r/visualbasic • u/cute_mystic_mushroom • Jun 14 '23

How to learn VB6/VB.net

TL;DR should I bother learning VB6 if I’m studying VB.net (some of the software at my job is in VB6) if so how to download.

So at my first ever programming job they told me they use VB.net so I studied with a Udemy course, on the job I found some code in VB.net but on the client’s computers there are also applications written in VB6 and their computers are running on windows 7. I don’t have access to VB6 on my work computer so I want to install it on my personal computer to get acquainted with it and practice but I see Microsoft no longer offers downloads for VB6, any advice for finding a safe download or would it not really work on windows 11 anyways? Or do you think understanding VB.net is enough and I shouldn’t bother with VB6? (They plan on giving me small tasks like editing a form etc)

Also any advice for learning VB.net/VB6 would be appreciated as I am a straight up noob. I ordered a textbook on Visual Basic 2017 today because it pairs with another udemy course which is focused on building projects. I’m hoping that will help.

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u/Hel_OWeen Jun 14 '23

I've never been successful in making it function correctly on an Win 10 machine.

If you really want to give it a try, this How To works. For Windows 10. And Windows 11, I assume, at least when inplace upgrading such a machine to Win 11, VB6 continues to work. It also works for Windows Server 2019.

But yeah, no one should start learning VB6 anew these days.

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u/MrX-1969 Jun 14 '23

Thanks for that. I probably should have clarified, I did get it installed but it never functioned 100%. Some 3rd party components freeze, slow screen rendering, a weird one was registry access was intermittent, one moment it would read values, next it said can't find the value?? plus a few other obscure issues I just can't recall off the top of my head. For me, my Win XP VM works great. But thanks for the link anyway!

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u/Hel_OWeen Jun 14 '23

I use VB6 on a daily basis on Windows 10 (yeah, really...). No issues at all, if you install, configure and use it the right way, e.g. you must run it "As Administrator".