is it legal to use vb6 enterprise free in 2021 ?

[graysuit]

vb6 enterprise is paid. Without it, you can't generate executable.
But if you try to see, its updated version visual studio is free for organization no more than 5 members and also for NON-profits.

Does it make sense to use vb6 enterprise free with duplicate serial key of anyone ?
Will I have problem in future for NOT paying a paid app ?

[dilettante]

If you want something free why not use one of the free VS editions with VB.Net?

[graysuit]

I used VB.Net for 2 years.
But it is:
- non-native (lacks performance)
- incompatible with old win versions
- easily decompiled via dnspy and reversed
- dependent on dotnet versions

vb6 still old, but better due to simplicity and features.
It's my past year experience. But may be wrong as well.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Use your ripped off version for the moment? Wait for TwinBasic/RADBasic to become viable alternatives.

[baka]

I dont understand fully what u mean.
if you have vb6 enterprise and u paid for it, u can use it. why not?

maybe u meant that vb6 is not free, and that u download in a pirate-site vb6 and u use stolen serial keys to register it?
well, this forum doesnt allow this kind of discussions, since its not legal and could shut down the site.

[DataMiser]

The short answer is no it is not legal. And yes you could potentially run into an issue if you are using a pirated copy, more so if you are selling software created with it.
They did start offering later versions for free and still do but never VB6 nor any of the previous versions.

[xiaoyao]

Microsoft will send you a lawyer letter

[graysuit]

Actually, I can't afford to pay at start where I have NO earnings.
Visual Studio understand this problem, so that's why it contain license that, if your earning are larger than xxx and org is more than 5 folks then you will pay.

But really I WON'T going to use pirated vb6 to code and sell softwares.

What's MS future plans ?
Do they accept vb6 payment ?
or they closed its support and don't accepting payment ?

[xiaoyao]

In India, in Africa, in many places, they don't have batteries.They have power cuts for many hours every day.

So they don't develop software. Some people use piracy, it is also a happy thing.

[vbrad]

Firstly I bought my copy of VB6 (professional) on ebay in about 2002 or thereabouts, still in its shrink wrap packaging.

When Microsoft discontinued Classic VB they devalued many, many people's skills and projects.
Out of fear or necessity many companies rewrote software.
That was Microsoft's entitlement you might say but I think that if they did not want it any more then for
the sake of their customers they should have either sold it on or open-sourced it.
That would have been the moral thing to do.
As far as I know even Cobol still gets upgrades but the most popular language of all was just killed stone dead.

Pirating vb might be legally wrong but I don't think it's morally wrong, it's been trashed.
Not open-sourcing or selling VB to someone else was not legally wrong but it was morally wrong.

I'm not recommending it but I don't think Microsoft will ever pursue anyone for pirating vb6.
They don't want to open that can of worms and going after a little guy would be just stupid
It could end up like the McLibel case!

In June 1995 McDonald's offered to settle the case (which "was coming up to its [tenth] anniversary in court") by donating a large sum of money to a charity chosen by the two. They further specified they would drop the case if Steel and Morris agreed to "stop criticising McDonald's". Steel and Morris secretly recorded the meeting, in which McDonald's said the pair could criticise McDonald's privately to friends but must cease talking to the media or distributing leaflets. Steel and Morris wrote a letter in response saying they would agree to the terms if McDonald's ceased advertising its products and instead only recommended the restaurant privately to friends

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLibel_case

[wwolf]

What's MS future plans ?
Do they accept vb6 payment ?
or they closed its support and don't accepting payment ?

You can buy VB6 indirectly from Microsoft. Buy a MSDN subscription, VB6-Enterprise is included.

W. Wolf

[xiaoyao]

You can buy VB6 indirectly from Microsoft. Buy a MSDN subscription, VB6-Enterprise is included.

W. Wolf

I Don't know how much it costs. Is it permanent after purchase?
vb.net 2008,2010Maybe you don't want to own the software at all, and you have to keep paying for new versions every year for five or ten years.

For ordinary individual developers, they may develop some small commercial works, just like installing a pirated system to write some articles and earn a small fee.

If use pilfer edition VB6, developed enter sale put or the simplest business card to manage a tool. What happens Microsoft you sell a few hundred yuan?

