Older web and desktop technologies end-of-support dates

How support works for these technologies

Some of these products have a fixed end date that has passed. Others have no end date because they ship as part of Windows or .NET Framework, but have had no development for years. Either way the software keeps running. What has gone is the supply of fixes, the tools to change it safely and, increasingly, the people who know it.

Where each one stands and the usual way forward

• Visual Basic 6. Support for the development environment ended on 8 April 2008. The runtime still ships with Windows, so applications run, but the tools used to change them have had no fixes since. The usual route is a staged rebuild in .NET. See our VB6 page.
• Visual FoxPro 9. Support ended on 13 January 2015. Applications are usually rebuilt in .NET, with the data moved from FoxPro tables into SQL Server.
• Silverlight 5. Support ended on 12 October 2021 and current browsers do not run the plug-in. The screens are rebuilt as a standard web application.
• AngularJS 1.x. Support ended on 31 December 2021. Its successor, Angular, is a different framework, so the front end is rebuilt, usually one screen at a time. See our AngularJS page.
• Internet Explorer 11. The desktop application was retired on 15 June 2022. Systems that depend on it should be changed to work in current browsers.
• Xamarin. Support ended on 1 May 2024. Mobile apps are moved to its successor, .NET MAUI.
• Python 2.7. Support ended on 1 January 2020. Code is ported to Python 3.
• ASP.NET Web Forms. No end date: it is supported as part of .NET Framework 4.8. It is not available on modern .NET, so leaving .NET Framework means rebuilding the pages. Staying on 4.8 is a reasonable choice for a stable system.
• Classic ASP. No end date: it still runs on IIS as an optional Windows component, but has had no development since 2000. It is usually replaced in stages, with a modern application running beside it. See our Classic ASP page.

Things that are easy to miss

• No end date does not mean no risk. With Web Forms and Classic ASP, Microsoft patches the platform underneath. The application code and the libraries it uses are yours to look after.
• Third-party components. Grids, reporting tools and ActiveX controls bought years ago are often the part that fails first, and the vendor may no longer exist.
• What the application pins in place. An old application can tie the business to an old version of Windows, a browser or a database, each with its own end date.