I'm dealing with a tough situation at work involving a couple of really old applications coded in VB5. These apps only get updates once or twice a year, which means we have to fire up an old Windows XP VM with VB 6.0 for updates. IT is insisting that we get rid of this VM due to security concerns, but our head of development isn't allocating time for recoding these apps—despite the fact they're still generating revenue, just not enough to justify a complete rewrite. I've searched for other options but it seems like the last version of Visual Basic that supports VB5 is VB 6.0, and the latest OS that works with it is XP, while Windows 7 is the last unsupported version that still shows some compatibility. I'm at a loss about what options I even have left.
4 Answers
It sounds like your IT department might be overreacting. If this VM is barely online and doesn’t interact with sensitive data, maybe they should lighten up. Just assure them you’re minimizing risk by isolating the VM and keeping it off the network.
I chatted with someone from IT, and they mentioned it's also about the protocols the VM supports, making it impossible to connect to the domain anymore. The whole situation got flagged during a PCI audit.
Honestly, I'm usually not a fan of rewrites, but in this case... it might be worth reconsidering. The head of development might want to look at the long-term consequences here.
For sure, but it seems you've hit a wall since they already indicated a rewrite isn't happening.
It's pretty straightforward: you've got a legacy system that’s flagged by security. They need to persuade management about the risks tied to keeping it around and the importance of allocating development time for updates.
This looks more like a management issue than a tech problem. IT and the head of development really need to hash this out. It sounds like they’re at odds over how to handle this situation, so maybe you should just let them fight it out and see what compromise they come up with.
I totally get you; I faced something similar. The previous management didn’t care, but now we have a new director who’s actually pushing for necessary changes.
Haha, yeah, the compromise seems like someone is going to be made the scapegoat for any drastic changes.
That adds another layer of complexity! Maybe it’s time to push for a more secure environment that still allows you to maintain those old systems.