3 ms·

Yes, but what about VB6 itself? "Where can I install/buy Visual Basic 6?" https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/azure/en-US/49c35ab3-ead2-43d1-9fa8-69aa277a

Yes, but what about VB6 itself? "Where can I install/buy Visual Basic 6?" https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/azure/en-US/49c35ab3-ead2-43d1-9fa8-69aa277a8d9c/where-can-i-installbuy-visual-basic-6?forum=vssetup https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/azure/en-US/49c35ab...

_gabe_ 4y ago
There's nothing wrong with no longer wanting to distribute a 25 year old application that you no longer support development tools for. However your comment is completely disingenuous. One of the first links I ran into was a massive support article from Microsoft about how they will still allow VB6 applications to run on Windows and gave detailed instructions/tools on upgrading a Visual Basic project so you can continue development and don't lose all the work. > While the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE is no longer supported, Microsoft's goal is that Visual Basic 6.0 applications continue to run on supported Windows versions. The resources available from this page should help you as you maintain existing applications, and as you migrate your functionality to .NET.[0] This is much better support than other companies provide for discontinued platforms. Do you personally want to be on the hook for a version of your software you wrote/released 25 years ago? Especially if you've released what you consider to be improved upgrades of the software? Would you even be willing to help users upgrade from your 25 year old software? If the answer to any of those is no, then you're providing a very skewed perspective on what reasonable support for a product looks like. And once again, Microsoft is still writing articles 20 years after the initial release to help users upgrade. For all the bad crap Microsoft does, completely abandoning widely used frameworks is not one of them. [0]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/visualstudio/visual-basic-6/visual-basic-6.0-documentation https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/visualst...
- benatkin 4y ago
  Moving the goalposts are we? I repeat. Their backward compatibility isn't amazing. It may be good but let's stop pretending Microsoft deserves special kudos for what's actually a mixed bag in terms of backward compatibility. And look at the sibling comment to mine about bad backward compatibility with data, in the case of Microsoft Word. Edit: not a sibling comment. Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35296368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35296368
Kwpolska 4y ago
Why would you want to buy the VB6 IDE? If you’ve got legacy VB6 stuff to maintain, you’ve probably got a 20-year-old license for the IDE already. If you somehow do not, you can buy a Visual Studio subscription [0] and get it. Supporting something does not necessarily mean they sell new licences. [0] https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/subscriptions/#software-and-downloads?cat=visual-studio-enterprise-subscription-with-github-enterprise https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/subscriptions/#software-a... > "Download complete list of software" lists VB6 as available.
- benatkin 4y ago
  well, if it's so great that you can run old apps, what if one of those old apps you run, you want to make a tiny change to it? but there's gonna be security issues. still it shows that Microsoft's legendary (albeit narrow) backward compatibility doesn't really mean a whole lot, except for sounding cool > you’ve probably got a 20-year-old license for the IDE already As for this, no, someone could pick up an old app written by someone else, or lost their copy of the license, or maybe the license belonged to a company they no longer work for. Also it apparently doesn't apply to the person asking the question...
  - Kwpolska 4y ago
    You can get a copy of the VB6 IDE with a Visual Studio subscription if you really need it. It works on Windows 11 — you can search for "visual basic 6 windows 11" on YouTube to see it in action (I’m not linking to any videos, since those videos tend to suggest less legal ways to acquire software).
    - benatkin 4y ago
      > with a Visual Studio subscription ...as the answer to the question says. > less legal ways Because of Microsoft. Microsoft is being unhelpful here as usual
      - Kwpolska 4y ago

_gabe_ 4y ago

There's nothing wrong with no longer wanting to distribute a 25 year old application that you no longer support development tools for. However your comment is completely disingenuous. One of the first links I ran into was a massive support article from Microsoft about how they will still allow VB6 applications to run on Windows and gave detailed instructions/tools on upgrading a Visual Basic project so you can continue development and don't lose all the work. > While the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE is no longer supported, Microsoft's goal is that Visual Basic 6.0 applications continue to run on supported Windows versions. The resources available from this page should help you as you maintain existing applications, and as you migrate your functionality to .NET.[0] This is much better support than other companies provide for discontinued platforms. Do you personally want to be on the hook for a version of your software you wrote/released 25 years ago? Especially if you've released what you consider to be improved upgrades of the software? Would you even be willing to help users upgrade from your 25 year old software? If the answer to any of those is no, then you're providing a very skewed perspective on what reasonable support for a product looks like. And once again, Microsoft is still writing articles 20 years after the initial release to help users upgrade. For all the bad crap Microsoft does, completely abandoning widely used frameworks is not one of them. [0]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/visualstudio/visual-basic-6/visual-basic-6.0-documentation https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/visualst...

benatkin 4y ago
Moving the goalposts are we? I repeat. Their backward compatibility isn't amazing. It may be good but let's stop pretending Microsoft deserves special kudos for what's actually a mixed bag in terms of backward compatibility. And look at the sibling comment to mine about bad backward compatibility with data, in the case of Microsoft Word. Edit: not a sibling comment. Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35296368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35296368

Kwpolska 4y ago

Why would you want to buy the VB6 IDE? If you’ve got legacy VB6 stuff to maintain, you’ve probably got a 20-year-old license for the IDE already. If you somehow do not, you can buy a Visual Studio subscription [0] and get it. Supporting something does not necessarily mean they sell new licences. [0] https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/subscriptions/#software-and-downloads?cat=visual-studio-enterprise-subscription-with-github-enterprise https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/subscriptions/#software-a... > "Download complete list of software" lists VB6 as available.

benatkin 4y ago
well, if it's so great that you can run old apps, what if one of those old apps you run, you want to make a tiny change to it? but there's gonna be security issues. still it shows that Microsoft's legendary (albeit narrow) backward compatibility doesn't really mean a whole lot, except for sounding cool > you’ve probably got a 20-year-old license for the IDE already As for this, no, someone could pick up an old app written by someone else, or lost their copy of the license, or maybe the license belonged to a company they no longer work for. Also it apparently doesn't apply to the person asking the question...
- Kwpolska 4y ago
  You can get a copy of the VB6 IDE with a Visual Studio subscription if you really need it. It works on Windows 11 — you can search for "visual basic 6 windows 11" on YouTube to see it in action (I’m not linking to any videos, since those videos tend to suggest less legal ways to acquire software).
  - benatkin 4y ago
    > with a Visual Studio subscription ...as the answer to the question says. > less legal ways Because of Microsoft. Microsoft is being unhelpful here as usual
    - Kwpolska 4y ago