Why did Microsoft kill VB6

[stuck-n-past]

This isn’t really a technical question here but as I do more work with VB I am noticing how many people want Microsoft to bring it back fully supported. The way they just dumped it instead of continuing its progression seems odd as they could have created there NET product in parallel with VB. It’s almost like they really wanted to kill VB6 as it posed too much competition to launch a new product.

From what I have seen on the net it appears to have been a huge success with countless end users developing thousands and thousands of projects. Perhaps it was too popular for there own liking. I was surprised to learn the VB.NET runs on a virtual machine instead of compiling to machine code. I understand the direction they are trying to take, if an OS supports the virtual machine, then it by default supports VB.NET. But they will still have to develop and maintain many virtual machines for every platform and OS that is to support VB.NET.

[Carlos Rocha]

I think the idea was to force everyone to move to .NET. Voluntarily, of course

[FunkyDexter]

I've moved this into the general developer section as it's not a coding question.

I almost fear to leave this thread open but am doing so as a courtesy to the poster. I'm going to say this very loud and right up front: No flaming, no trolling, no antagonistic behaviour. Note that the question as asked does not have anything to do with any language other than VB6 and while some comparisons are inevitable if the discussion is to have any meaning it would be a courtesy to the OP to keep the discussion as tightly bound to the technical and business reasons for Microsoft's decision. That applies to both sides of the debate.

Stuck-n-past, you're a fairly new addition to the forum so you may not know the history of this discussion. If you don't I suggest you do a search for previous threads on this topic where you'll find plenty of lively discussion (some of it useful, most of it not) along with multitudinous reasons for the heavy handedness of my previous paragraph.

[baka]

i will not reply about the reasons why microsoft discontinued VB.com. a lot of pages have already discussed the reasons.

microsoft will not make another .com, but they say that support for the routines to run VB6 applications will be available at least 10 more years. after that i believe we can include packages so that in the future we can still run VB6 programs.

what i think is that is "good" that microsoft discontinued VB6. that forced us to be smart and inventive. what can not be done with VB6 if you really think about it? we can also "patch" VB6 to use more memory then the limitation of 32bit. we can use a lot of API to create almost anything.

[MikiSoft]

Just to mention that rejected request to bring back VB6 is the most popular voting ever on Microsoft's official board: http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/fo...improved-versi
None of the other votes has so much comment count. They're even deleting some (obviously spam) comments periodically.

Here are features that Microsoft has presented for real VB7 (just before they decided to discontinue it): http://www.developer.com/net/vb/arti...New-in-VB7.htm

[Gruff]

Not sure why you posted this.

Looks like your mind is already made up.

Personally I believe Microsoft had a technology that was aging and didn't allow for them to move in the development direction they wanted go.

As a developer I would assume you know that new technologies cannot always be pasted onto old products. Good or bad it was their decision to make.

[stuck-n-past]

Oops, sorry to everyone here, I did not realize that the post I made was going to be problematic. Right now I am not sure if I should make any further comments on this topic or not as I enjoy this site and the last thing I would want to have happen is make anybody upset with this particular discussion.

I am fairly new to the VB world and it's been quite a learning curve yet an enjoyable one. I made the post because I truly was curious as to the demise of the product. At the time I was thinking about Word, and Excel and other popular programs, ones that you would believe would be safe for ever due to the number of documents and people that depend upon them. I drew a comparison to the number of programs in VB that were left hanging and I figured that there must be a reason I did not know about. As with other questions I have asked on this site about VB, the people here have been more then gracious and helpful in coming to my aid when I have had a question. That's all I was doing when I started this thread.

So again I am very sorry and I will keep all of my future post related to technical questions.

[dday9]

Oops, sorry to everyone here, I did not realize that the post I made was going to be problematic. Right now I am not sure if I should make any further comments on this topic or not as I enjoy this site and the last thing I would want to have happen is make anybody upset with this particular discussion.

