In .NET 2, you'll have to track this yourself. The simplest way would likely be to build your own Dictionary(Of String, Integer)
to store the counts, and loop manually:
Dim dict = New Dictionary(Of String, Integer)
For Each value in list
If dict.ContainsKey(value) Then
Dim count = dict(value)
dict(value) = count + 1
Else
dict(value) = 1
End If
Next
' dict now contains item/count
For Each kvp in dict
Console.WriteLine("Item {0} has {1} elements", kvp.Key, kvp.Value)
Next