Vistafy Me.

re: Vistafy Me.

ak — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:53:59 GMT

it is possible to compile 64bit code with vc6, but its not as easy as with the new stuff, it is also possible to target win9x with VS2k8, but you must do a little bit of patching (MS changed MajorOperatingSystemVersion version in the PE header to 5 for no reason other than blocking 9x and NT4, for 9x you also need to patch a function in your exe if you use the CRT)

re: Vistafy Me.

David LeBlanc — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:33:50 GMT

Some other things to consider - there are a bunch of new things around running a service with least privilege, service-specific SIDs and some other things that result in a more secure service. Mike and I documented that in WSCV.

As to compiler, there are serious reasons to get off VC 6. This may or may not affect you, but it has lousy template support. /GS support is most effective in VS 2005 and later - early versions didn't do this as well. I don't think it supports x64 at all, and the longer you stay on an old compiler, the worse the port is going to get. AFAIK, I can support all the way back to at least Win2k with the current compiler, so I don't see that as a real problem, unless you're supporting someone stuck on Win98 for some odd reason.

re: Vistafy Me.

Alun Jones — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:37:33 GMT

I understand those reasons - I'd love not to have to install so much code that is not my own, and that's probably the biggest concern. I haven't noticed a great increase in file size with Visual Studio 2008, and as for support for Windows 9x, ME and NT 4.0, there's way more cost involved in keeping test systems around with so many OS versions on, than I make for supporting them.

But that's my experience, and yours may differ - there are many places where upgrading systems happens once every ten years, and those places presumably occasionally buy software. I don't think that's my market - but it may be yours, and it's good to see someone fulfilling that need.

re: Vistafy Me.

ak — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 07:02:59 GMT

as there are reasons to stay with vc6, if you need to support older os versions, generates smaller files, links to msvcrt.dll so you don't need to install any runtime etc.

re: Vistafy Me.

Alun Jones — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:44:57 GMT

And /analyze can be done using the freely downloadable SDK compiler. I know - but there are other good reasons to stay current on the compiler technology.

re: Vistafy Me.

ak — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:18:51 GMT

Address Space Layout Randomisation does not require VS or anything like that, its just a bit in the PE header, I'm still using VC6 and have no problems flipping that bit and get ASLR