For those of you who develop in Dot Net, you should be aware that Microsoft has stopped supporting recent versions of the Dot Net framework.
Support for Versions 4.0, 4.5 and 4.5.1 discontinued this week, Tuesday, January 12, 2016. Versions 3.5, 4.5.2, 4.6 and 4.6.1 will continue to be supported.
This means any software you are using that uses the un-supported versions of the Dot Net framework will not receive maintenance from the Dot Net team. Security holes or Bugs found in those versions will not be fixed. Also, you will not be able to gain support from Microsoft should you require assistance. This impacts on premise installations of SQL Server that use CLR objects. If you are using SQL Azure, the SQL engine is maintained on your behalf.
Upgrading to 4.5.2 or later there may be some compatibility issues. The differences are bigger if you upgrade to 4.6. See the Microsoft Link for Dot Net Compatibility when upgrading to determine if the modifications impact features you require.
The Dot Net framework is on a much faster release cycle than a lot of other Microsoft Software. You can see the release history at wikipedia. As a result, applications you have written using Dot Net as recently as May, 2014, there date version 4.5.2 was released, are no longer supported. That’s a little over 18 months. This feels like a VERY short period for my software to be usable. It means I am forced to upgrade my applications at a much quicker pace.
While I appreciate the additional features resulting from a fast release cycle, I’m not sure a lifetime of 18 months for software is a reasonable timeframe. What do you think? Get into the conversation with your comment, or drop an Email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben