Last Updated
6th March 2021

Update 2021. These legacy pages have been temporarily revived. The downloadable code may contain bugs which have not yet been resolved. The product must not be used in a production environment. If I can find time I will look at updating the code and providing a new release late 2021

VB5 and VB6 are still excellent languages to work with and there still remains an active and enthusiastic user-base (including myself!). There are also many Windows/Linux cross-platform BASIC equivalents or derivatives available, including projects such as FreeBASIC. However the VB5 is  lacking in certain areas - in particular, writing console-mode apps in VB5 is a pain. These deficiencies can be made up for by writing your own library functions in VB itself but this can be difficult to implement. Many VB programmers may also find difficult to replicate certain functionality in VB without knowing how to translate "C" source code. Interfacing with a DLL offers gains in all areas and can bring significant speed-improvements. This DLL project provides many routines written for tight execution in "C". They can sometimes execute hundreds of times faster than natively compiled VB code.

This is a tiny, pure "C" DLL as provided with commercial programs rather than a messy ActiveX DLL developed in VB. Function calls are easy, fast and transparent and the DLL requires NO ActiveX system registration using regsvr32.exe. Just copy to your system, add the BAS definition file and use it with your VB program.

Not Just VB Either!

VBToolbox isn't just limited to use only with Visual BASIC, it can add BASIC-like functionality to C/C++ programs and any language which can connect to external DLLs can use this library, benefiting from VB6-like functions such as Join, Filter, StrSplit, Tokenise, Qsort, etc to handle Variant arrays.. This would include more recent versions of VB DotNet, "C" or C++ compilers, C#, Delphi as well as scripting languages such as AutoIT.

The LIB linker file and declaration headers are available on request for "C"/C++ developers who wish to use the DLL (just ask). I have used the library with RTFCrypt which was written in VC++ v5.0.

The latest version of this library offers around 330 new functions and commands which are commonly implemented in VB code or called via the API but which can now be called directly from a DLL as if they were native VB commands. More are planned with an anticipated total of around 350 new features with a target size of about 90kb. Some of the bundled library functions have been used in a separate DLL for use with SendMail for Windows and have performed reliably over time. This project is intended for home users and hobbyists and should be subjected to thorough testing before being used outside that scope. It is not intended for commercial use.

I use the library for my own projects and am keen to ensure VBToolbox supports legacy versions of the Windows "NT" family, particularly NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, both of which now make an superb USB and VM-friendly O/S when run inside a secure host. You may wish to check out the freeware QEMU VM/PC emulator project

More information on calling VBToolbox from C/C++ and other languages is available here Calling VBToolbox from C/C++

A complete DLL-wrapper and VB5-compatible version of the latest SQLite is available More details here ...

Quick Install

If you want to just try-out and play with the supplied VB project there is no need to copy the DLL to your system folder. Simply unzip the supplied project to a convenient directory and run mslibtest.exe or load the VB project by clicking on project1.vbp. You need VB 5.0 or VB 6.0 in order to use the project.

If you want to use the DLL on a system-wide basis, simply copy the DLL (MSLIB145.DLL) to your \Windows\System32 directory. You may need to have the Microsoft Visual C++ Library DLL (msvcrt.dll) also in the same directory. The chances are that you have it already. If not it is freely available and there is a link to it on this page.

Using VBToolbox Within Visual BASIC

To make the VBToolbox functionality available from within your own VB projects simply drag and drop mslib145.bas into the project tree. You can then use the functions listed below. Alternatively, go to the project explorer tree, right-click on it then select, Add->Module, Existing Tab, and browse for mslib145.bas. There is no need to edit the included module, indeed, it is highly-recommended that the declarations for each specific version of mslib145.dll not be changed in any way.

IMPORTANT: Version Control

Because VBToolbox is under active development the interface may change over time. Version-control features are provided to help manage problems arising from this and to ensure that applications work with the correct version of the DLL. Ensure you have the correct DLL for any application you are using. You may need to put specific versions of the DLL in application folders instead of the system folder for older versions of test and demonstration code to work.

