VB6 Migration Library

Visual Basic 6.0 runtime will be supported on Windows Server 2003 until June 2008 for Mainstream Support and June 2013 for Extended Support. The IDE will move out of extended support April 8, 2008.

Below are a series of links that relate to VB6 and VB6 Migration to VB.NET.

• VBRun remains the best resource site for VB6 professionals.
• Patterns and Practices – Upgrading VB6 to VB.NET
• VB6 Upgrade resource site for VB6 developers
• How to use the Visual Basic upgrade wizard. Useful for simple applications.
• New features in the Visual Basic 2005 Upgrade Wizard.
• Patterns and Practices has a good book on Upgrading VB6 applications to VB.NET. It provides some good architectural guidance in looking at the upgrade alternative options/approaches, processes, best practices, and proven techniques.
• There is a VB6 to VB.NET upgrade assessment tool that automatically analyses your VB6 application to determine what issues you need to address to be able to upgrade, it also provides information and guidance about how to address the issues, and metrics of your VB6 application as basis for costing/effort estimation.
• Microsoft’s Support Statement for VB6 on Windows Server 2008. They are commited to “It just works” compatability. The link contains the list of VB6 dll’s that are and are NOT supported on Vista and Windows Server 2008.
• Microsoft’s support statement for VB6, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vbrun/ms788707.aspx

• Support Statement for Visual Basic 6.0 on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7. DLL’s that were not supported in Vista are still NOT supported on Windows 7

ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant:

The ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant is designed to help you convert ASP pages and applications to ASP.NET. It does not make the conversion process completely automatic, but it will speed up your project by automating some of the steps required for migration.

In this guide, you will find:

• Instructions on how to download and install the migration assistant and accompanying code sample
• An introduction to the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant.
• A comprehensive set of white papers on technical conversion issues.
• Source code for a Web site before and after conversion.
• Extensive guidance on how to best leverage ASP.NET, including new best practices material from the Prescriptive Architecture Guidance (PAG) group.

This guide contains three sections

1. Download and Install the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant
   Visit http://www.asp.net/migrationassistants/asp2aspnet.aspx and follow the instructions to download and install the ASP to ASP.NET Migrations Assistant and the accompanying code sample.
2. Using the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant
   Moving to ASP.NET is generally accomplished in two steps. First you port the existing ASP application to ASP.NET and then you can optimize the application to fully leverage the .NET Framework. This section covers the initial migration using the Migration Assistant to automate some of the steps.
3. Optimizing Your Migrated Site For ASP.NET
   Sites migrated using the Migration Assistant can leverage the benefits of the .NET Framework, but there are still many optimizations that can be made to fully utilize the power of ASP.NET. This section describes how to optimize the ASP.NET site ported from ASP in the previous section.

MS WhitePaper:

Moving from Visual Basic to ASP.NET
With ASP.NET and Visual Studio .NET, creating Web applications and stand-alone Windows desktop applications are becoming near identical tasks. Explore how Visual Basic 6.0 developers can easily move their skills to the Web using ASP.NET.   

Converting ASP to ASP.NET
An examination of a typical data-driven ASP application, and a discussion of the essential steps involved in porting that ASP application to ASP.NET.