VB6 and .NET

[Mark Stevens]

I was trying to get hold of VB6 to write plugins for an application which
has this as a requirement for their interface (I guess because it's written
in VB). I couldn't find a new one anywhere so I asked Microsoft (UK) where I
could get it. They told me I could use VB.Net for non .Net applications as
in VB6. I was told there was an option for this. I doubled checked this as I
wasn't expecting that answer, explaining what I wanted to do. Don't worry
about VB6, go for .Net. So I did.

However, having now got the product I can see no such option. Trying to load
a VB6 project it wants to convert it to .Net which is of no use to me.

Have I been seriously misled here or is there some way of dealing with VB6
applications without any .Net features?

Thanks for any help...

Mark

 

[Mark Stevens]

I phoned back Microsoft and although they had a record of my call they
conveniently didn't record any details (or so they said) about the
conversation and consequently are now saying I can't do what I want! I
know for a fact what conversation took place and I double checked what was
said so there was definately no misunderstanding but now it's my problem it
seems.

Now I'm told I can downgrade my licence to VB6. The problem is finding VB6
media. The US Microsoft site states that the media is available from them
and for other countries contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. Microsoft
UK will not sell me the media kit and tell me to ask the authorised
resellers but none of which have heard of it. So it seems I'm basically up
the creek Thanks Microsoft!

Mark

 

[Len Weaver]

Hello Mark,

Now I'm told I can downgrade my licence to VB6. The problem is
finding VB6 media. The US Microsoft site states that the media
is available from them and for other countries contact your

What exactly do you need to do? If it is just a matter of creating
COM components then you can do that with VB.Net. Under the project
properties dialog box in 'Configuration Properties' | 'Build' you will
see a checkbox labelled 'Register for COM Interop'. This essentially
creates a wrapper for your DLL that can be called from COM applications.
(The .net framework will still be required.)

Hope this helps,
Len

 

[Mark Stevens]

Thanks for the reply Len.

Basically, I'm wanting to write plugins for an application which is
expecting a VB COM DLL. The plugins are just essentially number crunching
and don't require any external services apart from what the host application
offers. Although the plugin template is written in VB6, I dare say it could
be made to work in some other language it would just require a lot of work
to get to that point so I was rather hoping to get started in VB6 before
tackling any rewrites.

If the DLL could work with the application in the same way as a regular VB6
DLL then that would be something although it would limit the number of other
users who could use it. I'll have to investigate this more.

Regards
Mark