[dilettante]

Perhaps just a misstatement:

They did start offering later versions for free and still do but never VB6 nor any of the previous versions.

This isn't accurate, and is the source of much confusion. There never were any "later" versions of VB.

VB.Net is an entirely different and unrelated product line that superficially resembles VB. It was intentionally misnamed to fool people. Judge it on its own merits, but it isn't VB at all.

[DataMiser]

MSDN Pro subscription last I purchased was around $1000 for a year. It includes many developers tools and OS versions for testing. Last I checked they had pretty much every version of VB from 3 to 2017 and most of the OS from Dos to Windows 10.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I recently bought VB6 pro from ebay, a sealed and original packet including discs and licence for £60. I realised that I had lost my old discs and their box in a house move, probably more than a decade ago - it has been nagging at me ever since so I bought a new box and discs just to assuage my guilt... I'm not really guilty of anything as I really did buy VB6 years ago (and VBDOS before it) but guilt knows no bounds...

If MS sold their old products at reasonable prices (1,000 for a yearly subscription is not reasonable for most of us) then I would have repurchased it years ago from them. MS, however make it very difficult to send them money directly. If you want a copy of an o/s that you'd like to use, perhaps XP or Win 7, they won't sell it, if you want a copy of VB6 that you'd like to use they won't sell it.

I would still like to purchase a XP licence to this day. I have regular use for XP and I'd like to send MS some cash.

They'll only sell you the o/s and products that you are compelled to use. A funny way of doing business for sure.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Oh, and MS have NO future plans for VB6 and I believe the plans for VB have just reached a stop too...

[graysuit]

$1000 ???
then I should better learn C instead of sticking to VB.

Only thing that was preventing me, was vb6 old styled features,
like performance, native, speed, file size, GUI builder...
Everything was great !

But MS don't accept vb6 payment, nor open source it, nor make it free, nor make it available to download.
They had greatly made us on the verge of chaos.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

VB6 has a future for the first time in years just NOT in the hands of MS.

The future for VB6 is in TwinBasic and RADBasic, VB6 compatible offerings, you know what to do now.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I used VB.Net for 2 years.
But it is:
- non-native (lacks performance)

That's not really true. I wrote a program that did extensive logic and math in both VB6 and VB.NET. There was no noticeable difference in performance. Most programs don't care, since most programs spend most of their time doing nothing while waiting for the keyboard monkey to do something. Furthermore, with .NET Core, and now .NET 5, some aspects of performance have increased, but considering that for a long running logic routine, I found no difference between VB6 and VB.NET, I suspect that the performance boost is only in some niche areas.

- incompatible with old win versions

That's true...ish, and becoming more so. Older versions of VS with older versions of the framework, will work on OS versions getting back to around Windows ME, and possibly earlier, but MS is clearly trying to discourage people from using anything pre-Win10, and that is reflected in the later versions of VS.

- easily decompiled via dnspy and reversed

It was the IL that was easily decompiled. With .NET CORE, which no longer uses IL, it would be considerably harder. However, I'm not sure how much it matters. There are two ways to steal software that are far easier than decompiling, and both are just as available for VB6 as they are for anything .NET. One you can get around via architectural changes which is probably easier in the .NET universe (but is flat out unavailable to some projects), while the other...you can't do anything about anyways. Personally, I feel this concern is a case of people fretting about the wrong thing.

- dependent on dotnet versions

This isn't exactly true, anymore, but is kind of true depending on some of the earlier criticisms you had. After all, VB6 is also dependent on a runtime, it's just that the runtime has been baked into Windows for so long that you can ignore it. The same is true on Windows 10, as the more recent frameworks are built into the OS. Some of the older frameworks are not, which I think is part of the MS strategy to try to push everybody to Win10, a point that is a matter for a different discussion. Still, I distribute software without the framework because anybody running Win10 will already have it, and all users of my software are running Win10 (it's a somewhat specialized area, not the general public).

Additionally, the point of .NET Core and so forth is to get rid of the framework entirely, and get rid of IL in favor of native code, which would remove three of your four objections....but would make the fourth one even worse.

However, what Dilettante said is correct: VB.NET shares part of a name with VB6, and that's all it really shares. There is some philosophical similarities when compared to languages in the C family of syntaxes, but the differences are sufficiently large that it's not a totally smooth transition. Still, the options for obtaining legal copies of VB6 have been listed: eBay, which should be a diminishing resource going forwards, and the terribly expensive subscription (which has changed names so many times that I'm not sure what it's currently called).

