The influence of kinematic viscosity on the properties of resistive instabilities developing in equilibrium configurations in which flows are present is examined. The cross‐field viscosity (&ngr;⊥) is retained in the linearized resistive magnetohydrodynamic equations, which are solved numerically. The magnetic and velocity equilibrium configurations are the same as those studied in a previous paper [Phys. Fluids29, 2563 (1986)] neglecting viscosity, so that its effect can be easily studied in the present work. The results show that the inclusion of the viscosity changes the stability properties considerably when &tgr;&ngr;≤&tgr;r, and where &tgr;&ngr;and &tgr;rare the viscous and magnetic time scales, respectively. Depending on the relative importance of the velocity with respect to the Alfve´n velocity and of the velocity scale length with respect to the magnetic one, the viscosity can have both a stabilizing and a destabilizing effect.