Updated VB migration booklets

clock November 27, 2010 11:00

A couple months ago I posted about two e-books by David Ross Goben, a must-read for all serious developers facing a VB6-to-VB.NET migration task.

David just let us know that he has reviewed and updated his e-books with a lot new material.

You can download Navigating Your Way Through Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic.NET Application Upgrades and  Visual Basic.NET Enhancements Compared to Visual Basic 6.0 e-books from SlideShare or Google Docs.



[NEW RELEASE] VB Migration Partner 1.32 is available

clock November 18, 2010 14:59

Earlier this week we made VB Migration Partner v.1.32 available to all registered users.

Unlike some competitors of ours, who attempt to generate hype by releasing a new major version every few months - and nevertheless are still far from matching the core functionality of VB Migration Partner - we prefer to stay with version 1.xx and yet adding new important features at every new release.

As with all previous versions, all the new features were inspired by customers' requests. In spite of this being a "minor" new release, the list of added features is really impressive:

  • Save time during the test stage with the new Trace-Match feature: you can now easily produce a trace both under VB6 and the converted VB.NET program, compare the two trace files, and quickly spot behavioral differences between the two. More info here.
  • the new SetOption ExcludeMethodBody pragma is an important addition that permits to migrate subsets of large VB6 projects. You can now convert projects with hundreds and hundreds forms and classes, by focusing on just 5 or 10 forms/classes each time. No more the dreaded "Too many compilation errors" warning!
  • the new PreProcess and PostProcess pragmas allow you automatically launch external programs before or after the migration, thus providing the ability to customize the converter's behavior with no need to create a specific extender. 
  • Partial support for the ObjPtr undocumented VB6 function
  • Partial support for the DrawMode property of Form, Picturebox, and UserControl objects. You can now do rubber-banding in .NET, no need for manual fixes!
  • Ability to export and save the contents of the Activity Log pane
  • Menus in MDI forms have been enhanced and now behave exactly as in VB6.
  • OLE drag-and-drop now works also between TreeView nodes, and we added support for the DropHighlight property of both TreeView and ListView controls
  • ... and counting.

As usual, all the details are in the VERSION HISTORY.TXT file that comes with the new setup, including the complete list of all the bugs that we caught since last release.

To download the new version, just lauch VB Migration Partner on a computer connected to the Internet: a message will alert you that a new version is available and will bring you to the download page on our website.



WE DID IT ! VB6 migration session at TechEd 2010 Europe

clock November 6, 2010 15:01

In my previous post I asked you to vote for my VB6-to-.NET Migration: Myths, Truths, and Real-World Experiences session at TechEd 2010 Berlin, so today I am very happy (and grateful) to announce that the session has been accepted. I will be speaking on Tuesday 9 November, 1.20 pm, in Hall 3.2 Interactive 6. Here's the session's abstract:

Microsoft official support for VB6 has expired in March 2009 yet there are many billions lines of VB6 code waiting to be converted to VB.NET. Many companies have postponed this step but it’s now time to take a decision. Should they convert their code with the help of a tool or rewrite everything from scratch? What about converting to a language other than VB.NET? In this informal talk we will discuss all the available options and talk about some real-world migrations.

Thanks to all of you who voted my session. If you attend TechEd, I hope to see you there!