Documentation

The library is documented in this 180+ page PDF manual

Bug Reports and Feedback Constructive feedback and bug reports (with useful information) are always appreciated Click here to contact me or forward a bug-report (your email address will not be divulged) Feedback is needed on testing in WINE/Linux, ReactOS, Win9x, NT, Windows XP and Windows 7

VBToolbox V1.40   Function List

View full export list

Page top

Updates and News

DLL Test Rig

A "test rig" called mslibtest.exe is available (included with the full ZIP distro). Each "rig" release will be version-specific to the release of the DLL since calling parameters may change.Using code with the wrong calling-parameters referencing a DLL will almost certainly mean the test-app will crash. The declarations are made in mslib145.bas

Click for a larger image of the test-rig running on a Compaq Presario V6000 series - (September 2009)

Page top

Function Differences Between VB5 and VB6

Visual BASIC 6 adds the following functions. Additionally VB6 is capable of the following

• Functions can return arrays whilst VB5 cannot although VBToolbox returns arrays via Variant containers
• Improvements to StrConv locale support
• You can access properties using a name string
• Better UDT support

I also stumbled across the excellent VBSpeed site - August 2010. After hacking this stuff for several years I find that others are or were doing the same thing!

Brief Usage Notes

• The use of VBString to strip terminating null characters is no longer required from v1.11 onwards unless a function returns binary data (such as BitPack)
• Unicode: The library does not directly support Unicode other than via Visual BASIC's internal translation to and from ANSI

Page top

Using Visual BASIC 5 or 6 and VBToolbox to Create True Win32 Console Programs

From v1.12+ basic console functionality has been added to enable you to create console-based applications with a few simple commands. Visual BASIC creates Windowed rather than console applications, this means that any VB program has to open it's own console Window. You can do this using the new OpenConsole function although this may not always be desirable. Once a console window has been opened you can read and write to it using ReadLn and WriteLn. When you have finished writing console text remember to call CloseConsole to properly release the console window's resources. See the manual for more information. This behaviour may be undesirable for a number of reasons - e.g. command-line programs which need to interact with the console or CGI applications where the overhead of opening a console window is undesirable.

Full 100% Console-Mode App Conversion

There is a simple modification you can optionally make to your compiled VB executable (EXE) file which will turn it into a full and normal Win32 console application which does not open a new console window and which will interact normally with a standard command prompt and, for example, redirect or pipe it's output into a file. Handles for stdout, stdin and stderr are captured. The conversion is quick and easy to do and relies on a free utility.

The console functions of VBToolbox work just fine with such converted programs and need no special programming or changes. Just compile and do the following to your exe file. If run from Windows Explorer your program will open it's own console window otherwise it will reuse the existing one automatically.

Download v5.12.8078 of Microsoft's linker program, LINK.EXE and associated EDITBIN.EXE v5.12.8078. The best place I have found is to download it with MASM32 a freeware Macro-Assembler. Note and accept the licence conditions and install MASM32 to a folder on your hard drive. (Note that you may need to temporarily disable DEP (Data Execution Prevention) on XP for the install to complete successfully). You probably need Microsoft LINK and EDITBIN version 5.12. The version of LINK/EDITBIN bundled with VB5 (v4.20) won't work and oddly, nor will some higher versions such as v7.10 (MSVC++ 2008 Express edition).If you know another legal source for a compatible version of LINK and EDITBIN please drop me a note. I've scoured the Microsoft site and can't find it available separately. With all versions the /EDIT command seems to be undocumented and does not appear in the help screen. On incompatible versions the command gives warning LNK4044: unrecognized option "EDIT"; ignored;

This method of conversion has been tested with VBToolbox console code on Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 (SP6a)

• Once MASM32 is installed into, say c:\masm32\ ...
• Compile your VB program which links to VBToolbox's console features.
  Ensure you have "Compile to native code" enabled in your Project options under Project->Properties->Compile Tab->"Compile to Native Code" (this should be the default)
• Open a CMD prompt and change directory to the one which holds LINK and EDITBIN v5.12.8078
  (should be in C:\MASM32\BIN)
• Run the following command to convert your compiled EXE
  LINK.EXE /EDIT /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE <filename>
• For example: for the vbcgi project, compile then run
  LINK.EXE /EDIT /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE vbcgi.exe
• Alternatively, you can call EDITBIN.EXE directly using
  EDITBIN.EXE /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE <filename>
• You will see the following displayed on successful conversion (no detailed confirmation message)
  
  Microsoft (R) COFF Binary File Editor Version 5.12.8078
  Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1992-1998. All rights reserved.
  
