As time goes old software simply stop working. In most cases you can find a newer version to use, but when it comes to old tools like Visual Basic 6 Enterprise Edition, they are not so easy to replace.
I was asked to do some minor changes to an old (5-10 years) calculation program. By installing Visual Basic 6 ended up getting my Windows XP SP2 all messed up, so I eventually used more time to setup the IDE than for actually doing the code change! As the code changes I was asked to do were minor, it was difficult to justify to the customer why the complex application should be rewritten using modern tools.
After some struggling I got the old VB installed on a virtual machine. To help other facing the same problem, here is how:
1. Visual Basic 6 Enterprise Edition requires that Microsoft Java Virtual Machine 4 or later is installed. The setup might try to install the old version but fail. As Microsoft ended the support for MSJVM in June 2009 the only place to get the setup files are from some unofficial sites like the DMT homepage. Note that you might find the build 3810 from many places, but you will first need to install the older 3805 build!
2. Before running the setup first copy all the files from the CD on to your local hard drive. I don’t know the reason to why this is required.
3. The setup won’t start if you are running XP with a 32 bit color mode, so create a shortcut pointing to the setup executable and from the compatibility options turn on the Windows 95 compatibility mode and set the display settings to 256 colors.
4. When the setup starts, go through the wizard pages and make sure to uncheck every component (e.g. DCOM 98) you do not explicitly need!
You will most likely get some ActiveX and ADO errors during the installation, but eventually Visual Basic 6 should appear in your start menu and work.
If these steps did not do the trick, try disabling the Windows DEP (Data Execution Prevention). The easiest way to do this is by editing your C:\boot.ini and setting the /noexecute value to alwaysoff. If your firewall has a ISP (Intrustion Prevention) functionality, disable it.
Developer's Dump 