Don't wait till Vista comes out!

[JohnTurnbull]

Hi all,

If you have apps written in Vb5/6 and are thinking "I'll just wait till Vista comes out and see what differences there are" - Don't - this is not a cosmetic upgrade to XP.

Here are just some of the things you need to change:-

1. Windows help files are not supported.
2. Sendkeys don't work
3. The common dialog doesn't work in save file mode
4. Dragging doesn't work with the default Control.drag - You have to use a drag icon.

5. Windows sized in twips are unuseable at anything other than 96 Dpi. If you want your program to work in large fonts, you have to opt out of system sizing with the SetProcessDPIAware() function and write your own sizing routines.

Isn't life wonderful?

[RhinoBull]

That's too little to worry about...

Microsoft's Upcoming Vista To Support Legacy VB6 Apps:
http://blogs.msdn.com/davbosch/archi...26/539470.aspx
http://www.devsource.com/article2/0,1895,1929552,00.asp

[mendhak]

And no worries for web developers of course.

I think VB6 developers should be grateful that they've actually decided to support VB6 in Vista, I thought mainstream support for VB6 would end right about the same time as the large scale release of Vista...

[RhinoBull]

... I thought mainstream support for VB6 would end right about the same time as the large scale release of Vista...

As reasonable as it sounds they can't really do that - too much money involved. Who's going to upgrade if OS doesn't support company's business?
For this same reason many corps are still running NT/2000 machines and have no plans for upgrades what so ever - cost is the factor.

[Al42]

We have no plans to upgrade to Vista for 2 reasons - no need for anything it has and too much existing software that might have to be rewritten. The cost of a site license is also a factor.

[penagate]

Doubtless our clients will upgrade, therefore ensuring we have to as well. We don't use VB6, but it's still another burden.

I think most of the problems stem from the fact that Classic VB is quite simply an outdated framework, designed in a time when problems and considerations were different. MS are obviously now commited to supporting their new framework .NET which is much more versatile than VB6 ever was - it doesn't have such problems on the changed platform that is Vista. Quite apart from the fact that obviously they were designed in conjunction with each other.

Classic VB apps will still run fine if they are not too reliant on the framework aspect of VB.

[Hack]

For this same reason many corps are still running NT/2000 machines and have no plans for upgrades what so ever - cost is the factor.

The client at which I'm doing on site work at falls into this category. All of their main systems are still 2000 (SQL Server, Windows Server, Exchange Server, etc) and they have less than 0 desire to move to even 2003 must less something like VISTA.

[gigemboy]

Well I think its a non issue.. clients still running older systems and older software aren't going to upgrade for the same reason they haven't decided to upgrade their system... A client with older Dos-based legacy apps or VB6 apps sure aren't going to spend the money to upgrade to Vista anyways when they don't even have the desire to upgrade their mission-critical apps...

[sevenhalo]

The company I'm at now won't upgrade. I can't even get them to get .Net 2005 (Ohh how I want the 2005 IDE here ).

I think the main reason is there's no hype anymore... Everything in the media is nothing but flaws, incompatibilities and delays. All of the cool things about Avalon, Indigo and the WinFX came out well over a year ago (how easily we forget). Now whenever they bring a new feature to the table, every respective third party company would rather attack then praise it. Not that we (and they) don't have a reason to be pessimistic, but this is getting delayed so that it will be right.

I'm still excited for Vista. I hope that when everything comes together, it just blows people away. I also would like to see a couple of formal apologies to MS from a few companies (*cough* Norton *cough*), but I would also settle for their silence and compliance.

[Al42]

The client at which I'm doing on site work at falls into this category. All of their main systems are still 2000 (SQL Server, Windows Server, Exchange Server, etc) and they have less than 0 desire to move to even 2003 must less something like VISTA.

Considering that MS is already well under way with an OS that looks nothing at all like any version (past or future) or Windows ...

Vista is just another money vacuum to suck our pockets dry until the new OS comes out and we're (almost) all forced to switch because legacy apps won't run properly.