Upgrading from Visual Basic 6.0The first step in a successful upgrade from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic 2005 is to upgrade your skills and knowledge as a developer. With the introduction of Visual Basic .NET, the "glass ceiling" was shattered for Visual Basic developers. Visual Basic .NET and Visual Basic 2005 allow developers to take advantage of advanced features such as multithreading, object oriented design, or Web services. It is important to understand that to be a successful developer with Visual Basic 2005, you don't need to understand or use these concepts and technologies. However, if you have a need or challenge that requires features such as this, then Visual Basic will be able to meet your needs. Visit the articles An Overview of Visual Basic 2005 or What's in Visual Basic 2005 for the Visual Basic 6.0 Developer to learn more about the new features in Visual Basic 2005. With this in mind, we will start by providing resources to upgrade your skills to make you as productive as you were in Visual Basic 6.0 in short time. We will then focus on enhancing your skills to allow you to increase your productivity with many of the new 2005 features, and, finally, we will present you with resources to continue learning to use the new, more advanced features of Visual Basic 2005, if you desire or need to. A Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition 90-Day Trial Edition is available for users who want to evaluate Visual Studio 2005. This is a time-limited, but fully functional, version of Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition. You can start using Visual Basic 2005 today with this trial software. One of the most notable changes for Visual Basic 6.0 developers is that Visual Basic is now totally integrated into Visual Studio. In Visual Basic 6.0, the language and the development environment (IDE) were combined together. With the introduction of Visual Studio .NET 2002, all languages for the Microsoft platform now reside in the same development environment. To help you learn the differences between the older Visual Basic developer environment and the new Visual Studio 2005 environment, Microsoft Learning has put together a course called Upgrading from Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Development Environment. This three-hour online learning course teaches Visual Basic 6.0 developers how to use their existing skills with the Visual Studio 2005 development environment. Specifically, this course covers the wide range of features included in the Visual Studio development environment, how to open and save projects, and how to build and debug projects. We have also made chapter 3, Visual Studio 2005 Integrated Development Environment from the book Introducing Visual Basic 2005 for Developers available free online. The Visual Basic 2005 help documentation also provides a complete section titled Integrated Development Environment for Visual Basic 6.0 Users that covers changes between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Studio 2005. The other notable change for Visual Basic 6.0 developers is the introduction of the .NET Framework. In Visual Basic 6.0, many functions and services were provided to you by the Visual Basic runtime, Msvbvm60.dll. The .NET Framework builds on the concept and brings a foundation of base classes, in the spirit of the Visual Basic runtime, to all languages in the form of the .NET Framework. You can check out the .NET Framework Conceptual Overview for a more complete description. To learn more about the .NET Framework and its parts, such as the common language runtime or the common data types, you can work through the 3-hour online training course from Microsoft Learning titled Upgrading from Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Introduction to the Microsoft .NET Framework. This training is designed with the Visual Basic 6.0 developer in mind to allow for a simple transition to the .NET Framework. You can also read the chapter Microsoft .NET Framework Primer for the Visual Basic Developer from the book Introducing Visual Basic 2005 for Developers. The Visual Basic language has continued to evolve, just as it has evolved since the original version of Visual Basic. To help bring the Visual Basic 6.0 developer up to speed with the new language enhancements, you can work through the online course Upgrading from Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Language Enhancements. The course covers variables and types, decision and loop structures, managing data using arrays and collections, and error handling. Chapter 2, Language Enhancements for Visual Basic 2005 from the book Introducing Visual Basic 2005 for Developers, will introduce you to new enhancements designed to make your code simpler and more efficient. You can also read the Language Changes for Visual Basic 6.0 Users section of the Help for Visual Basic 6.0 Users topic in the Visual Basic documentation. One of the biggest changes in Visual Basic .NET and Visual Basic 2005 is the introduction of object-oriented principles, as discussed in Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming. While an understanding of object-oriented design is not a requirement to be a successful Visual Basic 2005 developer, it does enable you to extend your skills and be more productive. If you want to learn more about object-oriented design, you can take a 3-hour online course from Microsoft Learning titled Upgrading from Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming. There are thousands of companies that are already achieving success using Visual Basic .NET and Visual Basic 2005. Check out some of these success stories for examples of building Windows, Web, and even mobile applications. You can also see the gains that people have acquired migrating from Visual Basic 6.0 and porting from other platforms at the Microsoft Customer Evidence site, which contains links to hundreds of Visual Basic case studies. Once you have become comfortable with using Visual Basic 2005 and Visual Studio, you are ready to think about upgrading your applications. Upgrading your applications does not always mean migrating every line to Visual Basic 2005 or rewriting your Visual Basic 6.0 code. Both Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic 2005 can not only coexist on the same machine, but they can coexist within the same applications. It is important to evaluate your application based on various criteria to determine the proper migration path. To help you understand and evaluate your legacy applications, the patterns & practices group has put together an extensive set of guidance at Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications to Visual Basic .NET and Visual Basic 2005. In addition to the documentation and guidance they have compiled, you can also download the Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Assessment Tool to analyze your Visual Basic 6.0 applications. If in reviewing the patterns & practices and evaluating your application you deicide to bring it forward to Visual Basic 2005, it is suggested that you review the document Preparing Your Visual Basic 6.0 Applications for the Upgrade to Visual Basic 2005. This document provides recommendations for Visual Basic developers planning to upgrade their applications to Visual Basic 2005. It includes information on the Visual Basic 2005 Upgrade Tool, and discusses architectural guidelines for enabling a smooth upgrade from Visual Basic 6 to Visual Basic 2005. The Visual Basic 2005 upgrade wizard has been enhanced from prior versions. While not always a complete upgrade solution by itself, the upgrade wizard is an important tool to assist developers in the process. Read What's New with the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard in Visual Basic 2005 to learn about improvements to the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard. If you are going to run the upgrade wizard, it is strongly suggested that you run the Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor first. This tool will evaluate your Visual Basic 6.0 source code and provide suggestions for changes based on best practices for Visual Basic 6.0 that will help make the upgrade smoother. Microsoft Learning has put together a 3-hour online course, Upgrading from Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications, that teaches the Visual Basic 6.0 developer the considerations and methods for upgrading an application written in Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic 2005. The course includes upgrading best practices, the Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor, and the Migration Wizard. There is other more specialized material that may help you as well. This includes Moving Your Legacy Hardware Code to Visual Basic 2005, an article covering what is new with serial and parallel communication in Visual Basic 2005, and what it takes to migrate your legacy Visual Basic 6.0 hardware code to Visual Basic 2005. There is also User Interface Controls in Visual Basic 6 and Visual Basic 2005, an article on converting Visual Basic 6.0 User Interface controls into Visual Basic 2005. Code samples can also be helpful in upgrading. The Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Sample presents the Visual Basic 6.0 VCR example in both Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic 2005 code. You can also download a free copy of the book Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET for more information on upgrading. While this book was written for Visual Basic .NET 2003, it is still relevant for developers looking to upgrade to Visual Basic 2005. You can also download Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Samples, a set of four code samples that demonstrate techniques for upgrading from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET. Complete migration or upgrading of code is not always the best solution for Visual Basic 6.0 applications. Using the COM Interop features built into the .NET Framework, you can make Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic 2005 work side-by-side in the same application in a process called VB Fusion. The VB Fusion section of VBRun, the Visual Basic 6.0 Resource Center provides more details, or you can check out the overview article, Visual Basic Fusion: Best Practices to Use Visual Basic 6 and Visual Basic .NET Together. |