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Visual Basic 6.0 Resource Center

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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.

Visual Basic 6.0 Support Policy

The Visual Basic team's goal is that Visual Basic 6.0 applications continue to run on supported Windows versions. Key Visual Basic 6.0 runtime files, used in the majority of application scenarios, are shipping in and supported in Windows. For details, see the Support Statement for Visual Basic 6.0 on Windows.

Visual Basic 6.0 Documentation

The Visual Basic 6.0 product documentation contains language reference and how to guides for maintaining Visual Basic applications. For documentation on using Visual Studio and Visual Basic .NET, see Help for Visual Basic 6.0 Users. In addition, you can refer to a list of intrinsic and ActiveX controls shipped in Visual Basic 6.0.

VB6 Community Resources

Extend Your Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Extend your Visual Basic 6.0 applications using the functionality of Visual Basic .NET without upgrading. These resources show you how to extend your Visual Basic 6.0 applications using Visual Basic .NET and how to take advantage of your Visual Basic 6.0 components from Visual Basic .NET.

Bring the Power of .NET to Visual Basic 6

The Interop Forms Toolkit provides tools and components that simplify the process of building forms and controls with Visual Basic .NET that can be easily consumed from Visual Basic 6.

COM and .NET

  • Extending Visual Basic 6 ActiveX EXEs with Visual Basic .NET and the Interop Forms Toolkit

    This article discusses techniques for modernizing and upgrading Visual Basic 6 ActiveX EXEs with Visual Basic .NET.

  • COM Interop with .NET

    This article covers some of the issues associated with creating and using COM objects with Visual Basic.

  • Use 5000 Classes from Visual Basic 6.0

    In this article, you will see how anything in the .NET Framework can be utilized in Visual Basic 6.0 by creating simple wrapper classes. This can let you quickly add powerful functionality to existing Visual Basic 6.0 applications, without the need to rewrite those applications in .NET.

  • Best Practices to Use Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET Together

    A Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 application can access .NET class libraries, but to do so, it must go through an interoperability layer, known as a client callable wrapper. This wraps the desired .NET class, and exposes it so that it appears as a traditional COM object, which can be used from any environment that can consume COM objects. Learn how to create these wrappers.

Data and Services

Deployment

Windows Programming

Migrate Your Visual Basic 6.0 Application

While Microsoft no longer ships a migration wizard, our partners offer migration tools and solutions. Here are more resources to help answer questions on how to migrate from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET.

Prepare

The first step in a phased migration to .NET is to assess which upgrade strategy is right for you in order to come up with a migration plan.

Migrate

See how to take advantage of .NET in your current VB6 applications. Gradual phased migration is made much easier with the Interop Forms Toolkit, but if a full upgrade is right for you, then check out or partner migration tools.

Test

Debug and test your application compatibility and usability to make sure migration is smooth.

Modernize

Take advantage of the full .NET platform including modern deployment, services integration, rich controls, language productivity features, and much much more.

Guidance

Training

Additional Visual Basic 6.0 Resources

General Topics

  • Visual Basic 6.0 Properties Descriptions and their Settings

    This list of Visual Basic 6.0 form object properties along with descriptions and settings, serves as a handy reference to anyone using Visual Basic 6.0. This material is presented at the beginning of an article comparing Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET objects.

  • Text Box Defaults Add-In Project for Microsoft Publisher 2002

    The Text Box Defaults project is a Visual Basic 6.0 project that can be compiled into a Microsoft Publisher 2002 add-in toolbar. This toolbar allows the user to extract property settings from an existing text box and then create new text boxes with those settings.

  • Creating a 404 Error Tracker with Visual Basic 6.0

    This article will walk you through the steps of building a Visual Basic 6.0 ActiveX dynamic-link library (DLL) that will make it easy and efficient for you to track and prevent 404 (Not Found) errors on your site.

  • Printing Text

    Use the Print method in Visual Basic to print text.

  • Text-To-Speech

    This tutorial will show you how to create a very simple program that will actually speak.

Database Programming

Web Development

Networking

  • Issuing FTP Commands

    The Internet Transfer control will automatically establish an FTP session the first time you execute an FTP command. This table lists the FTP commands for the control.

  • Programming with the Internet Transfer Control

    This article describes a program called the Internet Updater, which demonstrates the use of the Internet Transfer control. The Internet Updater is used to update an application by examining each file in the application and choosing those files that have newer versions.

Embedded VB

  • Getting Started: Microsoft Windows CE Toolkit for Visual Basic 6.0

    This document will walk you through the creation of your first Windows CE application written in Microsoft Visual Basic. We will help you set up an emulation environment and get you up and building your first database application quickly.

  • Microsoft Windows CE Toolkit for Visual Basic 6.0 Guided Tour

    This document will take you on a tour of the features contained in the Windows CE Toolkit for Visual Basic 6.0. You will learn how to create a simple application that is designed on a traditional Windows desktop and executed on a Windows CE device, and how to access data stored in SQL Server.

See Also