Trust me you aren't the first to ask this question and you definitely won't be the last. If you check out some of the post in General Development you will find many of these threads and I believe there is even some kind of effort to sue Microsoft for discontinuing Visual Basic 6, though I don't know how successful it is.

I am fairly new to the VB world and it's been quite a learning curve yet an enjoyable one.

If you are new to the Visual Basic, then I have two questions for you. First, how did you get a legal copy of VB6? Second, why would you chose a language that was discontinued over 14 years ago?

The reason I ask the second question is because you will forever be battling the ever changing Windows environment. From what I understand(I've never used VB Classic), it even takes a bit of effort to get the IDE working in Windows 7 and even more so in Windows 8. Even if you decided not to use VB.Net which is the version of Visual Basic Microsoft currently supports, there are certainly plenty of much more suitable languages out there.

[FunkyDexter]

I don't think anyone outside of Microsoft will be able to tell you the real reason why they abandoned it but if I was to hazard a guess I think they realised that VB6 could only really serve the desktop. The web world was growing fast back 2002 and the mobile world was visible on the horizon. They wanted a single language that would play to all those formats and figured .Net would be it. Once they'd made a decision to create .Net VB6's days were pretty much numbered because it wouldn't make good business sense for them to maintain two languages that competed with each other. Add in the fact that VB6 would have needed a pretty substantial overhaul to support 64 bit and it was probably hard to justify it's continued existence from a business perspective.

Interestingly I don't think MS abandoned it as willingly as some people seem to believe. Mikisoft's second link indicates pretty strongly that there was still considerable enthusiasm for the language within MS itself.

[Carlos Rocha]

No flaming, no trolling, no antagonistic behaviour.

First, how did you get a legal copy of VB6? Second, why would you chose a language that was discontinued over 14 years ago?

[dday9]

Carlos, how is that statement any of the above? Perhaps you're reading it from one filter, but that was not my intentions.

[Carlos Rocha]

Carlos, how is that statement any of the above? Perhaps you're reading it from one filter, but that was not my intentions.

Yes, it was "my filter" that wrongly understood you were suggesting his VB6 copy was probably not legal. And I'm sure your wrong statement that VB6 was "discontinued" over 14 years ago was also by mistake, maybe a typo, and what you was trying to say is that VB6 was "born" more than 14 years ago. My VB6 is from March 2004.

[dday9]

Yes, it was "my filter" that wrongly understood you were suggesting his VB6 copy was probably not legal.

No, just trying to figure out where he got his, ebay, CL, etc...

And I'm sure your wrong statement that VB6 was "discontinued" over 14 years ago was also by mistake, maybe a typo, and what you was trying to say is that VB6 was "born" more than 14 years ago.

Not a typo, from what I understood VB.Net was started in 2001 and from that point forward VB6 would not be improved upon. However, I could be mistaken as I stated earlier... I've never used VB Classic.

[stuck-n-past]

I am not really getting into VB6 for new product development, I was approached a little while back to see if I could fix some problems with an older system. I agreed and from there word of mouth has brought me more and more legacy work and some of it deals with VB6.

I have been a programmer for some time and many years ago, I purchased Visual Studio to do some work in C++. And as you may know, Visual Studio comes with everything but the kitchen sink, Visual Basic, Visual C++, FoxPro and a bunch of development tools. I have the whole package, original disks and all of the books. If I remember correctly I paid a good bit over $1000.00 for the whole setup. So when I was approached to do some work in VB I grabbed the disks and loaded them on Windows XP Professional x64 and it runs great. I have a multi-OS bootable system that goes way back to NT and I just pick the OS I want to run.

Oh and by the way dday9, while I was writing this I stopped to grab a tissue so I could get the bug crawling on my screen, no kidding! LOL.

[Niya]

Oh wow, not again.

I was surprised to learn the VB.NET runs on a virtual machine instead of compiling to machine code. I understand the direction they are trying to take, if an OS supports the virtual machine, then it by default supports VB.NET. But they will still have to develop and maintain many virtual machines for every platform and OS that is to support VB.NET.

