Say Goodbye to MSXML4... Start planning your upgrade to MSXML6 now...

Microsoft XML Team's WebLog - MSXML4 is going to be kill bit-ed

"...

As a part of our MSXML4 End of Life plan , we are going to kill bit MSXML4 in the October – December timeframe of this year. Kill Bit applies to Internet Explorer only. After the kill bit , applications will not be able to create MSXML4 objects in the browser.(Add link for killbit) Applications outside IE like C++ apps will continue to work with MSXML4.

We are announcing this in advance so that our customers get sufficient time to try their applications with MSXML6 and give us feedback on their experience...

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MSXML Supported Versions:

We addressed this in a blog entry http://blogs.msdn.com/xmlteam/archive/2006/10/23/using-the-right-version-of-msxml-in-internet-explorer.aspx

The  summary is

MSXML6  - Should be your first choice. This is the MSXML version that will be carried forward. MSXML6 shipped with Vista and we are working on getting this in downlevel OS Service Packs

MSXML3 – This has the advantage of having shipped with every supported OS .We are committed to keeping MSXML3 robust and stable but won’t be adding any functional improvements.

MSXML4  - This is in maintenance mode with a very high bar for fixes approaching End of Life.

MSXML 5 –  Exclusively meant for Office. Do not take any dependencies on it.

..."

I just checked a couple of my MSXML apps and it looks like I'm good (i.e. I'm still using MSXML3 in my "AJAX before there was AJAX" apps).

At one level I totally understand this move, but on another I hate forced upgrades...