Upgrading Visual Basic 6.

0
Applications to Visual Basic .NET
and Visual Basic 2005
Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0
Applications to Visual Basic .NET
and Visual Basic 2005

p a t t er ns & p ra c t i c es
ISBN 0-7356-2298-1
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Contents
Preface xv
Who Should Read This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
For Technical Decision Makers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
For Solution Architects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
For Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
How to Use This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Relevant Chapters for Technical Decision Makers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx
Relevant Chapters for Solution Architects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx
Relevant Chapters for Software Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Document Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Feedback and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxii
Principal Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxii
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiv

Chapter 1
Introduction 1
Why Consider an Upgrade Project? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Minimum Information Needed to Make a Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Upgrade Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Moving from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Increased Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Better Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Application Extendibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Improved Reliability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Improved Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Improved Deployment Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Increased Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Technical Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Benefits of the Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
For More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Chapter 2
Practices for Successful Upgrades 25
Functional Equivalence and Application Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Functional Equivalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Application Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
iv Contents

Organizational Structure and the Software Life Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Overview of the Upgrade Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Proof of Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Planning the Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Defining the Project Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Performing an Application Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Assessing the Current and the Target Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Analyzing and Designing New Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Selecting an Upgrade Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Making an Inventory of Source Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Preparing the Source Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Preparing to Handle Upgrade Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Producing a Project Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Estimating Cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Preparing for the Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Preparing the Development Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Preparing the Visual Basic 6.0 Source Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Upgrading Applications Written in Earlier Versions of Visual Basic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Verifying Compilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Upgrading the Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Testing and Quality Assurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Assemblies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Microsoft Windows Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Advancing an Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Managing an Upgrade Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Change Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Managing the Project after Using the Upgrade Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Upgrade Project Complications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Using Historical Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Best Practices for Performing Your Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Avoiding a Common Pitfalls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Chapter 3
Assessment and Analysis 69
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Project Scope and Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Evaluating Upgrade Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Business Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Technical Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Gathering Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Assessing Application Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Application Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
 Contents v

Application Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Using the Assessment Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Current and Target Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Inventory to Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Source Code Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Handling Unsupported Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Application Dependences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Missing Application Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Estimating Effort and Cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Methodology Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Aspects to Be Estimated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Understanding the Effort – Total Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Understanding the Configuration Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Chapter 4
Common Application Types 107
Identifying and Upgrading Application Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Determining Application Type and Functional Equivalency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Determining Component and Project Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Desktop and Web Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Architecture Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Desktop Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Web Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Application Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Native DLLs and Assemblies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Interoperability Between .NET and COM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Reusable Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
ActiveX Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
ActiveX Controls Embedded in Web Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
ActiveX Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Distributed Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
DCOM Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
MTS and COM+ Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Chapter 5
The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 139
Procedure Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Application Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Development Environment Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Upgrade Wizard Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Removing Unused Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
vi Contents

Obtaining the Application Resource Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Compilation Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Project Upgrade Order Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Determine All Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Reviewing the Upgrade Wizard Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Application Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Execution of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Verifying the Progress of the Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Fixing Problems with the Upgrade Wizard Execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Completing the Upgrade with Manual Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Testing and Debugging the Upgraded Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Upgrade Report Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Fixing Run-Time Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Chapter 6
Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 183
Using the Upgrade Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Tasks Performed by the Upgrade Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Code Modification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Reference Checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
The Upgrade Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Supported Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Visual Basic 6.0 Language Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Visual Basic 6.0 Native Libraries (VB, VBA, VBRUN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Visual Basic 6.0 Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
ActiveX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Chapter 7
Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 217
Upgrading the App Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Upgrading the Screen Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Upgrading the Printer Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Upgrading the Printers Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Upgrading the Forms Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Upgrading the Clipboard Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Upgrading the Licenses Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Upgrading the Controls Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
 Contents vii

Chapter 8
Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 247
Resolving Issues with Default Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Resolving Issues with Custom Collection Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Dealing with Changes to Commonly-Used Functions and Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Dealing with Changes to TypeOf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Upgrading References to Visual Basic 6.0 Enum Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Defining Your Own Constant Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Using the Non-Constant Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Dealing with Changes to Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Legacy Visual Basic Language Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Upgrading Add-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Chapter 9
Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 275
Handling Changes to Graphics Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Removal of the Line Control in Visual Basic .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Removal of the Shape Control in Visual Basic .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Handling Changes to the PopupMenu Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Handling Changes to the ClipControls Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Drag-and-Drop Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Drag-and-Drop Functionality in Visual Basic 6.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Drag-and-Drop Functionality in Visual Basic .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Handling Changes to the MousePointer and MouseIcon Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Handling Changes to Property Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Handling Changes to the OLE Container Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Handling Changes to Control Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Event Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Accessing Control Arrays as a Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Adding Controls Dynamically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Handling Changes to DDE Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Chapter 10
Upgrading Web Applications 301
Upgrading ActiveX Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Upgrading Web Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
viii Contents