See, this is what I was talking about in the other thread. There are a lot of people out there that deliberately post misinformation like this and poor you got tricked.

VB.Net apps do not run inside a VM. The compiler compiles to MSIL code which is like an assembly language. When you execute a .Net app, the CLR runs a JIT compiler which converts that MSIL code to machine code. In other words, .Net apps are not interpreted, they are running native code that only gets compiled when you run the program.

As for why MS abandoned VB6.....They didn't. They abandoned the COM based approach that VB6 used and adopted a completely new underlying engine. This was such a drastic change that many consider the modern versions of MS's VB product line to be a completely different language. This is not far off but VB.Net was meant to replace VB6, but the changes were too drastic for some people to handle.

[Schmidt]

See, this is what I was talking about in the other thread. There are a lot of people out there that deliberately post misinformation like this and poor you got tricked.
VB.Net apps do not run inside a VM.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Language_Runtime

The Common Language Runtime (CLR), the virtual machine component of Microsoft's .NET framework, manages the execution of .NET programs.

<sigh> ...that much to "people who deliberately post misinformation"...

As for why MS abandoned VB6.....They didn't. They abandoned the COM based approach that VB6 used and adopted a completely new underlying engine.

Wrong and misleading again:

They didn't "abandon COM" - at all - they just "told you so"... whilst (to this day):
- they never attempted a .NET-porting of their own "bread and butter Apps" (MS-Office etc.) - instead these Apps use COM, heavily.
- todays Metro-WinRT-stuff is making use of COM heavily (the HResult-based, IUnknown-implementing, RefCounting Base-Variant, but still COM)
- native Compilation (without running stuff JIT-compiled on a VM) is the "new way we do things" - at the recent MS-dev-conferences

Well, VB6 already had (and still has) both of that:
- native compilation
- COM-support

Olaf

[dday9]

Well I see what this is becoming and I would like no part of it.

[dclamp]

I want to know why they stopped development of Windows 3.1.

Niya, lets start a GoFundMe to bring back Win3.1

[Niya]

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Language_Runtime


<sigh> ...that much to "people who deliberately post misinformation"...

Here you go yet again proving what I was saying about you and those like you. You're misleading again. stuck-n-past said this:-

I was surprised to learn the VB.NET runs on a virtual machine instead of compiling to machine code.

You know damn well what he was thinking and instead of correcting his obvious error, you deliberately ignore the context to support what he says. You are being deceitful. You with so much knowledge of these things of all people knows that based on his words, he believes that the CLR is interpreting the code, just like the p-code VM used by the VB6 IDE which is patently false. The CLR runs a JIT compiler that compiles the MSIL code to native code. The compiled code runs under the supervision of the CLR, not within it as implied by his quote.

Wrong and misleading again:

They didn't "abandon COM" - at all - they just "told you so"... whilst (to this day):
- they never attempted a .NET-porting of their own "bread and butter Apps" (MS-Office etc.) - instead these Apps use COM, heavily.
- todays Metro-WinRT-stuff is making use of COM heavily (the HResult-based, IUnknown-implementing, RefCounting Base-Variant, but still COM)
- native Compilation (without running stuff JIT-compiled on a VM) is the "new way we do things" - at the recent MS-dev-conferences

Well, VB6 already had (and still has) both of that:
- native compilation
- COM-support

Olaf

VB.Net doesn't use COM as its native object format like VB6 did. This is what I meant.

I want to know why they stopped development of Windows 3.1.

Niya, lets start a GoFundMe to bring back Win3.1

Wanna start a thread ?

[Schmidt]

Here you go yet again proving what I was saying about you and those like you. You're misleading again.

For justifying your usage ot the word "again", you'd need to show a posting of mine, where I
posted things which were utterly wrong or misleading - guess you will have a real hard time to find one.

stuck-n-past said this:-
I was surprised to learn the VB.NET runs on a virtual machine instead of compiling to machine code.

