrong way" to learn the language but I suspect that's a lot of what gives VB6 an unearned reputation as an "easy" programming language?

    If people choose to learn by copy/paste and trial and error rather than reading the manuals, course materials, or taking actual classes then why throw roadblocks in their way? They can always "grow" painfully later, unlearning bad habits and poor practices as they go.

    The VS.Net IDE doesn't help much, defaulting to a "747 cockpit mode" and doing painful things like downloading unwanted resources from the Internet, etc. Why not have a "starter mode" with a lot of the gingerbread hidden or turned off? Note: I haven't even run one in a bit over 4 years now so I can't say whether recent versions address that problem.


    So to encourage adoption by hobbyists perhaps setting aside the low self-esteem and paring back intro materials to essentials might help. Telling a kid he needs to learn about overloading, inheritance, lambdas, LINQ, MVVM, WPF, and all of the other Christmas Tree Ornaments before writing "Hello World" is sort of silly.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    i have been around a while and im self learned. started with amos in amiga 500 and later quick basic and turbo pascal in dos.
    in school i was forced to use Ada, and I passed the first year without even opening the book, i just messed around and made it work.
    have tried numerous different languages, sure im not an expert, i do mistakes, im still learning, but thats how i want it, to do it my way, trial and error. my goal is not to be the best, but to create projects i like, maybe not best optimized, maybe theres better programming languages, but its not important.

    visual basic 6 is the most intuitive language i have tried, everything else take more effort, and sometimes it require you to read books to understand and thats when the language gets into my trash can. sure, theres a lot of languages out there promising a lot, but often fail, as theres no source code to download that i can analyze and learn, the way i do it. im not interested in anything else. sure i got a few books when i bought visual basic "long time ago", did i open them? no. why? because i enjoy the trial and error and to figure it out on my own. im not a perfectionist.

    we are not talking about getting a job as a programmer, but as a tool that is enjoyable, easy to learn, that makes sense, that is fun to use and theres tons of source code and mostly easy to understand.

    i would recommend vb6 to anyone, if they ask for something easy to make a program or two. because im sure, if he want to be a professional he don't care about my opinion, he knows the answer himself.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Interesting that all High School students in Saudi Arabia (450,000 each year) learn to program using NSBasic.
    NSBasic is similar to VB6 and has a VB6-like IDE. The BASIC and JavaScript languages are supported, with BASIC transpiling to JavaScript.


    https://www.nsbasic.com/app/pr/pr.141209a.htm

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    I wonder if part of VB.Net's problem for beginners might stem from obsolete overcompensation?

    When it was new fans were sort of desperate to emphasize many of the things that are different. Don't get me started on the "drunk on OOP" mentality.


    VB6 is plenty "OOP" enough for serious purposes. A lot of people here seem to have barely scratched the surface of it and even after decades of use are still "discovering" simple feature after simple feature.

    VB.Net could be introduced the same way, i.e. just leaving out features that aren't mandatory in order to create a program. Sure, this is the "wrong way" to learn the language but I suspect that's a lot of what gives VB6 an unearned reputation as an "easy" programming language?

    If people choose to learn by copy/paste and trial and error rather than reading the manuals, course materials, or taking actual classes then why throw roadblocks in their way? They can always "grow" painfully later, unlearning bad habits and poor practices as they go.

    The VS.Net IDE doesn't help much, defaulting to a "747 cockpit mode" and doing painful things like downloading unwanted resources from the Internet, etc. Why not have a "starter mode" with a lot of the gingerbread hidden or turned off? Note: I haven't even run one in a bit over 4 years now so I can't say whether recent versions address that problem.


    So to encourage adoption by hobbyists perhaps setting aside the low self-esteem and paring back intro materials to essentials might help. Telling a kid he needs to learn about overloading, inheritance, lambdas, LINQ, MVVM, WPF, and all of the other Christmas Tree Ornaments before writing "Hello World" is sort of silly.
    I agree with every piece of that except for the bit about "obsolete overcompensation". Overcompensation NEVER goes out of style. Just look at .....well, nevermind.

    Otherwise, I completely agree, especially with the final paragraph. And in my opinion, VS has gotten both better and worse in that regard...but mostly worse. There are features to the IDE that I feel are really useful and intuitive, but the proliferation of languages and technologies incorporated into VS can make it much harder to just find a simple Windows Desktop Application template and start out. The fact that it doesn't come as one giant blob anymore, but is different components that download separately, doesn't really help with that. It probably makes it worse when starting out. For that reason, while I use VS2017 for lots of things because of the useful IDE features, I also still use VS2010, which I'd still say was the most beautiful version of VS ever released (yes, even including those early ones where it wasn't so tied together).