• That's it - you can now test your application

Full Console App Demos This is a tiny 10k demo program to print out PI to 1,000 places. It is available as a Windowed console app version, or as a Converted (Native) console app version. You can also download the complete (project files - 92kb ZIP format). Note that this example requires an older version of the VBToolbox DLL and the PiStr() function is no longer included. The console functionality has been tested successfully with VB 5 on Windows NT 4.0 (SP6a), Windows 2000 (SP4) and Windows XP (SP2)

Page top

SetWall - Wallpaper Changer - A Full Demonstration VBToolbox Console Application

I wrote SetWall in a few hours to demonstrate some of the console functionality within VBToolbox. The complete project including source-code for SetWall is available for download as freeware. This application will either set your wallpaper to a given filename or can cycle through a subdirectory of many files changing your wallpaper every few minutes or seconds. Both bitmap (BMP) and JPEG (JPG) files are supported. The latter are converted by SetWall into BMP files and saved, if possible into your user-profile directory as "Setwall-temp.bmp".  SetWall uses very little CPU time but obviously will keep your hard drive busy if you choose to change your wallpaper every 10 seconds using JPEG files. SetWall can be driven from a batch file or Windows shortcut (or both). Using a shortcut you can minimise the app to your toolbar. The program is not CPU intensive particularly if you change your background less frequently than every minute. Use SETWALL /? to get the help screen. Note: Corrupted or "broken" JPEG files can cause Visual BASIC apps which use an Image-control to hang when the image is loaded into a .Picture object. This can happen even if other applications can handle and workaround corrupted file problems. You should verify any JPEG image collections for errors if you find SetWall halts or hangs at a given JPEG image. Be aware that there are faulty JPEG images which have been crafted to exploit buffer-overruns and inject working code into your system. This is a problem with the VB control which hangs without reporting an error to the error-handler if it encounters a corrupted JPEG image (i.e. premature end of file due to bad-download). Download "Bad Peggy" JPEG Validator from www.hotpixel.net (Free) and scan your JPEG files for errors.

SetWall 1.02 on Windows NT 4.0/SP6a (Click for larger image)

• Download the SETWALL program only. - Native console application - (Requires VBToolbox DLL (MSLIB145.DLL) V1.15+) - 72Kb UPX compressed ZIP
• Download complete SetWall Visual BASIC 5 project and source code as a ZIP file (215Kb ZIP file - includes EXE and DLL)
• If you are running on a very old copy of Windows and don't have VB installed you may not have the Visual BASIC runtimes. This program should not require a setup disk but if you have problems try downloading the runtime files from Microsoft. The required VB runtimes are present on newer versions of Windows.
• View the Sample source-code for SetWall (may not be the latest version)
• Note that the SetWall release may sometimes use a different DLL version to the main release

