Microsoft will provide support of some kind for the VB6 run time all the way through 2017.
That would give the product roughly a 20 year lifespan, which in the technology world equates to several eons.
Although Vista does support applications on the VB6 runtime and the support will continue for another decade, this should not be taken as a green light to let existing applications run another ten years.
Mainstream support ended over two years ago, meaning that the average person can no longer get support for VB6 applications.
To continue with the new program will cost dearly and it's really meant to provide a fallback for businesses whose line of business apps are tied to the VB6 runtime.
Ideally, the support extension will give companies with a lot of "organizational inertia" time to migrate their codebases away from VB6.
However, I am sure that in more than one company out there, there are decision makers planning to leave well enough alone for another ten years.
After all, if the system works, why change it?
During my life as a consultant, I've seen applications running that should be scrapped and re-built entirely. Often the costs of maintaining awfully engineered systems far exceeds the costs of re-building. It does, however, provide great fodder for sites like the DailyWTF and Coding Horror.
Of course, rebuilding an app that's already in place can be a hard sell. Even quirky apps have proven their worth and their value. The catch, however, is adding new functionality to old apps.
Even today, in 2007, there are people that are working in VB6, maintaining applications that were written during the boom times of IT. Way back when all it took to get a developer position was to be able to spell HTML and VB.
Nearly ten years later, these applications are still out there.
They weren't built with software engineering in mind. They were built in a rush without any thought towards future enhancements, changes in business structure, regulatory complliance, etc.
During the recession, the first consulting gig I landed was maintaining an HR management application written in classic ASP and VB6. The app had been modified again and again by different developers, each with different coding styles and varying degrees of expertise. The code resembled something like Swiss cheese and a stream-of-conscious novel.
Actually, this is quite a common pattern in the application maintenance field. Lots of people touching the application, adding and removing features, changing code, and nobody leaves comments.
The application turns out to be one big Jenga game, touch one thing the wrong way and the whole thing collapses. Sometimes, I would stand in awe at how the program could work at all.
Before I end this abnormally long blog post, keep in mind that this is not a long-winded, roundabout insult to the VB developer community. I started my professional career in VB3 and owe the language a great deal for giving me a good start in my career.
The point I'm trying to make is that there are poor schmoe's out there working on VB6 or even VB5 applications right now in 2007 and it looks like there might be people doing the same thing in 2017.