    It's hard for somebody who is starting out to realize that, despite the fact that there are hundreds of options, they really only need one or two. You can do the same thing a dozen different ways, but you don't need to know most of them.
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    That's what I thought. Thanks!

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    Telling a kid he needs to learn about overloading, inheritance, lambdas, LINQ, MVVM, WPF, and all of the other Christmas Tree Ornaments before writing "Hello World" is sort of silly.
    Yes it is, which probably explains why it doesn't happen.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    A lot of people here seem to have barely scratched the surface of it and even after decades of use are still "discovering" simple feature after simple feature.
    You just described me perfectly. I'm sure glad I'm not alone there!

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Quote Originally Posted by Doug53 View Post
    That's what I thought. Thanks!
    That's what you thought???? What was it? That we were all over the board on this one?
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    That's what you thought???? What was it? That we were all over the board on this one?
    haha, I had the exact same thought, but just didn't say it. And we certainly were all over the board on this one.

    And truth be told, there were two overall questions in the OP:

    1) Should I keep using VB6 or consider something else?

    2) If I'm using VB6, should I just continue using my pirated copy or should I go ahead and "get legal"?

    For the most part, I think we answered question #1. But we all sort of intermingled it with question #2 as well. Regarding an answer to question #2, Doug53, I suppose it mostly comes down to how well you want to sleep at night. I seriously doubt that anyone is going to come after you for using an illegal copy of a 20+ year old development tool that Microsoft quit selling quite a few years ago. However, just by saying that, I know I'm bordering into the hinterlands of the TOS of these very forums. Therefore, how often do you want to tell the lie about where your VB6 IDE came from?

    All The Best,
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    I think that sums it up pretty well. VB6 can still be purchased, but only by one of two sources that I know of:

    1) Ebay, or the like.
    2) An MSDN subscription....which would cost you a pretty fair amount, but gives you a whole lot of other things you likely don't care about.

    That's actually the biggest drawback to VB6. It's a good language, and always has been. You can still use it on modern operating systems, and should be able to for several more years to come (perhaps until MS goes under, though there is no guarantee). However, you can get a legal copy of VS for free, while a legal copy of VB6 is never free, rarely cheap, and a bit difficult to find.
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Thanks Elroy. I have just Bit on Visual Studio 6 on Ebay.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Doug, fantastic to hear. We've got another newbie we can pick on.

    But hey, in all seriousness, once you get it, don't be scarce on these forums. We love falling all over ourselves to see who can come up with the best, worst, shortest, longest, easiest, and most-involved answers to simple questions. And we'll be sure to give you at least five totally opposing answers to everything you ask. But hopefully, it'll always be fun.

    For the most part, we won't steer you wrong.

    You Take Care,
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Hopefully you found a copy that comes with the October 2001 MSDN CDS. That was the last edition that provided online Help to the VB6 IDE and it has the newest info and fixes.

    If you don't get any MSDN Library CDs at all... then your copy isn't legal. Legal transfer of license requires that all of the original materials in the package be turned over to you. The EULA is very clear about this. Never reading docs and programming by copy/paste and trail and error is no excuse for accepting a copy of VB6/VS6 without the MSDN CDs.

    A lot of the stuff on eBay seems marginal in this regard. Some may just be outright illegal copies. If they are on writable CD media it is a dead giveaway.

    In the end we are back to the original problem: legit copies are hard to come by now and they usually are not cheap.

  25. #25
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    If they are on writable CD media it is a dead giveaway.
    That's certainly true. However, I've always felt that if you got the embossed CD and Jewel Case with the Yellow CD-Key tag, that you'd be good to go.

    However, I agree that the MSDN CDs are rather important.

    I just searched for "visual basic 6.0 professional" (no quotes though) and saw several that I'd be comfortable buying. There's one for $165.00 that still has the box and looks fine. There's another for $201.71 that's still in the unbroken cellophane. Both are almost certain to have the MDSN CDs, but that's just me looking on eBay.

    I often wonder how many of these things Microsoft actually sold/distributed.

    Good Luck,
    Elroy
    Any software I post in these forums written by me is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, and permission is hereby granted, free of charge and without restriction, to any person obtaining a copy. To all, peace and happiness.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Thanks to all you guys for great learning responses!!!!!!!!!!!

