What are the differences between VBA 6.0 and VBA 7.0?

This piece on MSDN has more on the changes in VBA 7 for Office 2010:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee691831(loband).aspx#odc_office2010_Compatibility32bit64bit_IntroducingVBA7CodeBase


There's not a whole lot that has changed between VBA6 and VBA7. VBA7 was introduced to support 64-bit versions of both Office and Windows (see below on what those differences are). Here are the key changes:

  1. 64-bit support, primarily for API calls. This is both used to make your code work with your OS/Office version as well as others' (i.e. someone on Office 2003/WinXP)

    • If you are on a 64-bit version of Windows, but are on a 32-bit version of Office, you can declare API calls like below. .

      #If Win64 Then
          Declare PtrSafe Function GetTickCount64 Lib "kernel32"() As LongLong
      #Else
          Declare PtrSafe Function GetTickCount Lib "kernel32" () As Long
      #End If
    • If you are on a 64-bit version of Windows, and are on a 64-bit version of Office, you can declare API calls like: .

      #If VBA7 Then
         Declare PtrSafe Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" ( _
             ByVal lpClassName As String, _
             ByVal lpWindowName As String) As LongPtr
       #Else
         Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal _
             lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Long
      #End If
  2. To support this, there are:

    • Three new keywords (2 data types and 1 modifier): LongPtr, LongLong and PtrSafe

    • One new function: CLngLng() (i.e. Int64)

    • The new compilation constants as used above: VBA7 and Win64


VBA7 is compatible with 64-bit versions of Office.