One other point is that VB6 was in active development from either 92 or 95 through 98 or 99. That's three to seven years, depending on whether or not you count VB1, 2, and 3 in the category as 4, 5, and 6. I never used a version prior to VB5, so I don't have an opinion on that, but some folks have said that the break between 3 and 4 was great enough that they shouldn't be lumped together. MS stopped work on the next version (VB6.5) sometime around 2000, and VB6 went out of support sometime around 2006. Meanwhile, VB.NET has been carried steadily forwards from 2002 through the present, foreseeable, future.

Ultimately, you have to decide what's right for you, but that language stopped development 23 years back, and won't continue. It will become increasingly difficult to find legal copies of the development environment, support, and resources. If you are nearing the end or your career, as I am, that might not matter much, since no software stands forever, or even for all that long. If you are closer to the start of your career, you have a much harder decision to make. It's awfully hard to say where computers are going. If Windows dies, then so does VB6, but .NET may not, as it is increasingly cross-platform with Core, Xamarin, and so forth. However, even cross-platform only includes "the platforms we currently recognize." As a person who wrote programs for PDA's, and watched that entire technology evaporate overnight, I wouldn't feel too confident that the future is certain.

[SamOscarBrown]

Well, when I become a centenarian, I'll go ahead and donate my legal copy of Visual Studio 6.0 (which, for you novices, includes VB6) to some young enthusiast on this site. A 'few' years from now!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: And you can have all my game programs for free I've developed with it! :-)

[dilettante]

AmigaBasic was written by Microsoft and released by Commodore to users by 1987, a full 4 years prior to VB 1.0 for Windows. Though the two look and operate in shockingly similar ways, I doubt there is much direct lineage between the two. But even the p-code values might well overlap a good deal. Why reinvent a wheel that had already been turning for a decade (Microsoft BASIC)?

So the two might be more related than VB and VB.Net are, but in the end none of it matters. Especially after so many years.

I'm sort of shocked that this much later in time people are still trying to learn VB6. The only good excuse might be to get a job maintaining existing in-house VB6 programs. VB6 had become "the Cobol of Windows" a long time ago.

My guess is that a lot of people start plinking away at VBA macros in MS Office on the job, and decide to award themselves the badge of "programmer." They immediately get frustrated when they struggle to learn that second programming language, no matter what it is. Then they run to VB6.

VB hardly exists today in any real sense outside of VBA, VBScript, and a little bit of VB.Net that lingers. Most of the programming world moved on long ago, and probably doesn't give any of them much thought. That's another reason why stunts to cobble up some KloneBasik are probably doomed. Nobody cares.

[DataMiser]

Perhaps just a misstatement:



This isn't accurate, and is the source of much confusion. There never were any "later" versions of VB.

VB.Net is an entirely different and unrelated product line that superficially resembles VB. It was intentionally misnamed to fool people. Judge it on its own merits, but it isn't VB at all.

It is not the same as VB5 and 6 for sure but it most definitely is VB. Visual Basic is what Microsoft named the tool that uses Basic syntax and a visual component and it is whatever they say it is. VB 7 8 9 10 and so are all versions of Visual Basic just as Visual Basic for Dos was back in the day. Completely different than VB6 but still VB, or I suppose you could say VB6 is not VB as it is so much different than VB Dos and the original VB for Windows. Both would run on 16 bit systems. VB5 and 6 and all later versions will not run at all on the 16 bit systems VB was originally designed for so how could they possibly be VB.

Of course time marches on and things change, that's just the way it is.

[dilettante]

Umm, not so much:

[graysuit]

Hi all guys, Thanks so much for participating and trying to help me.

Hi yereverluvinuncleber,
It will take years to be called alternative of vb6.
Twinbasic preview released. They say GUI will be constructed under 5-6months.
And other things would take a year. So obviously, it would become usable on 2022.06.
And radbasic isn't released yet. It will release on 2022.02


Hi Shaggy,
Your all words are correct. Just adding my 2 cents.
I'm using dotnet winforms over 3 years, and the thing which my users reported a lot was `slow startup`.
I do verify on my device as well. Actually when there a lot of controls, widgets etc, the same `InitializeComponent()` will take much time.
Whereas, vb6 don't show this behavior.
A simple program in both won't make difference. But if project is over 6 months, it will show.

and dependent on dotnet version means, that if I target xx framework then user would be forced to install xx framework.
Whereas vb6 depends on msvbvm6.dll, its enough, no installation needed, no upgrades or de-grades needed.