Chapter 11
Upgrading String and File Operations 307
Operations Handled by the Upgrade Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Auto-Upgraded String Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Auto-Upgraded File Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Manual String and File Operation Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Replacing Strings with StringBuilders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Replacing Complex String Manipulation with Regular Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Improving File I/O with Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
File Access Through the File System Object Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Chapter 12
Upgrading Data Access 323
General Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Upgrading ADO Data Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Projects without ADO Data Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Upgrading Data Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Upgrading Data Environment with Data Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Data Access Objects and Remote Data Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Data Binding Upgrade Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
DAO/RDO in Visual Basic .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Replacing the Data Control with ADO Data Control in Visual Basic 6.0 . . . . . . . . . . 332
Replacing DAO/RDO with ADO in Visual Basic 6.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Upgrading DAO / RDO without Data Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Upgrading Data Access Objects (DAO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Upgrading Remote Data Objects (RDO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Custom Data Access Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Upgrading to a .NET Version of the Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Using COM Interop with Custom Data Access Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Upgrading Mixed Data Access Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Converting Data Reports to Crystal Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Chapter 13
Working with the Windows API 351
Type Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Changes to Integer and Long Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Changes to Fixed-Length Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
 Contents ix

Variable Type “As Any” Is No Longer Supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Passing User-Defined Types to API Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Changes to “AddressOf” Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Functions ObjPtr, StrPtr, and VarPtr Are No Longer Supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Moving API Calls to Visual Basic .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Chapter 14
Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 371
Calling .NET Assemblies from Visual Basic 6.0 Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Calling Visual Basic 6.0 Libraries from Visual Basic .NET Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
How to Achieve Interoperability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Access Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Requirements for Interoperability with COM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
Accessing .NET Assemblies Directly from Visual Basic 6.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Creating Interoperability Wrappers in .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Command Line Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Data Type Marshaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Error Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Sinking COM Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
OLE Automation Call Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
Resource Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Constructors and Destructors in Visual Basic .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Garbage Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Chapter 15
Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 399
Using MTS/COM+ in Visual Basic 6.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
General Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
COM+ Application Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
Using SOAP Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
COM+ Application Proxies in .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
Upgrading MTS/COM+ Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
COM+ Example Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
COM+ Compensating Resource Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
COM+ Object Pooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
COM+ Application Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
COM+ Shared Property Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
COM+ Object Constructor Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
COM+ Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
x Contents

Additional COM+ Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

COM+ Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Context Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
COM+ Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
The Event Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
The Event Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
The Event Subscriber and Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
Message Queuing and Queued Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Chapter 16
Application Completion 455
Separating Assemblies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
No Assembly Separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Separation by Application Tier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
Separation by Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
Upgrading Integrated Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
Integrating Help at Run Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Integrating Help at Design Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
Upgrading WinHelp to HTML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
Integrating Context-Sensitive Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Run-time Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Upgrading Application Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Creating a New Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Customizing Your Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Merge Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
Web Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
COM+ Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476

Chapter 17
Introduction to Application Advancement 477
Target Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
Advancing the Architecture, Design, and Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
Advancing Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
Taking Advantage of Object-Oriented Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
Layering Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
Design Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
 Contents xi

Chapter 18
Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 497
Windows Applications and Windows Forms Smart Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Business Components (Enterprise Services) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524

Chapter 19
Advancements for Common Web Scenarios 527
Web Applications and ASP.NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
Architectural Advancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Master Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
HTTP Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Web Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Web Services Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Architecture Advancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Creating a Web Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
Consuming a Web Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Technology Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540

