Running Visual Studio 6 C++ in Windows 8.1

Question

I recently migrated my system to windows 8.1. Unfortunatly like some others, I am not able to start Visual Studio 6 anymore. The software is crashing at startup (splash screen).

I know there are some workaround, to be able to compile with vc6 in newer IDEs, but this is not working for me, since I have to compile a huge number of project and I cannot afford of modifying all the project files 1 by 1...

I already see the answer coming: that vc6 is so old, and not supported and so on... I am aware about all that! But migrating a lot of code can take a long time and for now we have no other solution!

Since vc6 was running just fine on Windows 8, I am sure that with some small trick we can manage to get it running under 8.1, but I haven't figured out how yet!

Did anyone manage to start Visual Studio 6 on Windows 8.1?

Answer 1

I find a simple way to solve the problem！

1. Look for "MSDEV.EXE" in this path:"C:\Program Files\vc6\Common\MSDev98\Bin".
2. Rename "MSDEV.EXE" as "MSDEV3.EXE".
3. Use compatible mode "XP SP2 or SP3".
4. Run MSDEV3.EXE, report error,rerun again and you will succeed!
5. If failed, rename MSDEV.EXE as other names and use compatible mode will lead to succeed.