Download URL Contents Directly into String (VB6) WITHOUT Saving to Disk

Question

Basically, I want to download the contents of a particular URL (basically, just HTML codes in the form of a String) into my VB6 String variable. However, there are some conditions.

I know about the URLDownloadToFile Function - however, this requires that you save the downloaded file/HTML onto a file location on disk before you can read it into a String variable, this is not an option for me and I do not want to do this.

The other thing is, if I need to use an external library, it must already come with all versions of Windows from XP and onwards, I cannot use a control or library that I am required to ship, package and distribute even if it is free, this is not an option and I do not want to do this. So, I cannot use the MSINET.OCX (Internet Transfer) Control's .OpenURL() function (which simply returns contents into a String), as it does not come with Windows.

Is there a way to be able to do this with the Windows API, URLMON or something else that is pre-loaded into or comes with Windows, or a way to do it in VB6 (SP6) entirely?

If so, I would appreciate direction, because even after one hour of googling, the only examples I've found are references to URLDownloadToFile (which requires saving on disk before being ale to place into a String) and MsInet.OpenURL (which requires that I ship and distribute MSINET.OCX, which I cannot and don't want to do).

Surely there has got to be an elegant way to be able to do this? I can do it in VB.NET without an issue, but obviously don't have the luxury of the .NET framework in VB6 - any ideas?

Update:

I have found this: http://www.freevbcode.com/ShowCode.asp?ID=1252 however it says that the displayed function may not return the entire page and links to a Microsoft bug report or kb article explaining this. Also, I understand this is based off wininet.dll - and I'm wondering which versions of Windows does WinInet.dll come packaged with? Windows XP & beyond? Does it come with Windows 7 and/or Windows 8?

Answer 1

This is how I did it with VB6 a few years ago:

Private Function GetHTMLSource(ByVal sURL As String) As String
Dim xmlHttp As Object
    Set xmlHttp = CreateObject("MSXML2.XmlHttp")
    xmlHttp.Open "GET", sURL, False
    xmlHttp.send
    GetHTMLSource = xmlHttp.responseText
    Set xmlHttp = Nothing
End Function