Chapter 20
Common Technology Scenarios 541
Application Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541
Using Identities and Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541
Using Cryptography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
Application Manageability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548
Using Configuration Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548
Using Deployment and Update Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551
Using Performance Counters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Using Tracing and Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Application Performance and Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Exception Handling Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553
String Handling Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553
Database Access Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553
Multithreading and the BackgroundWorker Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
Communication and State Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
Moving From DCOM to HTTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
Replacing Message Queuing with System.Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558
Upgrading ODBC and OLE DB Data Access Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
The ODBC .NET Data Provider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
xii Contents

The OLE DB .NET Data Provider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

Accessing Oracle Databases from the .NET Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
Upgrading ADO to ADO.NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
ADO.NET Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
ADO vs. ADO.NET Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

Chapter 21
Testing Upgraded Applications 571
Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
Test Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Testing Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Create Test Plan and Test Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
Create Test Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576
Review the Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Review of Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
Performing Unit Testing – White Box Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580
Black Box Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
White Box Testing – Profiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585
An Overview of Test Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
Test Strategy Based on the Waterfall Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
Test Strategy Based on the Iterative Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
Test Strategy Based on the Agile Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
Tools for Testing Visual Basic .NET Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
NUnit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
FxCop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
Application Center Test (ACT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596
Visual Studio Analyzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596
Trace and Debug Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596
TraceContext Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
CLR Profiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Enterprise Instrumentation Framework (EIF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Performance Counters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599

Appendix A
References to Related Topics 601
Visual Basic 6.0 Resource Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601
Coding Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602
Choosing File I/O Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602
 Contents xiii

Appendix B
Application Blocks, Frameworks, and Other Development Aids 603
Using Visual Basic .NET Application Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603
Building “My” Facades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Building Visual Studio .NET Snippets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606
Mobile Applications and the .NET Compact Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
Microsoft Mobile Technology Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
Overview of the .NET Compact Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
Porting from eMbedded Visual Basic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612
Creating a Mobile Version of a Desktop Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614
Synchronizing with Server Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621

Appendix C 623
Introduction to Upgrading ASP 623
Process Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625
Preparing the Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626
Upgrading the Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626
Testing and Debugging the Upgraded Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
Understanding the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
Tasks Performed by the Migration Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
Limitations of the Migration Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 628
Preparing the Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629
Preparing the Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629
Preparing Your Code for the Migration Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631
Upgrading the Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
Upgrade Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
Using the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634
Completing the Upgrade with Manual Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
Testing and Debugging the Upgraded Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 642
Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644

Appendix D
Upgrading FMStocks 2000 —
A Case Study 645
About FMStocks 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646
Reasons FMStocks 2000 Is Used for the Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646
FMStocks 2000 Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647
FMStocks_AutomatedUpgrade Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647
FMStocks_NET Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647
xiv Contents

FMStocks 2000 Assessment and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647

Overview of the Structure of FMStocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648
Overview of the Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
Obtaining the Upgrade Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650
Obtaining Source Code Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656
Handling of Unsupported Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656
Determining Application Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657
Upgrading FMStocks 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660
Planning the Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660
Preparing the Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668
Executing Automated Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668
Applying Manual Upgrade Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670
Functional Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 678
More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 678

Index 679
Preface
Microsoft® Visual Basic® development system is one of the most popular program-
ming languages in use today. Its relative simplicity and power have helped shape
modern rapid application development, making it the language of choice for quickly
and efficiently building business applications.
Like any widely used product, Visual Basic continues to be improved and adapted
as the world of computer technology changes. Visual Basic .NET marks the next
evolution of the language.
Visual Basic has always been fairly easy to use and has provided techniques and
technologies that were current at the time of each version’s release. However, new
technologies and techniques have come into use since Visual Basic 6.0 was released,
and these are unavailable in this and earlier versions of the language. While object-
based programming has been available in the language for years, true object-oriented
features have been unavailable. The ability to build distributed applications has
been severely limited. Other technologies such as Web services, mobile devices, and
.NET have all become prominent in recent years. The need to support these and
other features has prompted the release of a new version of Visual Basic.
Visual Basic .NET marks a significant advance for the Visual Basic programming
language. As part of the Microsoft .NET Framework, it supports all the latest tech-
nologies for building powerful and extensible business applications. Object-oriented
programming techniques are now completely supported, making it possible to
implement full object-oriented designs. New forms features make it even easier to
build rich desktop applications. Moreover, Web forms make it equally easy to create
Web applications.
The changes made to Visual Basic .NET have made some features of earlier versions
obsolete. Although the new version does provide better ways to achieve the same
result as these obsolete features, the changes break compatibility with earlier ver-
sions of the language. This makes it impossible to automate the process of upgrad-
ing applications created in earlier versions of Visual Basic to the latest version.
Though it is possible to automate the process of upgrading applications created in
earlier versions of the language to the latest version, entire applications cannot be
upgraded through automation alone. Manual intervention will be required to
complete the upgrade process.
The purpose of this guide is to provide you with the information you need to up-
grade an application from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET. It describes the tools
and techniques that you need to upgrade your application and to start taking
advantage of many new features in Visual Basic .NET and the .NET Framework.
xvi Preface

