Opening vbp Visual Basic Project - visual-studio

I have got some old sources written in Visual Basic. There are *.bas, *.cls, *.frm and *.vbp files. As I understand, vbp is a project file. But I cannot open it with my Visual Studio 2008.
What version of VS should I install to open *.vbp file? Google says it is Visual Studio 6, but I am not sure and I cannot find Visual Studio 6 for downloading. Is there any publicly available free edition of Visual Studio 6 with Visual Basic?
Thanks.

vbp is indeed a VB 5/6 Project File.
VS6/VB5/VB6 are not free, so if you want to build the project you will need to spend $5 on ebay.
The VB5 Control Creation Edition (build COM components only) was the only free version MS released.
Older versions of VS.net included a way to import a VBP and upgrade it to VB.NET, but YMMV (significantly).
Edit; If you just want to look at the source/project structure all the files except .frx are plain ascii.

If you have an MSDN subscription, then VB6 is available as a free download. Otherwise try ebay like Alex suggests, but it usually costs significantly more than $5.

Microsoft recommends users get a 3rd party conversion program called ArtinSoft,
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ff793478

When opening the vbp file which is the project file, you will most likely have an import wizard show up, which after trying to import the project it will likely tell you there are a bunch of dependencies vb6 used to use which .net does not and will error out. You need to have vb5/6 installed or at least the dependency files installed in order to proceed with the import. You can view source code from the plain ascii text files of the .frM files.

To get a working copy of visual basic follow the following steps.
after much research I found out that the original Vb6 was distributed as a disk set, all CD's are just ISO files built up of folders and files. You can get a copy of an original ISO here. There is a google drive version floating around on the web of the ISO but personally that just seems really sketchy to me.
https://winworldpc.com/product/microsoft-visual-bas/60
in order to use the ISO you will need to unzip the ISO with WinRar, so download a copy of WinRar (its a widely used file archiver tool)
follow the install instructions here https://youtu.be/LXvd8IRw_ZI
"How to Install Visual Basic 6.0 on Windows 7/8/8.1/10" by "Matthew Marcelo"
** be sure to run the installation as administrator ** .\Micrsosoft Visual Basic 6.0\extracted\SETUP.EXE
after getting everything installed I realized I needed a copy of the MSDN library (version October 1999) which is the developer documentation for using VB6, that is found here https://winworldpc.com/product/msdn/october-1999
--
if you are like me and had to get VB6 working because of a very old legacy project and you had no clue what .OCX (controller) files were, and you got a bunch of error messages when you open the main project .VBP file, when you get ahold of the files and install them, installing them as admin usually does the trick by making a batch file, or running an administrator powershell/cmd window
regsvr32.exe \path\to\file.ocx

you need Visual Basic, not Visual Studio to open these files. or you can open it using a normal text editor like sublime text file separately. but if you want to open it like a project then you should use Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 / 5.0 . There is a portable version too.
If you still want to open .vbp file using visual studio try to use VB tools for Visual Studio. I think it will help you.

Related

Force extension installation in Visual Studio

We're working in quite a large project and is having a hard time getting people to configure their Visual Studio correct (tabs instead of spaces etc.). We found a great solution in using the EditorConfig extension for Visual Studio.
However there are still some developers that seems to ignore our request to install this extension to their Visual Studio and hence I'm wondering if there is any way to force an extension to be installed before a solution can be opened, maybe some setting in the .sln file?
No there is no such option built-in. If your machines are domain joined, you could push out the installer through System Center or domain logon scripts.
You could cheat and create a solution level pre-build step. Create a target file named: before.{solutionname.sln}.targets and store it next to your solution file. Check it into source control. In the targets file you can use standard MsBuild to see if the extension is installed (you'll need to check the file system probably) and if not present force the installation by calling vsixinstaller.exe to trigger the install.