You know damn well what he was thinking ...

? No - I did not - and I won't speculate or guess what he really meant (maybe he can clear things up for us,
but as long as he doesn't do that, I take the sentence as he wrote it - and it is not wrong in the least).

Since the VB.NET-compiler does indeed *not* compile to machine-code. Period.
The output of the VB.NET compiler is MSIL (as you well know... it's an intermediate format,
which is needed to support and run the output of different .NET-languages on the same VM).

Nothing wrong with his sentence IMO - I guess you're jumping at shadows, seeing
"attacks" where there are none.

Olaf

[Niya]

Since the VB.NET-compiler does indeed *not* compile to machine-code. Period.
The output of the VB.NET compiler is MSIL (as you well know... it's an intermediate format,
which is needed to support and run the output of different .NET-languages on the same VM).

Wow, you're really talented at this. You should be a lawyer.

This is what I said:-

The CLR runs a JIT compiler that compiles the MSIL code to native code.

I made no mention of the VB.Net compiler.

And unless you're talking about a VM like a VMWare product which is meant to be used as an emulator, no VM I know of runs native code. The point of native code is to be executed by the CPU itself. The point of MSIL is to make it possible to swap out JIT compilers, the aim of which was cross-platform compatibility. MSIL code was never meant to be executed within a VM, its meant to be compiled to native code, possibly by different JIT compiler implementations. You very well know these things yet keep withholding such information in topics like this to deliberately support your bias.

[Schmidt]

This is what I said:-

Niya, try to concentrate - in the last post I was not discussing what you said,
but what stuck-n-past wrote (which in my opinion is not a wrong sentence) -
no matter what you think he might - or might not - have thought...

Olaf

[Niya]

Aite, fair enough.

[dclamp]

Can we just auto-close all threads about VB6 coming back.

[Niya]

Can we just auto-close all threads about VB6 coming back.

Where would people get to vent now ? Threads like these might be the only thing preventing massacres like all those high school shootings.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Oh wow, not again.

Niya don't get so angry (or at least sound so angry) it doesn't really matter that much, and anyway haven't we already done this ??

-- Anyway back to the OP's questions --

This isn’t really a technical question here but as I do more work with VB I am noticing how many people want Microsoft to bring it back fully supported. The way they just dumped it instead of continuing its progression seems odd as they could have created there NET product in parallel with VB. It’s almost like they really wanted to kill VB6 as it posed too much competition to launch a new product.

Not really if you think about it, it just sounds like a business decision. So say you are a Car company and you are looking to bring out a new hatchback BUT you already have a Hatchback model, do you produce both or replace you old one with your new one, to reduce costs and increase the margins on your new model? Business make these decisions all the time (just look at the outrage when Ikea discontinues a model), just very few of them are as big as Microsoft.

FD -

I don't think anyone outside of Microsoft will be able to tell you the real reason why they abandoned it but if I was to hazard a guess I think they realised that VB6 could only really serve the desktop.

I am not sure they were that Prescient, especially about mobile, considering there other fairly slow moves into Mobile, it seems to me at that point they were looking to counter the success of Java and in many ways followed the Java model.

I am not really getting into VB6 for new product development, I was approached a little while back to see if I could fix some problems with an older system.

Which is a good reason to use it. I still use VB6 at times when we need do fixes on some of our older programs.

It’s almost like they really wanted to kill VB6 as it posed too much competition to launch a new product.

No i dont think so, VB6 didnt suddenly die when .Net was launched all that happened was it stopped getting developed. You can still build vb6 apps now!!

MS is a business first and foremost and it's decision have to be looked at in that context, it simply doesn't make sense to develop both languages when they are aimed at exactly the same markets. That's doubling your costs but not doubling your potential sales!!

I am noticing how many people want Microsoft to bring it back fully supported

Yes there are those who prefer VB6, some for valid technical reasons there software wont work in .Net, others for seemingly less logical reasons.

