Vista plus VB6 = “It Just Works”?

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As I write this, I have just got my hands on a Vista beta 2 build. I installed it on a virtual PC node (512MB Ram) — it took almost 4 hours (I had it installing in the background). Although I presume Vista runs like a normal OS (in terms of speed) on a PC, it runs unbearably slow in the Virtual PC.

My goal — to see what kind of modifications we need to make to our software (if any) to make sure it works in Vista, since we use Visual Studio 6 (pre .net).

According to Microsoft, VB6 will be fully supported (here is a good breakdown: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbrun/vistasupport.aspx).

My initial findings — apps seem to work, but, security warnings are all over unless you set the application to run as the administrator. A simple VB6 app trying to write to a file crashes (I have to identify why, and what file). A non-Visual studio 6 App that tries to self-extract a series of files to the temp folder, and then run an executable from there, just seems to hang (after 3 attempts, Vista popped up a message saying “Vista has changed compatibility mode of this app”, and then on the 4th try, it worked — not sure what Vista did yet though). Certain apps popup a ‘warning’ box when it appears that the app may be a security issue (nice idea, but, way too overkill — how many times to I have to see these popups?).

In my mind, this may spell trouble. If users of Vista have to take extra steps to use software that “just worked” on their XP box, it is going to become an annoyance (for them, and for software publishers). The average user will not know or understand what needs to be done, and how many will be able to check the box (if they can find it) to run the app as administrator? What if the app runs directly from CD-Rom? Will they have to do this EVERY TIME?

I will continue to post comments to this thread as I find more out about this. I can only hope that this will not be the ‘final’ way Vista handles these things.