Problem with VBDOS (Visual BASIC for DOS)

[cardpi]

Hi,

I've a problem for using Microsoft VBDOS 1.00 inside a windows XP Pro SP3 VM.
When I try to load a project (.mak) which uses 3 modules .BAS, VBDOS freezes with the message loading in progress "chargement et analyse en cours" but nothing is loaded and I need to kill the process to exit !
Of cource my source code uses a lot of subroutines so I need EMS memory.
VBDOS is running without any problem with XP Pro SP3.
I've the same amount of EMS Memory and a little bit more of conventional memory in the VM (566704 rather than 560288).

Is anybody have seen this problem before ?
Maybe I'am the only user of VBDOS !

I'm using the last version of virtualbox (4.1.14).
Thank in advance
Regards
B.PICARD

[mpack]

You probably need to enable VT-x in the VM, after making sure it's enabled in your host PC's BIOS.

[michaln]

You probably need to enable VT-x in the VM, after making sure it's enabled in your host PC's BIOS.

Or turn off hardware virtualization. Or maybe neither will help.

To OP: Yes, it's possible you're the only user of VBDOS - that's a very old product which was never very popular to begin with. Since we don't have VBDOS, I don't think there's much we can do about it.

[ScottyT]

You are not the only one using VBDOS 1.00. We use it here to support some legacy software written in Quick Basic and Microsoft PDS Basic 7.1 and mostly all run now and developed and supported by using VBDOS 1.00 which has the most "advanced features" of any of the languages.

[michaln]

But... does it work in a VM?

[ScottyT]

You are NOT the only ones using VBDOS. It was the only "upgrade" path for an application that was written in Quick Basic and Microsoft PDS Basic 7.1. We currently are doing the development on a Windows XP virtual machine. I was wondering if anyone has got the complier to work under Windows 7? The IDE seems to work fine and the BC complier works fine (Creates the OBJ file) but the LINKer fails with the error NTVDM.EXE has stopped working. Anyone have any ideas?

[ScottyT]

Just saw this. We use VBDOS 1.00 here too! Same reason. We support a large legacy program that uses character mode. There are some VB6 modules too (and some .net) in order to produce output of Windows printers and such. We have even rewritten the "menu" system used in the application to run under vb.net console mode with the idea that we can convert to vb.net and keep the same interface. The entire project is a collection of 100 or so individual program "connected" together via RUN.

The issue we have discovered is when trying to run under Windows 7 32-bit. We have the same issue as ScottyT. The BC complier works but not LINK. Anyone have any suggestions? We would like to run the VBDOS under Windows so we can have our VBDOS, VB6 and VB.NET all on the same development platform.

[mpack]

Just saw this.

But apparantly didn't read it! You already had a "me too" comment in 2015, and then again in 2017. The OP himself has not returned since 2012. You mention having "the same issue as ScottyT"... it would be amazing if you didn't since ScottyT is yourself. How did you not recognize your own name?

Normally with a pattern this weird I suspect spamming.

To recap: the OPs problem is probably that he was running 16bit code in an XP VM, 16bit code can be badly behaved and difficult to virtualize. Such problems may be reduced if VT-x is available and enabled on the host. Otherwise there is nothing we can tell you about Visual Basic - a Microsoft forum would be a better place for that discussion.