Page top

Using Visual BASIC and VBToolbox for Web Server CGI Processing

VBToolbox now provides functionality for text-mode console output and thus server-CGI back end processing. This means you can take-advantage of the full VB/ODBC database connectivity using legacy VB code and software to develop apps for your personal/home webserver. It also helps extend the life of Windows 2000/XP. If you fail to install MSLIB145.DLL to your webserver there will be NO output unless you choose to provide and/or trap it. Most of the examples will log an error to the system error log in such cases. You can download the small 7kb test executable, written and compiled in Visual BASIC 5 - and HTML test form as a ZIP file from here (requires V1.12 or higher for console functions). You can also download a "no-install" or "portable"/USB-friendly copy of MicroApache webserver to test this from http://microapache.kerys.co.uk If running on an older version of Windows you may need the Visual BASIC 5 runtimes available from Microsoft or in a cut down distro from here. http://software.kerys.co.uk/dummy/ A Visual BASIC version of the common assembler CGI "asmdemo" which simply displays ASCII characters from A to Z, (although this one shows in random colours), is available here along with the project files. The actual CGI EXE is a mere 15kb. The CGI demo and console functionality has been tested successfully on Windows XP (SP2), Windows 2000 (SP4) and Windows NT 4.0 (SP6a) and Windows 7 build 7100 with Apache 2.0.61/Win32 Applications which have been converted to full console EXE using LINK (see above) work OK with CGI. The result from posting to TEST.HTM, a simple CGI form demo (opposite)	VBToolbox VBCGI.EXE Demo running on MicroApache/Windows XP Professional(SP2)
The simplest VBToolbox/VB5 CGI program...	Sub Main   OpenConsole   Writes "Content-Type: text/html" & Chr$(10) & Chr$(10)   WriteLn "<h1>Hello World!</h1>"   CloseConsole   END End Sub
Console CGI Demo Below is the amended VBToolbox CGI demo program, which demonstrates basic console I/O, running natively in a command-prompt window (console) on XP
Live Console CGI Web-Demo - Expression Evaluator This is a small Win32 dual console and CGI application of about 18kb (compressed) written in Visual BASIC which creates it's own input form and allows a user to input a complex mathematical expression and have it evaluated. Input is either via the built-in form or via a url-encoded URL string. Standard mathematical operators are available with the Expression function offered via VBToolbox as well as a few more advanced ones such as bit shifting and Boolean comparison and evaluation of Roman, Binary and Hex values. If you wondered what "&rxxii/&rvii" is, or perhaps 2+2 now you can find out. The application may also be run as a Win32 console app, returning it's result via the ERRORLEVEL environment variable as a Long integer (if it will fit). Download Demo (v1.02 + VBToolbox v1.39) Page top
Live Console CGI Web-Demo - Text Base Converter - Convert Text to Binary etc. This is a small Win32 dual console and CGI application of about 21kb (compressed) written in Visual BASIC which creates it's own input form and allows a user to convert text-input into formatted text in any base from base 2 to base 16 This application used VBToolbox v1.40 (not yet released - Oct 2011) and the BaseConv/ConvBase functions to convert the data. The data is bundled into blocks for human convenience and blocks are separated by space characters and are set to the data-width required to represent 255 at the given number base, padded on the left with zeroes. On decoding, if the user selects a base value which is too low then DetectNumberBase will try to detect and correct the base value. Excess CRLFs in the ciphertext are stripped out using StrSplit and Join Now is the Winter of our Discontent in Base 3... 002220 011010 011102 001012 010220 011021 001012 011022 010212 010202 001012 011102 010220 011002 011022 010202 011020 001012 011010 010210 001012 011010 011100 011020 001012 010201 010220 011021 010200 011010 011002 011022 010202 011002 011022 001012 002212 010121 010201 010202 001012 010211 011000 011010 011020 010220 011010 011100 011021 001012 011021 011100 011001 011001 010202 011020 001012 010122 011111 001012 011022 010212 010220 011021 001012 011021 011010 011002 001012 011010 010210 001012 010022 011010 011020 010222 002012 001012 002102 011002 010201 001012 010121 011000 011000 001012 011022 010212 010202 001012 010200 011000 011010 011100 010201 011021 001012 011022 010212 010121 011022 001012 011000 011010 011102 001110 011020 001110 010201 001012 011100 011011 011010 011002 001012 011010 011100 011020 001012 010212 011010 011100 011021 010202 001012 002201 011002 001012 011022 010212 010202 001012 010201 010202 010202 011011 001012 010122 011010 011021 011010 011001 001012 011010 010210 001012 011022 010212 010202 001012 011010 010200 010202 010121 011002 001012 010122 011100 011020 010220 010202 010201 001201 Page top	Click the image to try the application out

Demo MakeGUID Program - Create Yourself a Unique GUID String

This is a tiny 7kb server CGI program written to use VBToolbox console I/O, which does nothing more than create a 128-bit (16-byte) globally-unique identifier key using the v1.19 CreateGUID() function. Click here to try it out or get yourself a unique GUID string for your own program. Click here to download the complete project and EXE file (128Kb ZIP)

Page top

Getting SQLite 3 to work with Visual BASIC 5

Yes, it can be done!. This was a major head-scratcher but after a day puzzling out the existing code I ended up rewriting the lot and now have it working very nicely in VB5 using a couple of "C" functions from borrowed the VBToolkit. This warrants a separate page - check it out here...

