End of Support for Visual Basic 6.0
I wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that public support for Visual Basic 6 came to an end on April 8th, 2008. If you already subscribe to our quarterly newsletter you probably already know the details behind this. If not, here is a quick explanation of what’s happening on the second Tuesday of April…
Visual Basic 6 (VB6) can basically be divided into three main deliverables…
* Visual Basic 6 IDE — the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) used to develop VB 6.0 applications
* Visual Basic 6 Runtime — the base libraries and execution engine used to run VB 6.0 applications
* Visual Basic 6 Runtime Extended Files — select ActiveX control OCX files, libraries, and tools shipping with the IDE media and as an online release
Support for the VB6 IDE came to an end on April 8th. This means that Microsoft MCTS Training will no longer provide any additional assisted support, security updates or development assistance on the IDE or the VB6 language. However, online information (such as MSDN articles and the Knowledge Base) will remain online for at least the next 12 months.
Support for the VB6 Runtime will continue. Generally, the VB6 Runtime is shipped as a component of the operating system and will be supported with the product that it shipped with. For example, since the VB6 Runtime shipped as a component of Windows XP, the runtime will continue to be supported for the life of Windows XP. The VB6 Runtime has shipped on all of our OS releases and will continue to be supported with all those OSes.
Since the VB6 Runtime is supported with the OS, customers will be able to open support cases and request assistance if the VB6 Runtime is not operating as expected or is causing problems with their application. In addition, we will continue to provide security updates for the VB6 runtime. We will not provide any development assistance or support for the IDE, however.
The VB6 Runtime Extended Files are generally installed by the IDE or from Microsoft MCITP Certification and are redistributed by developers with their application. This redistribution is often required to ensure the functionality of the application. The product team will be releasing a new, supported set of these tools online in the coming weeks. To obtain support, customers will need to ensure they are running the supported versions of these files.
More information on how the Visual Basic 6 runtime will be supported can be found in the MSDN Visual Basic 6 Resource Center. On this site, the product team has detailed a number of the support scenarios and files, especially as they pertain to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. It’s a great resource if you have any outstanding questions.