I wouldn't say that the numbers of those wanting it fully supported are particularly huge considering how many developers there are.

Most developers just moved to something else , Web and Mobile are so ubiquitous now and that is where development is now more than any where else, and you have a multitude of development choices ( all of them coming with a good sprinkling of JavaScript)!

Those that got hit the hardest by this change though were ISV's who had bet there house on VB6 and i do feel some sympathy for them, and there is some resentment form them that they invested heavily in a platform that was then abandoned.

There are also those who are just anti .Net for almost any reason they can come across though, and keep peddling irrational arguments.

Personally i came from VB6 development and now i do .NET development and i would never ever go back. I mainly write in C# nowadays and i just prefer writing code in C# i find myself much more productive too.

[stuck-n-past]

Hello to everyone that has joined in on this discussion. First of all I had no intention of opening up old issues that were already debated in the past nor was I interested in creating a topic for argument. There is no need for anybody here to go back-n-forth at one another as I was just looking for an answer. On the surface it was a simple and innocent question but I am learning that there is much more to what I asked then I could have ever known.

Perhaps this topic should be closed, but regardless of what happens I would like to squeeze in another post if I may. I’m clueless as to whether this will pour fuel on the fire creating more conflict or aid in reducing tensions. I could only hope for the latter.

Please don’t allow my request for information and knowledge to morph into a platform to take a stab at one another. There is enough friction in the world today raising questions in so many as to whether the people on this big blue marble can ever coexist peacefully. In my own backyard, Baltimore Maryland, total senseless violence, lives in turmoil and the National Guard being deployed. If we as a society can’t be civil over such an innocuous topic as VB then what chances do we have when situations ramp up into serious issues.

I am a simple person walking this planet for such a sort time and my only hope is to get along with everyone that crosses my path. In recent months I lost my Father, in my opinion the greatest man that ever lived. He filled his life with a silly sense of humor defying anybody not to smile at his corny personality. I am proud to say that he won! He had the ability to put a smile on the face of the most unhappy person.

From the words of my Parents, if you don’t have something nice to say then there really isn’t anything to say!

[FunkyDexter]

^ That +1.

I am not sure they were that Prescient

You're probably right and, rereading my post, I think I implied more prescience than I meant. I think MS could just see that the world was changing and the desktop would no longer dominate in the way that it had through the 90s. History shows that they placed some pretty bad bets on where the market was going but I do think they recognised it was going somewhere and VB6 was unlikely to be able to follow. The hope for .Net was that it would be able to go wherever the market did so that's where they put their effort. In that goal it partly succeeded (it did pretty well for web development) and partly failed (mobile... not so much).

And your definitely right about the threat of Java and it's cross platform nature. I don't think java ever really delivered on that threat but you can see why MS were concerned and chose to follow a similar path.

[SJWhiteley]

VB6 was discontinued because there are better technologies available. .NET was an ugly start for VB programmers, but once 2005 came along it was a relatively smooth transition. VB6 just didn't have that power that the .NET framework offered. VB.NET also corrected some of the ugly cludges that you had to perform in VB6 to perform routine operations.

As FD noted about web development, it just wasn't available for VB6 developers - as in a path to such development. The framework addresses that, and beings VB and C together in a unifying development environment.

As far as supporting 'old' VB6 apps, there doesn't need to be a continuing support for VB6. It went to end of life and stayed exactly the same - something that a lot of VB6 proponents seem to want. As long as you have VB6, you can continue to support the old apps. As time goes by, it will become more difficult, but not impossible. So, really, supporting old apps is a non-issue, until the OS comes along which doesn't allow VB6 apps to run. That has been promised for a while, but with the extensive codebase, it has been (almost) indefinitely delayed. Third party ActiveX and COM components (and even MS components) will be much more troublesome, but as long as you have a 'pure' VB6 app, it'll work.

There is absolutely no reason to develop a new VB6 app, today, except for nostalgias sake. Like programming an old Apple IIe - it was fun for about an hour, but that's it.

