Visual Studio (6.0, 2003 & 2008) compatibility with Windows Vista 64-bit (x64)

Question

Are there any compatibility issues with running Visual Studio 6.0 (including Visual SourceSafe 6.0 Client), Visual Studio 2003 & Visual Studio 2008 on Windows Vista 64-bit?

Can I interactively debug the applications with the Vista Web Server? Can I still make/compile projects?

Is it correct to assume that Visual Studio 6.0 & 2003 will execute under WoW64 (Windows-on-Windows 64-bit), while Visual Studio 2008 is native x64?

I note the "Support Statement for Visual Basic 6.0 on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008" (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbrun/ms788708.aspx) states "VB6 development on 64-bit Windows is not and will not be supported." I found some usernet/newsgroup discussions of other folks trying similar endeavors (http://tinyurl.com/3jxsle & http://tinyurl.com/42clug).

Answer 1

I can't answer for 6.0 but I have no problems whatsoever with 2003, 2005 and 2008.

Answer 2

The VS 2008 IDE is not a 64bit application - it's a 32bit app, and runs in WoW.

Answer 3

There are a number of compatibility problems with older versions of Visual Studio on Vista, however none of those problems may apply to you, so you'll have to figure that out yourself based on your requirements.

Check these out:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2005/aa948854.aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2005/bb188244.aspx
• http://www.theserverside.net/news/thread.tss?thread_id=42426

Answer 4

I've been running vb6 on Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit for some time. The main software runs fine after initial configuration tweaks, but I have had deal-breaking problems with 3rd party components such as ActiveReports. So some of my projects work fine, and others don't work at all depending upon the dependencies.

Answer 5

I read reports about VS2003 "poisoning" people's Vista systems so I didn't risk it - I instead installed it on a Virtual PC Windows XP 32-bit image.

Since I don't work with much .NET 1.1 code anymore I figure this is a good workaround until can get everything/everyone migrated to .NET 2.0 or later.

Also the first versions of VS2005 had compatibility issues with Vista. This has since been sorted out with a service pack but even so, I just put VS2008 on my Vista 64 machine. No sense in using VS2005 if you have VS2008.

Answer 6

I develop on VB6 in a W2K Virtual PC on a Vista 64 machine. I find VB6 apps build much quicker on W2K than XP. Never did find out why.

Answer 7

VB6-IDE and programs are working fine on Vista64. The only thing i cant get working are the so called WebClass-Projects (the VB6 way for ewb applications).

Answer 8

Visual Studio 6 will not install if you try and install all the components. It gets a DCOM installation error and then fails.

When I installed just the parts that I was interested in (VC++, VB6, some of the data access) then it installed OK. Make sure you turn the UAC off for simplicity.

Afterwards, Visual Studio 6 Service Pack 6 can be installed... I think VS 6 Service Pack 5 cannot be installed (due to MDAC errors), but I guess that's not necessary if VS6 SP6 installs fine.

Answer 9

I use VS 6 on vista64. It installed fine minus a minor problem or warning I don't remember offhand but was easily enough fixed.

Two problems I have with VC6 specifically on Vista/w2k8 are that sometimes C CLI applications hang around even after stopped from the IDE. We have to manually close the applications command windows sometimes.

If you plan on running VSS source safe 6 over the network and especially over a WAN I would very highly recommend configuring the Vista/W2k8 system VSS is hosted to force use of SMB v1 for file serving. We had nothing but a constant stream of corruption/checkins not really being "checked in" problems using VSS with the new SMB2 protocol in a WAN environment. Everything instantly went back to normal after switching to SMB v1. Makes me wonder if MS didn't cut one too many corners trying to improve file performance on the new platform.

Other than these two issues havn't noticed any other compatibility issues.

Answer 10

2005 works fine and MS officially supports 6.0, so you should be good on both of those. Unfortunately, 2003 is unsupported by MS, and so far I've ben unable to get it to properly install and run on Vista x64. :-(