Will Windows 7 support the VB6 runtime?

vb6 windows-7 legacy-code
Jon B picture Jon B · Jan 15, 2009 · Viewed 38.1k times · Source

I can't seem to find a straight answer on this. It appears that Visual Studio 6 won't be supported, but I'm only concerned with the runtime. We have some legacy apps that we'd rather not rewrite, but our customers will expect them to run on Windows 7.

If anyone can provide a link to something official from MS on the topic, that would be very helpful.

Answer

MarkJ picture MarkJ · Feb 26, 2009

YES! Official support statement:

The core Visual Basic 6.0 runtime will be supported for the full lifetime of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 EDIT and now Windows 8,which is five years of mainstream support followed by five years of extended support

I don't know when it was changed, because it didn't say that a couple of weeks ago, but it does now. Hoorah!

As VonC pointed out in his answer, the IDE is not supported any more, which is a worry if you want to maintain and update your VB6 code.

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

People have been using the IDE on Vista with a few tweaks. And if necessary it will always be possible to run it in a virtual machine.

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