PATCHVB
-------
By Rick Esterling, Copyright 1994, All Rights Reserved

PatchVB is FREEWARE.  You may modify and use it as you find fit, but it may
not be resold or used in any way to make a profit.  If you do use it, some
credit would be appreciated.  You are encouraged to send your
comments/suggestions to:

  Rick Esterling
  Three Cruse Alley
  Huntsville, AL  35801
  205-536-8568
  
  Internet: esterra@widget.msfc.nasa.gov
       CIS: 73322,702 (I hang out in the MSBASIC forum daily)


WHAT IT DOES
------------
I've heard several people say that they don't like the default action that
VB programs take when they are exectued from the DOS command line.  For
those of you that have never tried it, VB programs don't just report "This
program requires Microsoft Windows" and exit as do 99% of the other Windows
programs.  Rather, it tries to invoke Windows and then exectutes your
program at startup.  I personally prefer it to just respond as other
Windows programs do, so I wrote this patch.


HOW IT WORKS
------------
PatchVB simply reads an EXE file and tries to determine whether or not the
file is a Visual Basic program.  It does this by searching for the part of
the stub in the EXE that files off Windows.  If it finds the stub, it
simply renames the call to Win.com to an invalid filename (a backslant and
two NUL characters (ASCII 255).  That way, when your VB EXE tries to launch
Windows, it cannot find WIN.COM so it gracefully exits.



AN EXTRA TRICK
--------------
VB uses its own stub to create the stub of any EXEs that it compiles.  This
means if you patch VB.EXE itself, then all the programs that you compile
thereafter will automatically include this patch and will not need further
attention.



DISCLAIMER
----------
As is the case with any program that modifies your executable files, great
caution should be used before you try PatchVB on any of your programs.
ALWAYS MAKE BACKUPS BEFORE APPLYING THIS PATCH!  As you can see from the
source code, PatchVB doesn't do anything "blindly".  It tries to convince
itself as much as it can that it's about to do the right thing, but just in
case, make a backup, ok?



FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
--------------------
If you use PatchVB on any of your programs and then decide later that you
want to restore the original stub, you should be able to very easily
reverse engineer PatchVB since the source code is included.  PatchVB itself
can detect when a program has already had the patch applied, so all you
would need to do is change that part to reinsert the correct filename that
PatchVB originally renamed as described above.  If you can't get it going,
let me know (via one of the addresses shown at the top of this document)
and I will provide you with a program to restore the original stub.



Happy patching,

Rick Esterling
12 Feb 94