Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET

Ideal for any project manager or developer working in Visual Basic, Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET delivers an admirably lucid and valuable guide to porting legacy VB code to the new .NET framework. This book offers some indispensable advice on making this transition go smoothly.

The text is notable for its clear-sighted presentation style, useful for both project managers (who must plan when to upgrade code) and working VB developers (who must cope with a host of new APIs and language changes in VB .NET). The authors first establish the reasons why Microsoft chose to break literally millions of lines of code with the new .NET. They explore old and new VB languages and pay attention to features that have been dropped in the new version.

The heart of this text examines the Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard in excellent detail, starting with a simple VB6 project upgraded to VB .NET. As the authors suggest, the wizard handles 95 percent of the port to .NET for your VB code. Much of the text explains what do about the remaining 5 percent of features that don't make the cut. One standout chapter here looks at which VB6 systems to upgrade first. (Not every legacy system will need to be upgraded, the authors prudently observe.) Another valuable section examines the `errors, warnings and issues` generated by the upgrade wizard, with specific suggestions on how to rewrite code that isn't translated automatically.

Later chapters look at specific areas of .NET that can `add value` to your projects, including the advantages of ADO.NET and Windows Forms versus the older ADO and ActiveX standards. There's plenty of useful advice for getting the old and new VB to interoperate, too, notably using ActiveX, COM, and COM+ controls within .NET (a perfectly acceptable strategy). Final reference sections list changes between VB6 and VB .NET, highlighting which language features are no longer supported.

Sanctioned by Microsoft Press, this title gives you the proverbial inside track on upgrading VB6 to VB .NET in an admirably well-organized text that's filled with practical advice. With millions of VB developers out there facing .NET for the first time, this title provides a worthy resource for moving old code into the future as smoothly and as cheaply as possible. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Overview of upgrade issues between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET (why Microsoft broke compatibility), advantages of VB .NET, the .NET Framework versus ActiveX compared; overview of the Visual Studio .NET IDE, language differences between VB6 and VB .NET (including obsolete language elements), planning for upgrades (guidelines for project managers, prioritizing project upgrades), best practices for writing VB6 code that ports well; a sample VB6 project upgraded to .NET, comprehensive guide to the VB .NET Upgrade Wizard (plus the VB snippet wizard and command-line tool), debugging and troubleshooting in the VS .NET IDE (including the System.Diagnostics library), detailed guide on upgrading specific VB6 features (including controls, ActiveX, and database APIs); comprehensive guide to errors and warning messages, overcoming specific upgrade issues, guide to COM and .NET interoperability, 10 common upgrade problems explained; hints for overcoming language issues (including using Windows APIs in .NET), forms in VB6 versus VB .NET, using ActiveX components in .NET, ADO.NET database programming (including bound controls), redesign issues (rewriting OLE containers, paint, and clipboard code); upgrading COM+ components, upgrading VBA wizard projects, adding value to software with .NET features (new file and directory APIs, using the registry and Windows XP controls), xcopy deployment, guidelines for upgrading ADO and ADO.NET code, upgrading distributed code to Web services, and reference to VB6 in VB .NET changes.

User review
Upgrading to Visual Basic.Net
Upgrading to .net is a must have for any developer or company that is planning to use .net.
I highly recommend this book to any developers or project managers who need to rapidly understand what's involved in upgrading to .net from VB. By purchasing this booking I upgraded a VB 5/6 to VB.Net and I'm about to deliver my first .net project on time and within budget.

As with all VB releases I was both excited and daunted by the release of .net.
Being a developer who has worked from basic to VB 6.0 I was suspicious of the learning curve involved and the bombardment of books about .net. In early February my manager informed me that a client of ours was insisting on moving their VB 6 app to use the .Net framework. Instantly before my eyes I saw late nights and busy weekends whilst adapting my VB knowledge to expand into the .Net framework.
Like many developers before me, I smiled with confidence and told my project manager this upgrade could be done. As soon as his back was turned I searched the Internet and instantly got presented myriad of books about .Net.

Scanning the list I saw a familiar name `Ed Robertson`, I remember this guy from a developer day's conference. He was concise and accurate whilst presentation technical and conceptual information on how to upgrade from VB to .Net

Needless to say I purchased the book and in 10 days it arrived. By resisting the temptation to start programming and actually reading the book first. I was very quickly able to upgrade one of the smaller Apps involved in system and then with planning
I tackled with confidence the main application

This book will teach you how to upgrade and more importantly what applications can be upgraded well providing you with an in depth view into the .net framework

My recommendation is that anyone who going to use .Net should purchase this book.
It will save you hours of programming and frustration as the authors drawing on there own wealth of .net experience cleverly guide you through the stormy waters of system upgrades.

User review
Unexpected diamond
When I first got this book, I did not think I would like it very much. After all, how much can one write on upgrading from Visual Basic to Visual Basic .NET?

While I believe most people will rewrite rather than upgrade, having experienced the wizard's decisions, this book has a lot of good advice to both make this an easier task and to make the right decisions in your current code if you have ever thought of upgrading.

While you expect this book to have a good deal on Interop, the gem here is the great explanation of remoting. While web services are the talk of the town, the ability to create server to server communication without creating another layer, is very important. For me, this section, alone, was worth the price of the ride.

For most, the upgrade information will be the most important, which should come as no suprise. If you are currently writing Visual Basic 6, you can learn a lot about setting up your own code to make sure it does not become legacy code when you move to .NET. Even more important, however, is the fact that following these suggestions will help you create better apps, as the suggestions for your current code are good suggestions whether the code will be upgraded or not.

One more nice gem before I sign off. The section on creating global components in .NET is wonderful. While most of your .NET apps are designed to sit in their own directories, knowing how to create shared components is very important for Enterprise development. If you are developing in .NET currently, this section details how to set up your own global components; this is an area where the documentation is a bit slim, so it makes a nice selling point for current .NET developers.

User review
All it takes to migrate
With so much misinformation and speculation about migrating apps to vb.net, I decided to go straight to the horse's mouth for the word.
This book does the job. It demystifies the migration story. It shows how to migrate apps to vb.net, and has complete reference material about potential problems and how to fix them. It contained less hype and more fact than I have come to expect from Microsoft. I particularly liked the sections that list the differences between vb6 and vb.net. This is exactly the information that I was looking for and the only place that I have been able to find it. Other notable chapters cover COM Interop, migrating COM+ services and troubleshooting migration problems.
With the help of this book, I have migrated several of my applications to vb.net, a much easier job than a lot of the reports and newsgroups have made it sound.

Vb.net is NOT a whole new language for us developers to learn, I believe it adds a new dimension to the same language ensuring that we as Vb developers will still have a job in 10 years when java users are well and truly obsolete! I recommend this book to everybody moving apps from vb6 to vb.net.

Bring on vb.net Microsoft, I'm ready!