Get VB Free

Visual Basic - Control Creation Edition

A FREE VERSION OF VISUAL BASIC ?! IMPOSSIBLE!

Not true. Microsoft has released a fully functionally version of Visual Basic 5.0 that you, or anyone can download and use free of charge or royalty fees. This version of Visual Basic is called the "Control Creation Edition".

But you ask, "Why would Microsoft simply give away a powerful tool like VB?" The answer is simple... it's in their best interest to do so. The reason that this version of VB was released was to give ANYONE a way to create fully functionally ActiveX controls for use on the internet. VB CCE does just that. Once people create these ActiveX controls and put them on the internet, the only way to effectively use them is to use the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser version 4.x or better. No other browser will effectively understand and work with ActiveX controls like IE.

What's the catch ?

There's got to be a catch right, there always is... right? Yup, actually there is. The catch to using this version of Visual Basic is that you are not allowed to compile stand alone executable (.EXE) programs, and you are not allowed to work with database objects. This effectively rules this version of VB out as a professional tool for software development... VB Professional or Enterprise Edition are what you're looking at for that. However, for the average user that's just getting into Visual Basic, and/or wants to create ActiveX controls for the internet or their own use... or if you simply want to mess around with coding in VB... this version will work just fine for you.

IS VB CCE compatible with VB 5 & 6 ?

Yes... to a point. Like I said in the last paragraph, you are not allowed to work with data objects... so projects imported into VB CCE from VB 5 or 6 that have them won't work for that reason. There may also be a few minor things that VB 6 allows you to do that VB CCE won't, but for the most part, you could create an entire project in VB CCE, save it, then go to a system that has a real version of VB 5 or 6 and compile it to an .EXE.

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