Hello,

Just to clarify, in the Support Statement for VB6 at this address:

msdn.microsoft.com/.../ms788708.aspx

does mention:

    The Visual Basic team is also committed to the Visual Basic 6.0 development

    environment running on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7.

So yes, the IDE will work on Windows 7. And I never said anything to that regard in my original post, just that it wasn't supported as of April last year. It is a BIG difference, specially for large enterprises with policies (or subject to regulations) that require all software they use be supported by the manufacturer. That same support statement says:

    The Visual Basic 6.0 IDE

    The Visual Basic 6.0 IDE will be supported on Windows Vista and Windows

    Server 2008 as part of the Visual Basic 6.0 Extended Support policy until April

    8, 2008.  Both the Windows and Visual Basic teams tested the Visual Basic

    6.0 IDE on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.  This announcement      

    does not change the support policy for the IDE.

And further down it states:

    Visual Basic 6.0 Support Lifetime

    Supporting and/or shipping Visual Basic 6.0 runtime binaries on Windows

    Vista/Windows Server 2008/Windows 7 does not change the support policy for

    the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE or Visual Studio 6.0 IDE as a whole.  Those products

    will move out of extended support in April 8, 2008.

So, according to this statement, the IDE is no longer supported after April 8, 2008, regardless of the OS. Microsoft decided to make the IDE work on Windows 7, just not support the scenario. Still, for the next few years, you will be able to continue running the VB6. But medium- and long-term, the implications of lack of support for VB6 are going to start showing. You can read about these implications in this same statement:

    VB6 runtime will ship and will be supported in Windows 7 for the lifetime of the

    OS.  Developers can think of the support story for Vista being the same as it is

    for Windows 7.  However there are no plans to include VB6 runtime in future

    versions of Windows beyond Windows 7.

My guess is that if there's still enough VB6 code out there by the time "Windows 8" comes around, the VB6 runtime will probably make it to the final version. But this shows a clear intention of removing this component from the OS.

Thanks, and I hope this clarifies the point I tried to make with the originla blog post, not spread FUD or anything like it.