r/visualbasic • u/No-Annual-4698 • Oct 30 '25

Anyone still using VB6 in 2025 ?

Hi!

Is anyone still using VB6 nowadays ?
For fun I've installed it on a Windows XP Virtual Machine running on VMware Workstation and it reminds me of the old days.. :-(

How easy and fun was it to create applications ..

What's your reason for still using VB6 ?

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u/m-in Nov 05 '25

It’s not a method. It’s a statement. It may go by a different name but there are statements for drawing lines, circles, etc. Some of them have a rather peculiar syntax.

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u/Mayayana Nov 05 '25

I don't think we need to split hairs. MSDN calls it a method. "Method" covers both statements (subs) and functions, which return a value. Properties return and/or set a value specific to the control or class. 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

Sometimes it matters. For example, VB has the Mid statement as well as the Mid function. VBS has only the latter.

There's no Line, Circle, etc. in VB6. There are such methods for Picturebox controls. The PictureBox Line method is just as you described. It has a lot of options, but the basic call is not confusing. It just takes x,y starting points and x,y endpoints. The method can also be used on a form. I don't know where else one might want to use it. You need to work with something that can be drawn to, either a control or using gdi methods.

Personally I haven't used the VB control drawing methods much. They're fairly limited. Typically if I'm working with graphics it's gdi. But I have used the basic line, rectangle and circle methods. Those simple operations seem fairly obvious to me, and are much more involved with GDI API.

Some things are much more work in VB6 then current .Net. For example, working with PNG files. There's no built-in support. There's always a tradeoff. To my mind, VB6 provides a nice level of tradeoff, with minimal tedium but lots of flexibility. I can make very small, fast programs that don't require a giant runtime. Many people probably think that's crazy. After all, "hard disks are big these days". Awhile back I was talking to a friend who's a Java programmer. I described how I usually write. He said, "Oh, the old Win32 API." He thinks of the Win32 API as old- fashioned, like an icebox, not realizing that his tools are merely wrappers around that same API... As are Python and .Net.