Page top

HDTest - A Free IDE ATA/ATAPI + PIO/UDMA Diagnostic Tool Using VBToolbox

There is a persistent bug in XP and possibly in Windows 2000 whereby a given number of disk-read (CRC) errors will cause Windows to automatically "downgrade" to a slower and less-efficient method of disk access. The worst-possible outcome is that disk access is downgraded to PIO mode which has a top throughput of between 3Mb/Sec and 11Mb/Sec. Compare this with UDMA 5 throughput of around 100Mb/Sec and you may notice a few problems if your disks are running at 1/10th of their normal speed. The fault most commonly affects CD/DVD drives but may also affect IDE drives if a bad-sector is encountered. With catastrophic results for PC performance. Such problems may include disappearing icons, applications freezing/locking up. EXTREMELY slow startup (possibly 5 to 10 minutes for Windows XP even on a 2Ghz processor). Applications may cease to respond for many minutes. The event log may also show spurious errors caused due to  driver or application timeouts.

Microsoft have documented a patch and a workaround for this issue. One of the fixes included deleting the IDE driver from within Device Manager then rebooting. Not for the feint-hearted. This is a small utility which can diagnose whether UDMA mode is operational and, hopefully, fix the issue by applying the Microsoft-recommended registry tweak.

You may find it interesting to run this program after you have tried reading extremely scratched music CDs. It may save you literally hours of fiddling about with other settings, checking disks, defragmenting or pointlessly uninstalling "suspect" software to no avail.

• The utility was written in Visual BASIC 5 and uses VBToolbox v1.19+. You can download it here (85kb ZIP file)
• Only the PRIMARY channels on each bus are checked (I may add the other 2 devices later)
• It is now a dual console/Windows application. You can have it run silently from your startup group using
  HDTEST /CHECK - use HDTEST /? for help and more information
• The utility was inspired by the "IT Service Duck"'s article on the subject which helped me resolve problems with my own laptop
• Microsoft Fix Page - IDE ATA and ATAPI disks use PIO mode after multiple time-out or CRC errors occur
  This page includes a link to request the hotfix by email for Windows Server 2008, Windows XP and Windows 2000

Page top

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Q) Can I have the source code?
A) Sorry, no. This project as well as being offered free to anyone it might benefit would also form part of my personal "CV showcase" which I use when I apply for work. There may be a contractual expectation that code I produce is used by future employers and where this code is the same as that in VBToolbox there may be possible retrospective copyright problems which I just don't want to get into. It's easier for me just to say no at this point in time. I have no wish to get into the legal tangles which might ensue.

Q) I get a crash error message in VB relating to Data Execution Prevention (DEP) - why?
A) This is a Visual BASIC issue and is not related to VBToolbox. See the latest manual (V1.15).
Turn OFF global DEP in XP/SP2 or create an exception for the Visual BASIC IDE. This should only affect the IDE. Compiled programs should not be affected by DEP issues.
It occurs because certain areas of memory seem to have not been marked correctly as NX (no execute). VB5 was developed prior to XP/SP2 and DEP.

Q) Why bother writing something for a language which is nearly 10 years old?
A) I own a 100% legal and fully-licensed copy of VB 5. Like many miserable "old-gits" I'm a terminal-tightwad, and VB pretty well gets the job done for the stuff I need to write.  You can blitz together Windowed apps to do a job in no time at all. The language shortcomings which most experts whinge about are easily addressed by adding the features you need in "C" as a DLL. Few languages have made handling the Windowing aspect of development easier than VB did and I see no reason to fork out extra money when I can add new features so easily using this method. Developing parts of this will prove useful and has been absorbing and fun so why not?

There are also benefits in recycling BASIC programming skills with the advantage of calling ADO/MDB database library routines; in fact, calling pretty well anything on your system that a normal Visual BASIC program can access such as other DLLs, shell utilities or even other program languages.