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Hey how many CDs was the October 2001 MSDN that came with VB/VS? If it's 3 then the full thing is available legally on archive.org. Their actual archive project, uploaded by them, not some website mirror.
    https://archive.org/details/MSDN_Lib...er_2001_Disc_1

  28. #28
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    I'm not sure that's a legal archive. "Sketch the Cow" doesn't sound like Microsoft to me.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    They're a legitimate company not a pirate operation.. if it wasn't legal I'm sure sometime over the years it's been there along with other ancient MSDN CDs there would have been a takedown. You can't get the actual VB/VS software there either. I didn't mean MS uploaded it I meant it was being publicly hosted by a major, above-board, archiving project.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Yeah right, like GitHub is "legit."

    GitHub raises EU Article 13 copyright concerns

    Developer nightmare: EU wants to filter all code uploaded to the web

    Point being that these companies do not verify that posted content does not violate copyright, license terms, or intellectual property rights in general. Just because something can be downloaded from such a site does not mean you are not a pirate. At all. Period.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    I can see I started a war and your all very peculiar. Ill take all the input I can get because I am not a programmer. Again thanks all. I have bought Visual Studio 6 Pro off EBAY. I know it old and out of date. I plan on using it to learn how to write dll files and use them with VB for home us. Not on the internet but I do want to progress beyond that. Because I'm old I don't believe I will ever get to you guys level. I am a power person and just want to learn what I can utilize directly.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Hi Doug,
    If you get into subclassing, feel free to use my subclassing dll. It will save a lot of heart ache and crashes.
    Welcome to the forums. I am also a power person.

  33. #33
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Quote Originally Posted by Doug53 View Post
    I can see I started a war and your all very peculiar.
    NOW you're getting it (especially that last part)!!
    My usual boring signature: Nothing

  34. #34

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    thanks DEXWERX

  35. #35
    PowerPoster Elroy's Avatar
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Quote Originally Posted by Doug53 View Post
    I can see I started a war and your all very peculiar.
    Yep, I've got to second that one. And again, especially the second part. Regarding the war, it was going on long before you showed up. I think we're all just a bunch of codgers who love digging our fingers into each other's sides. But hey, don't let us "get" to you. There's truly a tremendous amount of talent around this place. And, if you thicken up your skin, it can be fun.

    And hey, when your package comes in, take a look at my thread on installing the VB6 IDE on Windows 10. Actually, a great deal still applies even if you're on an older Windows version.

    Best Of Luck, and hope to see you around,
    Elroy
    Any software I post in these forums written by me is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, and permission is hereby granted, free of charge and without restriction, to any person obtaining a copy. To all, peace and happiness.

  36. #36
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Doug53 if you think that's bad, previously we argued about whether purchasing a legitimate copy from eBay was legal, because it might violate a provision of the EULA regarding resales. Went all into caselaw on EULA enforcement and everything. Don't worry about it, wouldn't be the internet without arguing over petty stuff

    And dilettante, I'm well aware of that, my argument was that an above-board site that self-polices piracy and responds to all takedown notices, combined with a company that aggressively enforces its IP, and the fact it's been there for years as one of the very first Google results for 'msdn library cd', weighs in favor of presuming that archiving this particular 17 year old piece of work, all of its information being freely available on MS's website anyway, is not piracy.

  37. #37

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    thanks for the information & response, Dilettante.

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Gotcha, Elroy.

  39. #39

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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Elroy,
    I bought Visual Studio 6 Pro on Ebay ($150). I believe I have fully installed it except for the MSDN, Windows NT (SP#4), and Visual J++6. I'm thinking because I have XP I should not try to install the Win NT service pack 4???! Or is this something else? Do I need those other items?
    Also when I start Visual C++IDE and select File - New. I have no selection for Win32 Dynamic-Link Library. Can you enlighten me?

  40. #40
    PowerPoster Elroy's Avatar
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    Re: Buying or downloading VB6 or Visual Studio Pro 6

    Hi Doug,

    I do have Visual Studio 6, but I've never used that particular version of Visual C++ nor Visual J++. So, I'm a bit out of my element on those questions.

    Now, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the Win NT service pack either. However, Windows XP is based on NT technology. Just as a bit of a history review, Microsoft had two operating system "technologies" for a while, the original Windows 3.1/95/98/ME technology, and also the Windows NT technology (NT/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10). For a while, they tried to sell-and-maintain both. However, they soon realized that this was untenable, and they merged everything into the NT fork.

    And, as far as I know, so long as the CDs are okay, everything you have should install just fine on your XP system.

    Also, I believe any/all of the Visual Studio 6 IDE stuff will install just fine from files copied from the CD. As such, if I were you, I'd immediately copy my CDs onto my hard disk.

    Let us know how it's going.

    Best Of Luck,
    Elroy
    Any software I post in these forums written by me is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, and permission is hereby granted, free of charge and without restriction, to any person obtaining a copy. To all, peace and happiness.

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