Deploy a VSPackage to create a new project type using Setup Project

I create a new custom project type using a VSPackage project inheriting of MPF library (http://mpfproj11.codeplex.com/). As a result I obtain a .vsix but I need add this project type using a .msi. I'm using the Visual Studio 2010 Setup projet for it. In my setup project I add the content of the VS Package in the same directory where the .vsix put then, but I think Ineed to put in the registre the new type of project because when I use the setup , the project template does not come out in Visual Studio and when I give double click the file with extension of the type of new project and does not recognize it. When I look the registry after install the vsix, this was one of the things that I found diferent. I add this entries in my setup project but It's not working yet.I'm missing something else?
In the projecttemplatedir is the directory where I put the .dll of the project type, the vsixmifest and pkgdef. The project template is in [User]\Documents\Visual Studio 2013\Templates\ProjectTemplates\[Name of new Project Type]\[projecttemplate.zip]
Best Regards
PS: The project type is for VS 2013 but I'm using the VS 2010 Setup project ;)
OK, so first the "don't"s of doing this:
In general, if you are installing via MSI you shouldn't be doing anything user-specific -- no writing in HKEY_CURRENT_USER, nor writing within their Documents folder, LocalAppData, or Visual Studio folders, etc. If you see yourself writing files or registry keys in either of those places, that should be your hint that there's a better way to do what you're trying to do. For what you've shown so far, this raises more than a few red flags for me.
Second, don't ever go writing keys into 12.0_Config. That part of the hive is nothing more than a cache that's built up from other parts of the registry and on-disk .pkgdef files from extensions. It's rebuilt in any number of senarios, including installing new extensions. Any writes there you should presume will get blown away at any time. If you need to write things there you should either (a) write in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\[version] and run devenv /setup or (2) [preferred] put your keys in a .pkgdef inside your extension which gets merged into 12.0_Config for you automatically.
Now the dos:
You said you already had a .vsix produced by the SDK: you can put project templates in there. You can then register those templates in the .vsixmanifest and those will pull in. That's far easier than mucking around with files in Documents -- that's the user's directory...don't go playing with that.
Once you have a .vsix that does most of what you need, you should simply take the files within that and install the files in a folder within C:\Program Files [(x86)]\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions. Even better, you might just want to WiX toolset to build your installer, since it has built-in support for installing extensions. It also has built-in support for invoking the "/setup" process if that's what you need to do as well. Visual Studio Setup projects are no longer supported in newer versions of Visual Studio, so you're better off starting with a technology that isn't already obsolete. WiX is even what we use at Microsoft to do the setup work for Visual Studio itself, so it's definitely up to the task.
Last point: almost everything when it comes to Visual Studio extensibility can be done with a VSIX directly, so presume there's a good way to do something that way before falling back to an MSI. Internally, we can register the entire C# and VB language services with just a VSIX -- they're quite powerful.
I found the answer in this link Registering Project and Item Templates. I set projecttemplatedir entry with
[User]\Documents\Visual Studio 2013\Templates\ProjectTemplates[Name of new Project Type][projecttemplate.zip] that is where i put the project template.

"This project is incompatible with the current version of Visual Studio"

