Improve Visual Basic 6.0 support in ReactOS

[justincase]

Unfortunately people are going about this backwords, because at the moment there are very few people actually trying VB6 on ReactOS.
The goal for ReactOS is for everything compatible with the currently targeted version of NT (5.2 for now) to run on ReactOS and the developers are working toward that.

Asking the ReactOS Devs to support VB6 is currently a 'vicious cycle', where there's only a few people requesting it, so not much work gets done on it, so nobody bothers to test it.
If you want to break that 'vicious cycle', then rather than having these few people saying "ReactOS should support VB6, this will bring in more people", what needs to happen is for those people to reach out to the VB6 community(/ies) and say "Test VB6 on ReactOS, Submit Bug Reports, Patches welcomed. Let's get VB6 working on ReactOS.", then with the addition of these testers and their results the developers will see the community's desire, as well as have some specific things to work on which will bring them closer to 'supporting' VB6 on ReactOS.

[manuel]

OK, sounds good

[rizalmartin]

I successfully run the VB6 IDE on React OS. I used only Portable Version because VB6 installer is failing due to issue on ACMBOOT.EXE. The IDE is successfully loaded however almost all functionalities does not work unlike on WINE. I try to run a simple precompiled apps written in VB6; a single form with a simple code, a listview, and a date picker. (using MSCOMCTL.OCX and MSCOMCT2.OCX) from command line and GUI. Its successfully run smoothly but sluggish.

[dizt3mp3r]

Very useful.

[swight]

Refering to a few posts back.
In the past Sharpdevelop said no to running on Mono because they had a lot of APIs they depended on that Mono did not support and they pointed to MonoDevelop fulfilling that need. Think it was around this time that they dropped support for building Mono applications as well.

[middings]

Referring to a few posts back.
In the past Sharpdevelop said no to running on Mono...

Milon's post: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13395#p109906

[rizalmartin]

Microsoft was still declined to improve Visual Basic 6.0 compatibility on future Windows releases.

http://windows.uservoice.com/forums/265 ... ith-window

[PurpleGurl]

Maybe we should do so. If we do, then others will have more reason to support ROS. Microsoft didn't listen to them, so why not us? That said, we need to become more usable on real hardware first.

[middings]

I believe justincase's earlier remarks on this topic remain the best response.

Unfortunately people are going about this backwards, because at the moment there are very few people actually trying VB6 on ReactOS.
The goal for ReactOS is for everything compatible with the currently targeted version of NT (5.2 for now) to run on ReactOS and the developers are working toward that.

Justincase went on to suggest that recruiting some new testers, bug report writers, and patch submitters who work on ReactOS's VB6 compatibility might persuade the developers to put VB6 compatibility higher on their own list of ReactOS problems to fix.

I think putting VB6 support on ReactOS ahead of other problems such as better USB support, application installer support, and printer support (to name but three examples) would be a mistake. It would be putting the cart before the horse. VB6 on ReactOS will not be very useful for most VB6 applications until VB6 can install properly, print its output, and use USB printers, storage devices, keyboards, and mice. Also, commercial users of applications written in VB6 will not want to run them on ReactOS as long as ReactOS is alpha level software.

[dizt3mp3r]

Developers more than anyone understand the concept of alpha and beta. I'd be happy to have a proving ground for VB6 development and it would make a real statement to developers about ReactOS usability. There is a massive question over any future MS platform having the VB6 support that is required to run the IDE, compile and run VB6 applications. VB6 apps may run on later versions of the MS o/s but whether the IDE will be usable for bug-fixing and development is the current question on the lips of those who have to do the actual work.

If ReactOS could prove IDE support and a stable compilation environment then it indicates a development platform is possible to all those VB6 devs. A Big Selling Point.

[middings]

I'd be happy to have a proving ground for VB6 development...

Go ahead and make one.

[dizt3mp3r]

That comment was too facetious. You discourage contribution with comments like that. You understand the point.

[Webunny]

That comment was too facetious. You discourage contribution with comments like that. You understand the point.

Granted, but I've seen worse of others.

PR simply ain't the strong department of ROS, and what's worse, they refuse to learn from their mistakes (or more to the point, they refuse to acknowledge it are mistakes in the first place).

Of course, if it's specifically about VB6...it IS a niche, after all. Personally, I have no interest at all in it, so I understand what he's trying to say. If you don't value something, but another does, it's kind of natural to say 'go ahead yourself'. In fact, I wish something like that was said more often (in a more broad, non-VB6) from the higher ups. It would often be enough to get things done. But in most cases, even that isn't allowed.

In any case: don't feel discouraged of contributing. But also don't expect much help from people who see less value in it then you.

[Konata]

This really sounds like a thinly-veiled attempt at piggy backing on the manpower of the ROS devs by asking them to implement something sorta kinda related to Windows. Like others have said, they're not going to be interested in implementing a language that has nothing to do with the actual operating system, especially when the operating system itself is still extremely unfinished. Maybe, just maybe, they might be interested in implementing it, maybe years and years later when ReactOS is actually theoretically "finished", just maybe. But if you don't feel like waiting an undetermined amount of years for something that probably won't happen, you can just work on it yourself. Like it or not, nobody else is going to do it, no matter how much you call us rude for refusing to. What about Mono? Can you not just use Mono for Windows? I know VB.NET and VB6 aren't the same, but VB.NET looks objectively better. It's better than nothing, which is all you're really going to get if you just keep asking other people to do it.

I don't even see what this has to do with ReactOS, you can just use VB.NET for Mono on any OS, Windows or GNU/Linux. And don't give me that excuse that it's good for marketing, nobody cares about Visual Basic besides some chumps that got a degree for it before MS ditched it and pissed them all off, and those people don't care about ROS.

[dizt3mp3r]

No point in involving myself at all as far as I can see.