VS2005 and backward compatibility

[deoker_shesh]

Hi experts,

Let me first explain what we are doing right now.

We have our database "connectivity tools" which talks to our databases. Currently our "connectivity tools" (for example ODBC etc) are built on Windows 2000 with VC6 compiler.

Now, we are planning to migrate to Windows 2003 Server with VS2006 compiler to build our "connectivity tools". First of all we are facing lot of compile time and also runtime issues. Beside the basic question we have is that our "connectivity tools" built on Windows 2003 Server with VS2005 compiler, will it be compatible if we install our "connectivity tools" on let say Windows XP with VC6 complier? I mean our customer base is on Windows XP and their apps are compiled using VC6 compiler. Will it work? If not is there anyway to make this work? OR do we have to ask our customer to migrate their environment to VS2005 compiler in order to have their apps successfully working with our "connectivity tools" built on Windows 2003 server wirh VS2005 compiler?

There is something called manifest files which gets generated using VS2005 complier. Is this manifest going to have any affect in what I call "backward compatibility (where product built on Windows 2003 Server with VS2005 should work on Windows XP with VC6 complier?)".

I have read through lot of info from here and there including MSDN and still I don't seem to be having answer for my above question. So I thought this is right forum to have discussion on the same.

Please suggest.

Thanks

-deoker_shesh

[MagicAndre1981]

you have to ship your tools with the new C++ Runtime DLL msvrt80.dll.