I was getting the below message from Visual Studio 2010.
"This project is incompatible with the current version of Visual Studio"
One situation resulting in this error has already been posted here at Stackoverflow, but that question has been closed. I'm thinking it's a fairly generic problem. Since I have found a "solution", I'll post this question, and my solution as an answer.
If the message
This project is incompatible with the current version of Visual Studio
is due to an attempt to open a project targeting .Net 4.5, then the "solution" or workaround is to edit the .csproj file and change the TargetFrameworkVersion from "v4.5" to "v4.0". That at least allows the project to be loaded, although it may result in compiler errors if the program is dependent on 4.5 features.
VS 2012 has different project type support based on what you install at setup time and which edition you have. Certain options are available, e.g. web development tools, database development tools, etc. So if you're trying to open a web project but the web development tools weren't installed, it complains with this message.
This can happen if you create the project on another machine and try to open it on a new one. I figured it out trying to open an MVC project after I accidentally uninstalled the web tools.
I just got the same error message with a couple projects after installing Visual Studio 2015 Update 3. For me, the solution was to install .NET Core
In my case it was an incompatible Project Type. Editing project file and removing ProjectTypeGuids node resolved the issue of loading the project (I had already re-targeted the framework version as advised here).
Probably the project type is not supported in the (most likely) NEW version of VS, so you will have to adjust (update) the code to work properly (if possible), but at least you can see the content through VS.
I Resolved the issue by deleting the files in the below folder
%localappdata%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\ComponentModelCache
Source: https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/70388/how-to-fix-incompatible-issue-after-visual-studio-2015-update-3
As for me, I realized there was another web project in the solution that my VS2017 was loading fine, so I copied over the ProjectTypeGuids element of it over to the project that wasn't loading. Its diff was:
- <ProjectTypeGuids>{E3E379DF-F4C6-4180-9B81-6769533ABE47};{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21};{fae04ec0-301f-11d3-bf4b-00c04f79efbc}</ProjectTypeGuids>
+ <ProjectTypeGuids>{349c5851-65df-11da-9384-00065b846f21};{fae04ec0-301f-11d3-bf4b-00c04f79efbc}</ProjectTypeGuids>
After this, it loads. Don't ask me why.
If you are getting the same error for a project which is actually an extension (.vsix), installing Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 SDK does the trick.
Go to tools -> Extensions and updates -> Online -> Search for project installer -> download
And relaunch Visual studio.
After installing Update 3 for Visual Studio 2015, I suddenly got the "This project is incompatible with the current version of Visual Studio" error message while opening my Cordova project (.jsproj Javascript project file)
To solve this:
Go to Programs & Features
Select the Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 installation and click Change
Click Modify
Install "HTML/Javascript (Apache Cordova) Update 10" of the Cross Platform Mobile Development section
For me, I got this same error in VS 2015 and just installed the VS 2015 update 1, though from another answer, VS is actually up to Update 3, now (after which, they got the error and had to install .NET Core). Had issues when it hit certain packages, like the Windows SDK ones, and had to point the installer back at the paths in my original CD, and for some, even that didn't work and had to skip them and re-download from an internet-connected computer, transfer them over, and run them later manually (computer was not connected to the internet to be able to download updated versions of the packages), but after doing all that and doing a reboot, the error was gone and my project loaded fine.
I had this issue and after hours of uninstalling and reinstalling I found out the issue in my instance.
The reason why I got this was down to the fact that I didn't have the correct extension.
In my case the ASP.net project (my startup) was the incompatible project and this was because I didn't have the following:
Microsoft ASP.NET and Web Tools
Micrsoft ASP.NET Web Frameworks and Tools
It was a simple case of going into extensions and updates under the Tools menu
I had this error and found it was due to the presence an 'Import' XML tag inside the .csproj.user file. Once I removed it, Visual Studio could open the project again.
What most people forget it is that the files of visual studio are just text files, that have some peculiars configurations that will show to the program how to open it. that is, we can change this because it's just a text in some file in there in your project folders.
Well, knowing this, what we have to do is very simple!
The first step is knowing what kind of project it is this project that stay unload. (for example: Class Library)
The Second step is create a new one (Class Library) because you know that your visual studio will create a version supported by himself. Unload this one and click in "Edit csproj".
It's in this file that we can found the configuration that tell to VS how this proj will be loaded and his name is ProjectGuid, this serial number has a variation according the type and version of project.
Now, look at your "ok project", copy the "ProjectGuid" TAG, paste on csproj that unloaded, and pay attention to the little differences and make this files almost equals, except for the tags ItemGroup that represent the references of the project.
Doing that, save all files and close your VS and open again, now your project should load normally.
I hope that this informations help somebody to understand a bit more how the VS works and help solve the problems when necessary.
I checked if i could create a new solution and was unable because SSAS,SSIS and SSRS weren't there as options.
I downloaded SSDT from here and installed and it worked...
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssdt/download-sql-server-data-tools-ssdt?view=sql-server-2017
In case you came here looking for the issue with ".smproj" file, it is because you are missing SQL Server Analysis Services(SSAS). To over come this, install SQL Server Data Tools(SSDT) in your system, restart your Visual Studio and it will work.
Thanks.
This is my answer, I think it's useful. Please follow below steps:
1.First check your Visual studio version is 2012, 2015 or 2017 etc.
2.Your project is developed in 2015, but your visual studio 2012, then visual studio 2012 should not open the which are developed in visual studio 2015 projects.
3.If developed project visual studio 2012 and you have visual studio 2012, open the project but here need to check one option as per below
a) Target Framework - Open your project ".csproj" file with notepad++ and search with "TargetFrameworkVersion" and observe target framework value.
b) Open any existing project in your visual studio - Select project at 'Solution Explorer' - Right click - Properties - Application -Select Target Framework - Observe highest your framework which you have
c) 3.a and 3.b frameworks both are should same otherwise applications are not open
d)If your target framework less than the project framework should install the latest's
e) above options do not work just Simply have another option modify the "TargetFrameworkVersion" value in '.csproj' file which is have in your visual studio.
Ex: in my visual studio target framework 4.0 but in '.csproj' file have TargetFrameworkVersion - 4.5, You need just change 4.5 to 4.0 and open the project
This issue might be caused when using VS 2015 with Update 3 installed on one PC and without update 3 installed on another. This was the problem in my case.

