Recreate or recovering a VB6 project

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I left VB6 and programming all together years ago, so pardon since I'm still dusting off what I remember.

I have an old program made for a friend in VB6 that he still runs in Windows Vista. He tried to update a label in the program and in trying to do the update, he has overwritten the project file where I used to see all forms and modules together.

Is there a way I can recover or recreate the project file as it was? All project files and modules are there, but when I open the VB6 project it shows only one form, that I can't compile or execute because it shows a "source not found"

I tried to go back to an old version of the project file with file recovery software but I couldn't find it.

Other way?

1 Answers

Practical steps to recover:

First and foremost: Back up what you have. Do this now.

Second, and only after the first, check (again) to see if you have a previous backup. Yes, this may seem pedantic, but, really, it's worth looking. Was that the only copy? Once you do all of this, consider creating a git repo for your code.

Third, in your empty project, simply right-click in the project explorer (Ctrl + R), and click "Add >" and then "Add Files...". Then, in the file input box, scroll down to the first file, hold down shift, and keep pressing the down arrow and all the files you want. Click "Open". Repeat if need be.

Finally, you need to re-add any dependencies. One way is simply to try to run the program with full compile (Ctrl + F5 or File | Run With Full Compile in the menus). If everything starts up, consider yourself fortunate. If not, you'll have to see each one that fails and add them back. This could be tedius, but just go through them one by one. In the Project menu, both "Components" and "References" can be gone through. Do this until the program successfully starts with full compile.

At this point, consider a making a backup. ;)

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