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Started By
Message
Help running an old Visual Basic program in Windows 7/8/10
Posted on 10/28/15 at 2:36 pm
Posted on 10/28/15 at 2:36 pm
About 17 years ago, my dad wrote a small specialized program for his friend who owns a steel company. It was compiled in VB4. For god-knows-how-long, they company has been running the program on a single PC with Windows XP.
They're wanting to have it run on their other PCs that run Win 7, or at the very least, upgrade their dedicated machine.
Obviously, this VB4 program does not run on anything past XP. I'm assuming it's a 16-bit program. The first attempt to open it throws an error about missing VB40032.DLL. Easily found and downloaded. Then, the error moved to a missing OCX file. As I tracked down and downloaded these files, the error moved on to another missing file until, finally, the program opened. Only problem is, it's not usable. You can input measurements/angles, but it doesn't calculate or export files like it should. No error message, either... just doesn't respond to any request to calculate/save/export/etc. (Also, I have tried running it in compatibility mode).
My coding knowledge is super limited as it is, and nonexistent regarding 17-year-old code. My dad, of course, remembers little to nothing about it as well. So without any error messages to hold my hand, I've hit a wall.
The first "solution" that comes to mind is a virtual machine. They'd probably be fine with it, but it doesn't exactly accomplish the goal of getting away from XP on a network that I presume is full of Windows 7 machines.
So, anyone out there know how to recompile a VB4 program with a less-old version of VB? Not sure if it's "that simple" or not, but from a few Google searches it appears VB6 and higher will work. I know that the company is willing to pay a fair fee for this.
They're wanting to have it run on their other PCs that run Win 7, or at the very least, upgrade their dedicated machine.
Obviously, this VB4 program does not run on anything past XP. I'm assuming it's a 16-bit program. The first attempt to open it throws an error about missing VB40032.DLL. Easily found and downloaded. Then, the error moved to a missing OCX file. As I tracked down and downloaded these files, the error moved on to another missing file until, finally, the program opened. Only problem is, it's not usable. You can input measurements/angles, but it doesn't calculate or export files like it should. No error message, either... just doesn't respond to any request to calculate/save/export/etc. (Also, I have tried running it in compatibility mode).
My coding knowledge is super limited as it is, and nonexistent regarding 17-year-old code. My dad, of course, remembers little to nothing about it as well. So without any error messages to hold my hand, I've hit a wall.
The first "solution" that comes to mind is a virtual machine. They'd probably be fine with it, but it doesn't exactly accomplish the goal of getting away from XP on a network that I presume is full of Windows 7 machines.
So, anyone out there know how to recompile a VB4 program with a less-old version of VB? Not sure if it's "that simple" or not, but from a few Google searches it appears VB6 and higher will work. I know that the company is willing to pay a fair fee for this.
4
Posted on 10/28/15 at 2:49 pm to ILikeLSUToo
It's time for your dad's friend to invest in the software again.
Posted on 10/28/15 at 2:52 pm to ILikeLSUToo
It's certainly doable, the real question is do you have the source code available?
If you have access to the source this can be done quite easily.
If you have access to the source this can be done quite easily.
Posted on 10/28/15 at 3:09 pm to moneyg
quote:
It's time for your dad's friend to invest in the software again.
As I said, the company's willing to pay to make it run on 64-bit Win 7 and up (the "and up" part is also an unknown for me -- I'm not 100% sure if they're on anything other than Win 7, nor am I sure whether Win 8 or 10 drops support for old runtimes that Win 7 supports). Whether it's a matter of recompiling it into a newer version of VB or making significant but necessary rewrites to the code. I figure someone here might be a developer or know one who's familiar with this, rather than tell me something I already know.
To be honest, the program seems so simple that I would not be surprised if there existed plenty of more robust programs that could be tailored to the company's needs. In fact, the calculations are nothing an excel sheet couldn't do instantly, though I'm unsure of what would be needed to produce the resulting diagram and export the parameters to the file format that's read by their industrial machine/fabricator/whatever. But that's not what I've been asked to look into anyway, and I seriously doubt they'd even entertain the notion until literally all other avenues are exhausted.
Posted on 10/28/15 at 3:16 pm to musick
quote:
It's certainly doable, the real question is do you have the source code available?
If you have access to the source this can be done quite easily.
Awesome. My dad does have the source code. Maybe... because it's apparently on floppy and who knows how much degradation it's suffered (it's like a 90s tech thriller, where super-important data is stored on one physical medium with zero redundancy for some reason). I'm ordering a USB floppy drive, and he's bringing the floppy to me when he comes back in town for Thanksgiving.
Assuming we do have the source code, would you be up for the job? Or, if it's simple enough to show me how to do it, I'm always up for learning something new.
This post was edited on 10/28/15 at 3:17 pm
Posted on 10/28/15 at 3:20 pm to ILikeLSUToo
Unless the program uses obsolete and unobtainable ActiveX components for critical functionality, the program can likely be recompiled in VB6 if source is available. Would be a fun project.
Posted on 10/28/15 at 3:21 pm to ILikeLSUToo
If you have the source code then it seems like all you'd need is a copy of VB6 and I guess to update any outdated commands.
This post was edited on 10/28/15 at 3:23 pm
Posted on 10/28/15 at 9:03 pm to ILikeLSUToo
A decompiler will reverse engineer the executable to get human recognizable code.
UTILITY PAGE LINK
DECOMPILER ZIP FILE
I have other links if this does not work.
If you go looking on your own, Norton has red flagged www.woodmann.com as being unsafe!
Edit:
P.S. Once you decompile the executable and learn what the individual steps are, you can rewrite the program in any language. If the company no longer uses VB, you can write the new program in any language they support.
UTILITY PAGE LINK
quote:
Dodi's Decompiler
This is a pretty old program used to decompile 16 bit visual basic. VB 3.0 and below. Might be able to decompile VB4.0 16bit. But I do not know.
DECOMPILER ZIP FILE
I have other links if this does not work.
If you go looking on your own, Norton has red flagged www.woodmann.com as being unsafe!
Edit:
P.S. Once you decompile the executable and learn what the individual steps are, you can rewrite the program in any language. If the company no longer uses VB, you can write the new program in any language they support.
This post was edited on 10/28/15 at 10:50 pm
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