Visual Basic 6: The Long Goodbye

Visual Basic 6.0 (VB 6) moved from the Mainstream to the Extended phase of Microsoft’s product support life-cycle on March 31, 2005. The most significant difference between the two phases is that Microsoft will provide free nonsecurity hotfixes during the Mainstream phase but not the Extended phase. (Free security fixes are available in both phases.) Customers who want to receive custom hotfixes in the Extended phase need a support contract and must purchase an Extended Hotfix Support Agreement and pay for each fix.

Microsoft will not further develop VB 6. The company would rather spend its development efforts making the successor to VB 6, VB.NET, more appealing to VB 6 users. Also, many future Microsoft products and APIs, such as the Windows Presentation Foundation (graphics APIs formerly code-named Avalon) and the Windows Communication Foundation (Web services APIS formerly code-named Indigo) are based on the .NET Framework and accessing those technologies from VB 6 will be much more difficult than from VB.NET.