Hi dilettante,
I program under C#,VB.NET,java,python...
The reason to choose vb6 was:
- fast compiling speed
- simplicity
- low file size
...
I don't program in vb6 because of I'm non-programmer. lol

[yereverluvinuncleber]

This is becoming pointless, you have your answers, work with them.

[graysuit]

Hi yereverluvinuncleber,
sorry if you don't like the way,
I discuss, Not for trying to win or praise myself,
But for someone to correct my mistakes if exists.

sorry again.

[tubus]

....
VB hardly exists today in any real sense outside of VBA, VBScript, and a little bit of VB.Net that lingers. Most of the programming world moved on long ago, and probably doesn't give any of them much thought. That's another reason why stunts to cobble up some KloneBasik are probably doomed. Nobody cares.

This!
For the record: I *do* have a legal copy of VB6, but if I didn't have one, I wouldn't care!

Because: nobody cares!
I can't see the slightest reason for M$ to go after you. If anything, they can only loose by doing so.
Legal, illegal, whatever? De facto VB is in the Public Domain!

[xiaoyao]

hi all guys, thanks so much for participating and trying to help me.

Hi yereverluvinuncleber,
it will take years to be called alternative of vb6.
Twinbasic preview released. They say gui will be constructed under 5-6months.
And other things would take a year. So obviously, it would become usable on 2022.06.
And radbasic isn't released yet. It will release on 2022.02


hi shaggy,
your all words are correct. Just adding my 2 cents.
I'm using dotnet winforms over 3 years, and the thing which my users reported a lot was `slow startup`.
I do verify on my device as well. Actually when there a lot of controls, widgets etc, the same `initializecomponent()` will take much time.
Whereas, vb6 don't show this behavior.
A simple program in both won't make difference. But if project is over 6 months, it will show.

And dependent on dotnet version means, that if i target xx framework then user would be forced to install xx framework.
Whereas vb6 depends on msvbvm6.dll, its enough, no installation needed, no upgrades or de-grades needed.

Hi dilettante,
i program under c#,vb.net,java,python...
The reason to choose vb6 was:
- fast compiling speed
- simplicity
- low file size
...
I don't program in vb6 because of i'm non-programmer. Lol

it's funny

[graysuit]

nice to hear this, actually whole forum is funny.
And I do code for fun.

[dilettante]

I imagine Microsoft making a business decision every 6 months or so: "Should we keep supporting VB6 bug fixes, or should we just announce we'll pull support and flip the killbits in two years?"

To make the decision they need to evaluate the usage level. After all, many customers might still be relying on legit programs they wrote in VB6. Part of this might be the level of use reported by Windows 10 telemetry, part by downloads of their VB6-related files and patches.

But one factor might be "community assessment." This forum might be the last coherent remnant of the community.


So they pop in and find a ton of posts about scraping web sites without permission, hacking and hijacking other processes, and pirating VB6 itself. Tolerating piracy and black-hattery may be risking blowing it all to Hell.


Tick, tick, tick...

[baka]

they stopped supporting vb6 a long time ago. maybe you are talking about 32bit?
if native code would not work anymore it would mean a lot of other native code compiled exe would stop as well, meaning, c/c++ compiled 32bit exe as well.

when talking about vb6 will not work anymore, we are actually talking about 32bit not working anymore.
its nothing microsoft will try to shut down, instead they will just move on to 64bit and let it die out on its own.
like what happened with 16bit windows executables. they didnt try to kill it, it just became nonworking.

pirating? hackers pirates everything not just vb6. if microsoft would "care" about vb6 pirating only, they are completely stupid. theres a lot of other areas that pirating is doing more damage than vb6.
vb6 is small, almost non-existent right now, microsoft dont give a crap about that, theres tons of other fields they are focusing on.

[dilettante]

Support Statement for Visual Basic 6.0 on Windows has the current support status. However changes are made to it fairly often.

