[RESOLVED] will vb6 run on 64 bit newbie

[nojoke86]

I am new to vb and will vb run on 64 bit systems ?

[Hack]

Any Windows Compliant Application should run just fine as a 32 bit process on any of the 64 bit editions of Windows.

[si_the_geek]

Unfortunately it isn't quite that simple.

Current 64 bit versions of Windows can run applications in 32 bit mode (just like the 32 bit ones could run 16 bit apps), so in simple terms it is fine.

Unfortunately there are likely to situations where VB6 programs wont be compatible with a 64-bit OS, even tho they are being run in 32-bit mode. I have seen claims that using DAO is one of those situations, and suspect there are others.


If you have the option I would recommend switching from VB6 to VB.Net, as that has proper support for 64-bit OS's.

[isnoend07]

Info from Microsoft:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbrun/ms788708.aspx

[dilettante]

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

99.99% of the software you'll want to run on 64-bit Windows is 32-bit software yet (and will be for years). This is why 64-bit desktops usually don't make sense unless you seriously require more than 2GB of RAM.

I'm personally no fan of DAO however Access 2007 uses DAO extensively and works fine on 64-bit Windows. My guess is that really old versions of DAO and Jet (like DAO 3.51 and Jet 3.5) are more likely to have troubles than newer versions. Another notorious issue is the insistance on using ODBC instead of the OLE DB provider technology that replaced ODBC a decade ago and more.


The only way to be sure though is to thoroughly test on 64-bit Windows before releasing a product. So far I haven't had a single VB6 program fail to run on Vista 64, but maybe I'm just lucky or careful.

By all means feel free to move on to VB.Net though.

[nojoke86]

Thanks people