Q) Are you not aware that PHP is a better/more-elegant/flexible solution?
A) Yes, I absolutely agree. I also like and use PHP. I support PHP 4 and 5 in MicroApache which I also maintain

Q) Can UPX compression be used with EXE programs produced by VB which link to VBToolbox?
A) Yes. Absolutely. The DLL is also supplied in UPX compressed format which reduces size by around 50%. It is not affected by re-LINKing as a console app.

Q) The need to use VBString as a wrapper kinda sucks - isn't there a way around this?
A) Yes it does, so from v1.11 onwards you only need to use VBString for functions which return non-ASCII range data which may contain embedded null characters which are not part of the returned data. This excludes BitPack which is designed to avoid returning NULL characters within the bounds of it's data area.

Q) Do I need any additional runtimes to run the test program?
A) Yes, if you are using an older version of Windows such as Windows 98 or NT. You can download them from here

Q) Can I call other DLLs and use them with say CGI etc.
A) Yes, you can "mix-and-match" libraries and call other DLLs just as you did before. VBToolbox just adds some new features which may make life easier. For example a library I often use and link to is the zlib.dll compression library.

Q) Why is this called MSLIB145?
A) No particular reason. I needed to pick a fairly random filename which would not clash with any other DLL.

Q) Is this DLL "thread-safe"?
A) It should be assumed NOT to be thread-safe. I haven't spent any time either developing or testing for multiple thread-use. Many functions return copies of statics and no function includes local-locking which means that their contents could change during processing. The library was written primarily for legacy VB 5/6 which are claimed not to be fully thread-safe in any event.

Q) Are string-returns such as RandomStr() limited to 255 characters?
A) No, generally, you can have "Long integer" counts of characters in most string functions; although creating strings of more than about 50,000 characters is likely to consume large amounts of memory and CPU-time. It may be easier on the CPU in such cases to create several smaller strings, handle separately and concatenate them later in your program.

Q) How do I declare links from VB to this DLL?
A) A complete example wrapper - mslib145.bas - is included with the test program and bundled with the ZIP distro. Just drag-and-drop it into your VB project-explorer window. There should be no need to edit the file unless you want to remove declarations you will never use.

Q) Does it work with Windows Vista?
A) No idea. I've deleted Vista from every new PC I own and installed XP instead. If it works with XP it should work with Vista (So they say).
A) Update: Tested and found to work well with Windows 7 build 7100 although Win7 is between 300% and 1000% slower than XP using the VBToolbox test code

Q) Does the library implement Unicode?
A) No. There are also no plans to implement Unicode support other than where this is an intrinsic programming requirement (such as when handling Variant strings). The module isn't going to get enough use by non-Unicode users to warrant the time required to migrate all of the functions to multibyte use. Also VB doesn't like being sent Unicode strings (BSTR) strings back via a function body. Where this has been tested you would need to use a StrConv() wrapper to convert back from Unicode to ANSI. The string arrives back as Unicode OK but isn't internally re-translated back again.

Q) Can you include function "x" in the library please?
A) I may consider adding a few other functions if they are feasible and not too unwieldy or time-consuming to develop. Send suggestions via the contact/feedback form

Q) I think I found a bug - what should I do?
A) Send as much information via the contact/feedback form - click here If detailed information is found to be required a contact email address will be provided. Sorry it has to be done this way but spammers are playing havoc with my email and I am getting around 12,000+ spams now every week.

Page top

Development, Testing and Feedback

• The DLL functions can be called from any programming language which supports linkage to external DLLs – not just Visual BASIC but FreeBASIC, Visual FoxPro, VB for Apps (VBA), Excel etc.
• I would be very interested to hear from anyone has tested this DLL in a) WINE or b) With other forms of BASIC than Microsoft's such as FreeBASIC.
• The library is offered as freeware for educational use only and should not be used in production environments without thorough testing.
• I may consider releasing the LIB file which would permit all of these routines to be used within "C"/C++ projects if there is enough interest

Page top

This page and software, unless otherwise stated, is Copyright (c) M Shaw