porting over VB6 to QB64PE (and VB6 IDE that runs in browser & modern Windows )

[Kernelpanic]

I don't have Visual Studio; I have Visual Basic Enterprise Studio Version 5. When I start it, it just displays a message about a missing class builder, but otherwise everything works fine.



As I see, Visual Studio 6 is would to install Visual J++ as well. At that time, MS was still shipping Java from Sun Microsystems, which ended in a dispute and a lawsuit that Scotty McNeal ultimately lost. That was the end of Java applets, and thus the end of Java on the desktop.
I doubt you actually have Java installed. Check it on the command line; you should see a message like this.

[madscijr]

Okay, well I never had it install J++ back in the day and I won't now. The Java components it asks for are not for that, those are for the installer itself, it has always required that to be installed or the setup does not proceed to the point where you can select components. I guess Microsoft included additional dependencies with Visual Studio 6 that your Visual Basic Enterprise Studio Version 5 didn't rely on. Oh well. Thanks for the history lesson on Java and Windows. Tech companies and their lawsuits give me a headache, now more than ever, LoL. In these days of companies like Google buying up patents and patent trolls it's a wonder any innovation or inventing gets done at all. Anyway, I'm good, the VB6 is up and running on the old laptop. Cheers

[hsiangch_ong]

what's qt you ask?

https://www.qt.io

they seem to be related to kde.  which even before plasma desktop they have tried to make a desktop that looked like windowsxp as much as possible.  down to konqueror which was an imitation of internet explorer.  plasma then sought to capture enough people used to windows7, windows10 and so far windows11.

if it weren't for the hefty iso's.  i would have slightly suggested for someone to try lubuntu.  or fedora "kinonite".  those are only two outstanding examples of what could be done with qt.

the trade-off is that it requires knowledge of really tedious c++ and object-oriented programming.  maybe python and rust too.  which is not what a hobbyist might be looking for.  which causes him/her to choose visual basic.

[madscijr]

That's interesting that they try to emulate Windows because with every Linux distro I've tried, the first thing that bugs me, that I miss from Windows, is the desktop - the feel of how the mouse grabs things, being able to press the Start button on my keyboard and just start typing, all the file explorer keyboard shortcuts, the right-click menus, everything. Every couple years I google what's the best Linux distro for Windows user - Zorin, Mint, Ununtu, etc. I've tried them and nope, not even close. And whenever I try to explain what's missing to Linux users, they talk about how configurable it is, and how you can make Linux look and feel like and do ANYTHING, and when I look it up, the rabbit hole goes deeper and deeper and hours get spent just trying to figure out how to customize one thing, and it doesn't even work. I have limited time and am not the greatest at tedious details or the quickest study at these kinds of things, so Windows is where I stay. You mentioned C++... here's me when I hear C++, LoL!!