Migration from VB6 to VB.NET

  • Article

 There are still many Visual Basic 6.0 applications running in server’s customers, most of them back office applications that are critical for the business.  As the official Microsoft website shows, Visual Basic 6.0 extended support ended a few years ago, but you can hire some additional support for the runtime.

  

 

 Applications must be upgraded, that is a Fact, for companies who want to take advantage of the latest and improved features of .NET Platform.

 The first truth I usually tell customer when they ask me about how to migrate a big application (usually with many projects and many classes) is that there is not an easy way. If customers have allowed too much time to pass without upgrading, work ahead must be taken seriously because it is a complete new project.

 

80% of the migration is based on adjusting code and testing, because many classes in VB6 have been deprecated; moreover, VB.NET has a complete set of classes based on .NET framework.  Customer should know that this migration effort must be done by the Customer development department or between customer and Microsoft Consulting Services). Premier is not involved in hand-on migration projects; however, advisory and services after migration is feasible.

 

20% of the migration project consists in understanding where to start, which tools can be used, and planning the migration path.

 

For customer who has no idea about where to start, I recommend reading the following articles to evaluate the resources needed.

 

The information in the following link is vital to understand the different migration options. It is a must read to understand the five main choices available:

 

 1. Migrate to Microsoft .NET

 2. Extend with Microsoft .NET

 3. Rewrite in Microsoft .NET

 4. Replace

 5. Do nothing

 

Secure your Visual Basic 6.0 investment with Microsoft .NET

  •  https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/dd408373.aspx

Also I recommend reading the following articles

Also there are Microsoft partners like “ArtinSoft” with vast experience in Visual Basic migration projects