VB6 was a good tool, but it had its day - there are much better tools available. I'm very surprised at the number of people think that it needs to be brought back (it's not and won't) and think that a third party substitute will actually be a substitute, as the requirements are completely at odds.

[dilettante]

And your definitely right about the threat of Java and it's cross platform nature. I don't think java ever really delivered on that threat but you can see why MS were concerned and chose to follow a similar path.

Bad enough the way VB6 gets treated here, but we also keep seeing this falsehood about Java. Do you sense a pattern here folks?

The truth is a nasty little fellow named Anders Hejlsberg was the primary villain here. He deeply resented the success enjoyed by Visual Basic when it stole the thunder from his Turbo Pascal for DOS. Then he cranked out a Windows-ish retread of that as Delphi, code named "VB Killer" during development. Of course Delphi never achieved any serious popularity either, and he came to Microsoft and eventually created a Microsoft JVM and VJ++ compiler... which ultimately got Microsoft sued, they lost, and the MS-JVM and VJ++ were withdrawn.

By teaming up with other VB haters within Microsoft (C++ guys, VFP guys) and a team of lawyers they developed Project COOL which became .Net, a new but legally-defensible JVM clone and Java language clone (C#). Then they added a VBish front-end they called VB.Net to kill off the VB product line.

The result was that the VB product line ended at VB 6.0, and the name was usurped in order to cause confusion from then onward. Microsoft started to only whisper the ".Net" part of the name hoping that calling VB.Net "VB" would help promote it.

That's the history.


As far as Java being cross-platform... of that there is no doubt. No amount of pretending that it isn't will make it any less so.

There are even very VB-like languages that compile to JVM bytecode and can use Java libraries. Most of these are far closer to VB syntax than VB.Net, and make far better alternatives... as well as getting you cross-platform operation. Some of them target specific platforms based on Java (e.g. Android), where they generate Dalvik bytecode that is now "ahead of time compiled" to optimized native code during application installation.

These Basic compilers can be a good tool for bootstrapping your VB skills into the Java world.

Or you can just move to VB.Net, an option you always have.

[dilettante]

Even if VB development had continued the language would have mutated quite a bit by now anyway. A lot of what went into .Net were things on the VB wishlist back at that time.

So what you'd have today would probably have just as much trouble accepting existing VB6 source code as VB6 has accepting VB3 code. Perhaps even more.

[SJWhiteley]

Even if VB development had continued the language would have mutated quite a bit by now anyway. A lot of what went into .Net were things on the VB wishlist back at that time.

So what you'd have today would probably have just as much trouble accepting existing VB6 source code as VB6 has accepting VB3 code. Perhaps even more.

Thats absolutely true. In the VB5 days there were hopes that VB6 would bring in a lot of desperately needed core functionality changes, but it didn't happen, and you still had to jump through hoops to get where you needed to be.

VS2002/2003 was horrible for VB developers; it's not surprising that it solidified antagonism for .NET with the initial .NET release.

I do recall, though, as noted above, that it was a tough decision for Microsoft to bring VB6 to a close, on blogs before there were blogs. It was a solid environment with a solid user base and few bugs (I always hated that scroll wheels didn't work in VB6 IDE, until someone eventually created the add-in).

[axisdj]

Not to fan the fire but,

I am just trying to get the word out. I am past complaining for MS to bring back vb6, they will not.
But I do think there is a solution to those of us who are 'stuck in the past with obsolete technology' or maybe prefer something more simple as building blocks for our applications.

Please support our crowd funding project on indiegogo to fund a replacement for Visual Basic 6.

Search for it on the indiegogo site.

Thanks

[stuck-n-past]

Oops - I said I would not make another post that was not technical, but I what can I say. After reading some of the remarks above it got me thinking about the power of giant corporations. Man there I go thinking again – it always gets me in trouble.

