This week Microsoft updated its support statement for Visual Basic 6.0 to include the upcoming Windows 7. Even though the original idea was to not support VB6 in Windows 7, given the outstanding demand, the runtime WILL BE included in the OS.
To summarize, the support status of the different Visual Basic 6.0 components is:
- Visual Basic 6.0 IDE: Unsupported as of April 8, 2008.
- Visual Basic 6.0 Runtime: Supported for the lifetime of Windows Vista, Server 2008 and 7. *This is the big change in the Support Statement*.
- Visual Basic 6.0 Runtime Extended Files: The supported versions are here.
Even though the runtime components will be supported in Windows 7, it is important to consider the implications of the IDE not being supported (as I described in this post). There are also additional advantages of moving to .NET such as 64-bit support (VB6 apps are 32-bit only) and all the productivity, maintainability and deployment gains provided by the platform.