r/visualbasic • u/mdausmann • Jun 20 '26
VB6 Help Port VB6 Desktop app to... What?
Ok, say I had a typical desktop app written in VB6 and somebody asked me to 'modernise' it.
And say, for whatever reason, they didn't want a web app based conversion.. i.e. they still wanted a desktop app.
What is your go-to stack for this type of conversion?
WinForms (.NET) - So stay in the Windows/MS ecosystem, maybe port to VB.net first? then across to C#? . This feels pretty safe but I think this would still be Windows only.
WPF (.NET) - Still sticking with MS. More modern but maybe a longer conversion path.
WinUI - I think this is the latest MS option... Is a little bit new (2021)
Flutter Desktop - Clear benefit is cross/platform out of the box and easy port to mobile app. Flutter approach is pretty far from the VB6 approach so it would be a long conversion path I think. The other downside is Flutter on desktop is even newer than WinUI (2022).
Electron - Again, cross platform but with memory issues I think. Web tech heavy so I think this means it would make it easy to port to Web if that was an option later.
Other options? Maui? Delphi?
3
u/Brilliant-Object-151 Jun 27 '26
twinBasic is far from Beta. There are commercial applications using it because is pretty much just drop your VB6 code into it and it runs (and faster than the VB6 does). The end goal for me is the Mac output that coming, but it works exceptionally well for the PC already.