Once a corporation like Microsoft reaches the juggernaut size, complete with products that have proliferated the technical market, then do they have certain obligations above and beyond the norm? Hey I am all for free enterprise and believe everybody should have the right to run there business they way they believe is best. I myself have been running a computer consulting company since 2001.

I recently turned in all of my remote controls for my cable boxes because I use a universal remote. A day or so after turning them in, my universal remotes stopped working. The sneaky Cable Company disabled the remote control feature on my boxes. No rent, No remote control. It would be one thing if the Cable Company was struggling to survive, but their profits are in the Billions!

So is there a point where a company has a responsibility to the customers who made them successful in the first place, to continue support of a popular product?

[FunkyDexter]

Oops - I said I would not make another post that was not technical

You are allowed to you know. You really don't need to be apologising for anything you've said in this thread.

So is there a point where a company has a responsibility to the customers who made them successful in the first place, to continue support of a popular product?

No. At least, not if you believe in capitalism and corporations. Corporations actually have one and only one responsibility in law which is to make as much money as they can for their share holders. In fact, this obligation actually trumps any requirement to behave in a legal, never mind moral, manner. Per a corporation charter, if undertaking an illegal activity is likely to beat more in profits than it will cost in penalties then that is exactly what they should do.

It's pretty stupid system, if you think about it, but it's the one we've got.

we also keep seeing this falsehood about Java

I said that Java failed to deliver on the threat to MS, not on its own cross platform capabilities. I've said in previous threads that I believe it achieved decent cross platform capability as far as back end components were concerned but failed for UI - I'm happy standing by that position.

[couttsj]

I am not stuck on VB6, I am stuck on Rapid Application Development (RAD). In my humble opinion, .NET just doesn't cut it. I could only convert about half of my utilities to .NET, so I abandoned it. What I really miss most in .NET is the ability to run interactively in Virtual Memory. It makes application development so much easier.

J.A. Coutts

[Tanner_H]

One of the more comprehensive answers to this question was given by Microsoft's Paul Yuknewicz on the UserVoice petition to resurrect VB6. Here's his explanation, for what it's worth:

We have read all of the comments on this thread and I’d like to thank you for providing your constructive feedback on this issue. Instead of merely repeating our support and migration guidance that has been laid out on http://msdn.com/vbrun, I’d like to address some of your specific comments here.

To play back the feedback themes we’re hearing:
- VB6 is awesome
- VB6 needs to be brought forward and maintained: in a new release or OSS

VB6 was and still is without a doubt awesome. VB6 made developers incredibly productive building a breadth of applications and as a result we have a wealth of applications and passionate developers to this day in 2014. One way I see our mission in developer tools is to empower developers to solve problems. This includes both today’s problems AND the problems of tomorrow. VB6, as you all have stated repeatedly in this thread, is an excellent tool for solving the problems of its day. We also stand behind our decision starting in 2002 to meet the current demands of our developers and the industry with .NET. For the scenarios VB6 set out to do, we see VB6 being “complete”. We feel good about VB6 being able to continue maintaining their applications for the past 15 years. Current needs ranging from distributed applications and services, to web applications and services, to devices, to new architectures and languages, required fundamental changes to the whole stack. We looked at how we could accommodate these needs through incremental changes to VB6 while maintaining its essence, and that was not possible.

To address the modern needs we would need to go far beyond updating the language. We have to remember that VB6 is not just a language. VB6 is a language, a runtime, a platform library, a tool/IDE, and an ecosystem tightly packaged together in a way that made all of them work well together. We’ve worked with many customers on migration from VB6 to .NET and found that while yes, there are language changes, the dominating factor in migration difficulties isn’t the language differences. Even open sourcing the language/runtime wouldn’t solve the fact that VB6 was thought for a different set of problems, and the fact that its strength came from the end-to-end solution provided by all these five pieces working together. Take a change like 64bit, the complete runtime, tools and ecosystem chain would need to be retooled.

