Quote Originally Posted by Lord Orwell View Post
vb for dos can compile qbasic programs. Quickbasic was actually purchased by microsoft and used as the foundation for vb for dos, which incidently, was released AFTER vb 1.0 for windows was.
QuickBasic was developed in-house by Microsoft. QuickBasic was loosely based on the earlier GW-Basic intepreter's language syntax. Eventually QBasic was created as a replacement for GW-Basic, using parts of the QuickBasic runtime and editor (which was based on Edit).

Quote Originally Posted by si_the_geek View Post
From what I remember they are about 12 MB... and a quick check shows that the .Net 2.0 framework is 122MB, which is well within comparison.

If 12MB is marginal, 122MB is reasonable.
The VB6 runtime redist package is under 1.4MB, it easily fits on one floppy. Service Pack 6 for Visual Basic 6.0: Run-Time Redistribution Pack (vbrun60sp6.exe)

As far as using the "nice" things in the .Net Framework goes... it's a moving target. Which Framework? Once 4.0 (April 2010) is out you have to be sure to stick to 3.5 features or even Windows 7 machines can't be assumed to have the Framework you need. Are you ready for 4.0?

.NET Framework 4.0 to become less SOAP-centric, embrace REST

Quote Originally Posted by Jenner View Post
The systems that VB6 relied on: COM+, GDI, etc are an afterthought for Microsoft now only retained for compatibility. They've been replaced by Assemblies, and WPF. You can't "modernize" VB6 without turning it into .NET.
Umm... ever heard of System.Enterprise.Services? That's a .Net wrapper on COM+. GDI is heavily used by Windows itself yet. The GAC is very much a form of component registry.