Visual Basic.Net

[shaminda]

I have Visual Basic 6.0 on my machine. Is it possible to install Visual Basic.Net on the same machine. Will I have a file compatability problem after I install Visual Basic.NET? Will all my 6.0 file converted to .NET? I have around 20 programs in Visual Basic 6.0, and I don't have time to convert all of them to .NET and deal with all kinds of problems. Any help would be appreciated.

[John G Duffy]

Microsoft strongly suggests you do not install .Net on a production machine.

John G

[Cakkie]

Well, I got good news and bad news.

The good news
You can install VB.Net on the same machine as you installed VB6. Note that the machine must be a Win2000 English. The appropriate servicepack and component updates will be done by the installer. It does not mess up any system files that relay to VB6, so both VB6 and .Net should work.

The bad news. VB6 Projects cannot be ported to .Net, at least not without a (big) fight. This is because there are capital changes between .Net and VB6. Everything, and I means everything is Object oriented. Every datatype is an object, because they inherit from the object class. Changes here will probably be something like you typing intNumber.ToString in stead of CStr(intNumber). Also, the set keyword isn't there anymore, just someobject = someotherobject, nor more set.
If you want to show a messagebox, that would be MessageBox.Show "Sometext". Luckely, they included a VB6 compatibility class, so you can still use Msgbox, but in the next version, it will probably be gone. If you have any ActiveX controls, Dlls, exe's, don't worry. Those can be used in exactly the same way as before.
Other mayor changes are explicit properties, meaning as much as this, you now need to specify to complete "path" to the property, no more default properties, at least when the property doesn't have any parameters.

rs("somefield") ' wrong
rs("somefield").value ' correct
rs.fields("somefield").value ' correct



The second line doesn't show the fields collection, but because it takes a parameter (the index), it can be omitted. Value however doesn't take a parameter, so you must put it there.

As you can see, it is a big battle to fight, and the complete list of changes can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com


Tom Cannaerts
slisse@planetinternet.be

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning -- Rich Cook