VB6 Install Recipe for Windows 10

This was put together from various bits of information I found on the web and a little of my own experimenting. The key was to edit the .stf file of vb6 setup files. It is sort of like an early .msi format called acme setup. You can change it to effectively select options automatically and skip various parts of the installation that don't work for Windows 10+.

The custom .stf file inlcuded here removes VSS and some other tools from the install. I don't totally recall all the options I removed. Once I got it working, I stopped while I was ahead. You can compare it with the original stf file in the vb6 setup files using a diff tool if you really care to see the changes.

Installing

This script assumes you have the VB6 Enterprise .iso and Service Pack 6 exe. Both seem to only be available via https://my.visualstudio.com with Microsoft's Dev Essentials subscription or similar.

Option 1 - Local installs

Note: Docker does not support iso mounting so if your intent to run it in a docker container you must use option 2 below.

1. Open the Service Pack iso and extract the Vs6sp6B.exe file to this project directory on your machine
2. Extract/Copy the vb6 cd1 iso to the same directory. Be sure it's named en_vb6_ent_cd1.iso or edit the vb6setup.ps1 script to indicate a different filename.
3. Edit the vb6setup.ps1 file and provide a valid vb6 product key on line 1.

At the very least, you should run the script from a directory with the following files:

  vb6setup.ps1
  vb98ent-custom.stf
  Vs6sp6B.exe
  en_vb6_ent_cd1.iso

Run

1. Open a powershell terminal in Administrator mode.
2. Navigate to the directory with the files in it. <-- important. The script looks in the current directory for files.
3. Run > .\vb6setup.ps1.

Option 2 - Docker

Note: These steps are mainly for Docker but could be performed locally. Local install will require administrator mode in the terminal

1. Open the Service Pack iso and extract the Vs6sp6B.exe file to this project directory on your machine (it exists in the language folders of the iso eg. \en-US for US english installer).
2. Extract/Copy the contents of the vb6 cd1 iso to a directory called vb6 within the project directory. The script will look for the setup exe in that location. If it finds it, it will skip the step of extracting files out of the iso for you. Note: this is different from local installs because we cannot mount .iso files in docker.
3. Edit the vb6setup.ps1 file and provide a valid vb6 product key on line 1.
4. Optional: Inspect and modify the Dockerfile as needed.

At the very least, you should run the script from a directory with the following files:

  vb6setup.ps1
  vb98ent-custom.stf
  Vs6sp6B.exe
- vb6/
    IsoFilesHere

Run

1. Open a powershell terminal
2. Navigate to the directory with the files in it. <-- important. The script looks in the current directory for files.
3. For docker image building -- run docker build. For local install -- run > .\vb6setup.ps1.

Customizing the VB6 components installed

The STF file mentioned at the top of the readme controls the VB6 install. I think the main thing is to remove 'yes' from some of the high-level items you don't want. I actually removed some of the references to various STF entries instead, but that that was done before I knew to use /b 2 (Custom install) instead of /b 1 (Typical install) in the acmsetup.exe args within the script. It worked anyway so I quit while I was ahead. There may be options you want that I excluded in which case you should copy the original from vb6/Setup/vb98ent.stf to vb98ent-custom.stf and delete the 'yes' for options you don't want. Understand however that some options that I have not specifically identified will cause the install to hang.

More on the stf file format here: https://fileformats.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft_ACME_Setup

Troubleshooting

I've only tested this on Windows 10 Pro. I tried to put comments in the script to document what it does. If you create your own .stf, common problems are that the setup hangs toward the end when installing particular optional components. I'm not sure which specific ones are problematic but some SO and forum discussions indicated it is some of the Data Access components.