old project dropped in my lap

[MonsterC00kies]

hello friends! i am not a VB or .NET developer- i am a Flex/Actionscript developer, but I have an old project that needs work- and all i have is the source code, no settings, versions, nothing... i need to compile it just so i can get to the point of debugging it (and learning along the way).

i installed visualstudio 2010 and thought there might be some 'import some old crappy project to newer settings' but i guess it does not work that way- when i try to open this project it is not seen.

the files i have are with extensions:
.lib
.exp
.ocx
.PDM
.vbp
.vbw

among a few others, most of these I don't recognize.

question 1: how can i tell what version this code was written for?
question 2: what is the best way to update this and get this project back to a manageable state?

thanks in advance

[si_the_geek]

Welcome to VBForums

Based on those file names, it is very likely to be VB 6 (aka VB 1998), and the other file types will probably include .frm / .bas / .cls / .ctl (which are the actual code files).

Unfortunately VB6 is hard to get hold of these days (unless you have an MSDN subscription, but that isn't cheap), but you might be able to find it on sites like eBay.

You can import VB6 projects to later versions (up to VB 2008 I think), but it takes a lot of work because they aren't directly compatible - even after the converter runs you need to re-write several pieces to get it working again.

[MonsterC00kies]

thanks! i will begin to look around for a copy of vb6.

[LaVolpe]

Concuring with si_the_geek. Reading the .vbp file will give you nearly all the details of that project.