So, moving forward what can we do? Where we have been able to help move forward is in our stance around support and interoperability. The VB6 runtime it is still a component of the Windows operating system and is a component shipped in Windows 8.1. It will be supported at least through 2024. This ensures your apps and components continue to run as you incrementally move forward to .NET. The support policy is here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ms788708. There are numerous interop strategies that we developed and evolved to enable incremental migration as you upgrade your skills, described here: http://msdn.com/vbrun.

In summary, VB6 was awesome. We agree. We don’t expect or demand anyone to throw away their code or rewrite from any of our technologies unless it makes business sense for them to do so. We have to innovate to enable our customers to innovate. It is not a viable option to create a next version of VB6. We stand by our decision to make VB.NET and the .NET Framework. We think they are awesome too. It is not feasible to open source VB6 tools chain and ecosystem. The VB6 runtime was last shipped in Windows 8.1 and will be supported for the lifetime of Windows 8.1. Support and interop are great tools to move forward incrementally.

I hope you feel we’ve listened to your feedback and that I’ve explained things well enough that you understand our decision.

[dilettante]

I said that Java failed to deliver on the threat to MS, not on its own cross platform capabilities. I've said in previous threads that I believe it achieved decent cross platform capability as far as back end components were concerned but failed for UI - I'm happy standing by that position.

Here we go again.

There is no problem with creating cross platform Java applications with user interfaces. People are doing this on a regular basis without any trouble at all. There is no "fail" about this.

[Carlos Rocha]

Well, what I read from the Microsoft guy speach:

1. Bla, bla, bla...
2. "It is not feasible to open source VB6"... just because.
3. "Moving forward" is moving to .NET. They really think they own everybody.
4. The only reason they don't kill VB6 right now is because they can't.
5. They will never tell us the true. Maybe Snowden, who knows...

What do we know in 2015?

1. .NET is moving "native", just like VB6.
2. To fill the lack of Windows Phone/Tablet apps they will create another software layer to make windows run IOS and Android Apps. They simply lost the war.
3. They moved "forward", from leader to catcher.

[stuck-n-past]

I am stuck on Rapid Application Development (RAD)

The RAD aspect of VB is probably what has impressed me the most over the short time I have used it. In any given weekend I can easily crank out a complete program with time to spare, its quite amazing.

There is a post here talking about a replacement for VB.

project on indiegogo to fund a replacement for Visual Basic 6.

I have been programming longer then I care to talk about starting with the Radio Shack TRS-80. It was the coolest thing ever, I actually had to save programs using a cassette recorder. I’m not the hunt-n-peck kind of person as I can spew out code like it’s being printed. Using VBs RADs capabilities I think I could crank out a VB like programming language / interpreter (IDE) in like a month or so. I tend to go a bit overboard when writing code in that anything that has even the slightest possibility of being reused I will create it in modular fashion. Between some of my client’s code and my own routines I have like all of the pieces required for a RAD system.

Multi-Document interface, Dockable Windows, Treeview and Flexgrid modules, System menus and Toolbars. There would be a some work involved when it came to designing forms but even there I have code for sizing and moving controls complete with grips. I have a number of modules just to manipulate RichTextBox’s. Most of the work would be in gluing all of the pieces together, and the actual interpreter.

Now I am only talking about an IDE, no compiler would be involved here, that would take more time, but with that said I don’t feel that it would be unreasonable to have a rough-working program in very short time.

When I begin work with a new client I insist that we both sign a confidentiality agreement that basically states that neither party will disseminate the others intellectual property in the form of source code. However we each retain the right to make use of compiled or binary data in our own projects.

Tapping the resources from past and current clients along with my own software ‘library’ I have like all of the parts needed to get started. And I am a late arrival in the VB world making me wonder why such an effort has not be done before now especially from people that starting using VB from the very beginning. Wouldn’t they have even more pieces of the puzzle then I do?

So have I put my foot in my mouth once again like in totally under estimating what it would take to build an IDE, or is there some other reason it hasn’t been done?