Visual Basic 6 Support Until 2008

Support for Visual Basic 6 (VB 6) will end in 2008, Microsoft has announced. The policy gives customers a definite timeline on which to base decisions regarding application deployment, developer training, and migration to Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET). VB.NET, the successor to VB 6, is part of Microsoft’s new .NET development platform and is not backward compatible with VB 6. (See the Feb. 2002 Research Report, “The .NET Development Platform.”) The new support policy applies only to Visual Basic but may eventually apply to other development tools, such as Visual C++.

Limited VB Support After 2004

Under the new policy, VB 6 will be retired in two major phases.

In the first or mainstream phase, which ends in Jan. 2005, all standard Microsoft support offerings will be available, including Premier Support, free phone and online per-incident support, free Critical Updates (also known as “HotFix” or “QFE” support), and service packs.

In the second or extended phase, only paid per-incident support will be available, and updates will no longer be free but will be available for a fee. After the extended phase has expired, no support will be provided.