Legacy Windows Support Development (VS.NET vs VS6.0)

[georgekoontz]

I am designing a small Windows based application.
If the application must be able to run on Legacy windows systems (Win 9x, ME, NT), is it correct to say that using Visual Studio .NET is not an option?

I develop in VB and/or VC++. Does Visual Studio .NET have special support for producing standalone executables that could run without the .NET Framework--i.e. produce a legacy executable suitable for Win 9x, ME, or NT.

The idea seems admittedly improbable, but the cost of three Visual Studio licenses is large relative to my budget and other expenses. .NET is in the future migration path, but I believe legacy Windows support is need to provide the necessary market for the first release of the software. If I could develop using Visual Studio .NET now and still support the legacy OS, this seems to make sense since within a year or two the product might move to .NET.

Any information or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[luftwaffe]

You can use NET too, but be careful calling the system. Several framework functions do not work or behave differently on older platforms (dlls not included, installed in older versions / and for example ...Ex stuff, registry access, etc.)
The final release (compiled) really depends on options you set in project settings, as you could see. The best is that you compile on each platforms and test it properly (you know the basic principle, 1/3 test, 1/3 coding, 1/3 testing). Testing then easiliy may add up (together with bug fixes) to half or more of the project time.
If you do it well (needs some experience and a lot of documentation, MSDN, etc. reading), your generated code may (although not likely) to be the same using old dlls...

BTW, NT 4.0 is close to end of support, 9x is getting closer either.

[clem]

Originally posted by georgekoontz
I develop in VB and/or VC++. Does Visual Studio .NET have special support for producing standalone executables that could run without the .NET Framework--i.e. produce a legacy executable suitable for Win 9x, ME, or NT.


At least with Visual C++ , you may produce in VStudio.NET MFC projects like in VStudio 6, i.e. without any necessity to use the .NET runtime. Old (legacy) VC++ projects should just recompile and run. New projects are created by applying "File, New Project, Visual C++ Projects, MFC Application".
If you use MFC as Shared DLLs you need the version 7 of those DLLs. If you link the MFC statically there is no need to worry about MFC DLL versioning.

I have no idea about Visual Basic projects.

Regards
clem