Why can't Visual Studio 2008 locate afxcontrolbars.h?

I have installed VS 2008. When I try to build a project, I am getting an error saying:
Cannot open include file: 'afxcontrolbars.h': No such file or directory
So, I guess I need to have ribbon controls installed for this. Could you please tell me where the SDK is available for download? A link would be very helpful; I googled for it myself, but I could not find it. :(
This seems like a weird problem to me. afxcontrolbars.h is certainly included in a standard VS 2008 installation. The only way you might be missing MFC components is if you installed the Express version, which doesn't come with support for MFC.
The first thing I would do is check to see if I could create and compile a brand new, blank MFC app using one of the built-in templates. If that works, there's something wrong with your project's properties.
Also check manually in the \Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\atlmfc\include directory to see if you can locate the header file before you try to manually re-install the platform SDK. It may be as simple as Visual Studio not being able to locate the file. To remedy that, open the Options dialog, expand the "Projects and Solutions" tree, select "VC++ Directories", select "Win32" and "Include files" from the combo boxes at the top, and ensure that $(VCInstallDir)atlmfc\include is included in the list:
Of course, the ribbon control (and other ribbon-specific items) weren't added to VS 2008 until the MFC Feature Pack. You will need to download and install that in order to compile applications that take advantage of those features in VS 2008. You can download the Feature Pack here for free.
I have VS2008 on a Win7 64 bit machine.
In my case the include files where installed in the c:\program(x86) folder, but VS was installed in c:\program.
By changing the path to the "hardcoded" path
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\atlmfc\include
it now works!

Using Visual Studio (Express) as a Script Editor proxy

I'd like to:
start a new instance of visual studio
set up a project with a bunch of custom references
create a single source code file (*.vb and *.cs both need to work)
detect changes made to this file (i.e. when Save is used from VS)
This will hopefully allow me to provide my users with a good source code editor for when they write VB or C# 'scripts' in my app. All they should have to do is install VS (Express).
Is this possible? Where do I start? There's a lot of information out there about the VS API and SDK and it makes it very hard to find what I'm looking for.
Currently still writing code in VS 2008 for .NET 2.0, cannot upgrade to a .NET 4.0 for a while.
you can do this without the VS api; you can launch VS with the project/solution/source file as an argument (use devenv /? to see options) and have your app check the modified time of the file: when this time changes, it means the file was saved.

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