Note

The support policy below has been updated with Windows 10 version 20H2 support information.

Also see Killbit.


Whinge or dream all you want, but Microsoft could easily prevent VB6 programs from running any more. The VB6 runtime has been an OS-managed resource for a very long time.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

God save REACTOS! God speed REACTOS!

https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....PIC-WIN-thread

My programs running on it.

[DataMiser]

Umm, not so much:

Sorry but yes Visual Basic is a Microsoft product that combines a visual aspect with a code editor which uses a BASIC syntax. It has evolved much over the years but it is still Visual Basic just as much as any other version has been.

Many people tend to disagree and will say VB6 is VB and later versions are not. They are simply wrong. It doesn't matter if they don't like the direction VB took with version 7. It doesn't matter that they choose to stay with VB6. VB continued well beyond version 6.

It is kind of like saying that Windows ME was the last version of Windows and refusing to admit that Windows evolved over the next 20 years.

[dilettante]

It is unrelated in any real way aside from appropriating the name.

There is no "chicken" in that biscuit.

[xiaoyao]

I tried to install WIN98, WINDOWS ME system in a virtual machine, and it took a few hours to install it. When it runs, the network inside is not normal, and the IE browser is too old to run as a test system at all. Win2003, winxp can at least run perfectly.
Sometimes it is more convenient to install a WEB server in the virtual machine, the data is safe, and it does not affect the operation of the host. The old version of the system, network card, graphics card and other drivers are also difficult to install.

The programming IDE is the same, if Microsoft wants to use the means, and deliberately make the new version unable to run VB6, it is very easy to be incompatible with MSVBVM60.DLL, but he did not do so.

[xiaoyao]

If Microsoft prohibits VB6 from running on new systems such as WIN10, maybe install a virtual machine WIN7, xp, WIN8, win2003, which is more convenient to operate, the old system is still very compatible with VB6

[baka]

dilettante, theres no support, its just "It Just Works compatibility", meaning, they are letting it be there, granting runtimes to be included in the system, and if it will stop working, c'est la vie.
if they remove the runtimes, we could easily just install them again and will again allow VB6 to work. same with activex's.
you can not call "I let some dll be in the system" support. support means that they will do bugfixes if theres something not working, but they simply discard that, telling the DEV that its your problem.

so, no, theres no support. and why should they remove the runtimes? theres no logic to do that. as I wrote, it will die out eventually when we move to 64bit systems.
when that day arrives, when new windows will be 64bit only, we will have a new VB6 IDE, or at least a way to compile it into 64bit using a new IDE such as twinbasic or radbasic.

killbit could make things harder, but a workaround is to not use the activex that stopped working, replace with something else.
that is why I try to avoid using activex. I dont trust it.

so sure, they could do a witchhunt to prevent VB6 to not work, adding a killswitch somewhere that will recognize VB6 compiled exes.
that will be resolved by a "hacker" that will purge that crap from the OS. like we have the adobe flash killswitch that can be removed we will have the same for VB6.
because anything else that disallow the exe to start, will impact on more than just VB6, it will cause almost any 32bit executables to stop working.

and yet again, u believe an old, programming language to be that important for microsoft? u are deluded, they stopped caring a long time ago, theres a lot more other things to deal with instead of trying to make VB6 exe not working.

[Eduardo-]

It is unrelated in any real way aside from appropriating the name.

There is no "chicken" in that biscuit.

Yes, you can make a language that has For/Next and call it BASIC, even if all the other stuff has nothing to do with any other BASIC.
And if you own a trademark that has Basic in its name, you will feel you have more right on doing whatever you want and call it "Basic".

Some things are not black or white, but they need to have certain reasonability.

It is like dilettante says, call it chicken because you own a trademark that contains chicken in its name.
Then let's call the real chicken something else, because we need to differentiate things that are different in their nature.

Of course VB.Net is not an evolution of VB6, or another step in the language, or anything like that. Anyone that believes that IMO is because he believed what MS said and wanted you to think.
It is completely dishonest. Or saying more simple: a lie.

But everyone have the right to think that VB.Net is a successor of VB6, of course, also have the right to believe that the moon is made of cheese.

[xiaoyao]

I can only say that if any country goes to Mars first, they can occupy half of the area. Then build a fence to divide the area, and other countries will pay the corresponding fees if they want to go up.