My coworker Hendel Valverde will be presenting a webcast called Complete Methodology for Migrating Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET, tomorrow at 1:00 PM Pacific. It covers all the steps necessary to prepare and perform migrations from VB to VB.NET, from what to look for during the analysis and planning stages to the final testing of the migrated application.
Link: MSDN Webcast: Complete Methodology for Migrating Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET (Level 200)
And here’s the link to ArtinSoft’s press release: ArtinSoft and Microsoft Announce New Webcast on VB6 to .NET 2005 Migration Methodology.
We just posted the last of three video demonstrations that I recorded. They are for the
Informix 4GL to Java migration tool,
JLCA Companion and the
VB Upgrade Companion Enterprise Edition Demo. The videos outline the main points of each tool, how they work, and also contain a quick demonstration of a migration of a small application.
You can check them on the Demos section of the
downloads page.
During the Visual Basic webcasts we get several questions, not all of them related to VB migrations. Following the 64–bit webcast’s lead, I think it would be a good idea to share them with you (they were originally asked in spanish, this is my rough translation):
Question: What happens with VB6 applications that use Spread?
Answer: FarPoint's Spread is a widely-used spreadsheet component used in VB6 applications. The current version of the Upgrade Wizard does not support the automated conversion of this component to the .NET equivalent. If you wish to continue using it, you’ll need to use COM interop. There’s a chance that a future version of the VB Upgrade Companion Edition will be able to convert this component.
Question: Does the Upgrade Wizard work for upgrading ASP applications?
Answer: No, it doesn’t. For ASP applications, there is the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant. You can also check out the ASP to ASP.NET v1.x Migration Guide. It is slightly outdated and doesn’t deal with the 2.0 Framework, but should work as a good starting point.
Artinsoft also offers complete migration services for upgrading your ASP application to ASP.NET.
Question: Is there a solution for migration from Visual Foxpro to .NET?
Answer: Unfortunately there is no tool for migrating Visual Foxpro applicationsto the .NET Framework.
Question: Is there a document with and outline of the testing process for migration projects?
Answer: The testing process depends on the type of application. There is no “magic bullet” that will describe this. There is, however, a migration guide, developed between ArtinSoft and Microsoft, that has a chapter on testing the applications. This can be found at Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications to Visual Basic .NET and Visual Basic 2005.
ArtinSoft also recomends using a slightly modified version of the original application’s test cases.
Question: What version of the .NET Framework is required for the migration tool?
Answer: The Upgrade Wizard is available for version 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 of the .NET Framework. We are currently using the version bundled with Visual Studio .NET 2005, that uses version 2.0 of the Framework, because it is the most recent version.
Remember to check out all the VB to VB.NET presentations, that can be found at the CEM website.
Tomorrow I'll be doing the final Webcast in a series about migrating from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET. This one will be about tecniques on how to migrate common objects in Visual Basic (some controls, database access, forms, etc), and about recommendations on how to test a migrated application.
All in all, there were seven webcasts in the series. They were: (names in spanish...)
I suggest you check them out. :-)
In the next few weeks I'll be doing several webcasts for Microsoft Latin America. They are about Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET migrations, and will be given in spanish.
The first presentation will be this Friday, and it is called Why consider a project to upgrade from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET?. In this presentation, we'll talk about the business and technological factors that influence the decision to upgrade an application. The second one is about Understanding the Upgrade Wizard, in which we'll talk about the process of upgrading an application from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET.
Some other webcasts are planned, but there's no date assigned yet. As soon as there is, I'll post all the information here.