VB6 in Docker

[hwoarang]

Lets automate VB6 builds in the right way!

Yes, I know that there is pretty good github repo, but that is for old and terribly huge Windows 10 (mcr.microsoft.com/windows:1903) image. Not quite stable and having issues in CI/CD pipelines (espessially when dealing with in-process isolation mode).

So, what benefits we will have:
- Modern and lightweight Windows Server Core 2025 as base image
- automated and full VB6 Enterprise + SP6 setup inside, producing almost same lightweight image (final size in registry - 3.8 GB)
- UPX is installed too to provide optional DLL/OCX compression


Download -file redacted- file and run .\Build.ps1. Ensure you have Docker Desktop installed (with support of Windows Containers) and your powershell can execute scripts.

When image is ready, you can now run container to test:

- docker run -it --rm --mount type=bind,source="HOST_MACHINE_PATH_TO_PROJECT",target="C:\Build" winservercore2025vb6:latest powershell

Then, inside container powershell:

- & "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98\VB6.EXE" --% /MAKE "C:\Build\Project.vbp" /outdir "C:\Build" /out "C:\Build\Log.txt"
- "C:\Program Files (x86)\UPX\upx.exe" "C:\Build\Project.dll" -q -6 --no-lzma --compress-resources=0 --strip-relocs=0 --compress-exports=0