Who Should Read This Guide

This guide is intended for software technical decision makers, solution architects,
and software developers who are involved in Visual Basic 6.0 application or compo-
nent development. It helps you understand the issues and risks that go along with
upgrading to Visual Basic .NET. It also provides steps for preparing your applica-
tions for a successful and cost-effective upgrade. Finally, it gives ideas and pointers
about how to advance your application after you successfully upgrade it to Visual
Basic .NET.

For Technical Decision Makers

Technical decision makers will find a wealth of information about analyzing and
assessing the costs and benefits of upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 applications to Visual
Basic .NET and how best to perform this upgrade using proven processes and tools.
You will learn how to identify applications or parts of applications that may benefit
most from upgrading to .NET. You will also learn about the risks involved and the
issues that should be carefully monitored during the upgrade process. Finally, you
will learn about Visual Basic. NET improvements that you can apply to your appli-
cations after they are successfully upgraded.

For Solution Architects

Solution architects will learn how best to plan and execute the upgrade project. You
will learn how to effectively assess the complexity of the upgrade project and esti-
mate the effort that is required to complete the upgrade. You will find information
about how to identify the areas of your application that will need substantial
manual intervention to complete the upgrade. Furthermore, you will find a detailed
discussion about the best practices for completing a successful upgrade project and
how this maps to tasks and milestones within your own project.

For Developers
Developers will find information about many Visual Basic 6.0 features and how they
are upgraded to Visual Basic .NET. A step-by-step process describes the most effec-
tive strategies for completing a successful upgrade. A discussion of available tools
that automate some of the process is provided. You will also find information about
features that are not automatically converted and suggestions for how best to
manually convert these features. Code samples are provided throughout the text to
provide practical examples of Visual Basic 6.0 code that is not automatically up-
graded and examples of equivalent Visual Basic .NET code that you can use to
replace it. Finally, you will find ideas and pointers for improving your applications
after they are upgraded.
 Preface xvii

Prerequisites
As mentioned earlier, this guide is intended for software developers, solution
architects, and technical decision makers who are considering or who have already
decided to upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 applications to Visual Basic .NET. For this
reason, this guide assumes that you have a certain degree of knowledge and experi-
ence with Visual Basic 6.0. Also, you should be generally familiar with the .NET
Framework, Visual Basic .NET in particular.
This is not a how-to guide for Visual Basic 6.0, .NET application architecture, or
Visual Basic .NET. The guide contains introductory explanations of many of the
features of Visual Basic 6.0, Visual Basic .NET, and the .NET Framework in general,
but it provides these explanations only to create a context in which techniques for
upgrading between these technologies can be more appropriately discussed. If you
need more information about these technologies, see the “More Information” section
at the end of each chapter.

How to Use This Guide

Most chapters in this guide are independent and can be read in any order. However,
it is recommended that you read in order Chapter 1, “Introduction” and Chapter 2,
“Practices for Successful Upgrades.” These two chapters lay the important proce-
dural groundwork for the upgrade process that serves as a foundation for the rest of
the guide.
Because this guide targets a diverse audience, from architectural specialists who
oversee system design and integration to software developers who do the actual
coding, readers will undoubtedly get more value from some chapters than others.
The list that follows summarizes the key points of each chapter to help you deter-
mine which are more likely to focus on your particular areas of interest.
This guide has been divided into the following four parts:
● Part 1, “General Upgrade Practices,” consists of Chapters 1 – 3, and focuses on
the upgrade practices that are needed to make any upgrade project successful.
Although the emphasis is on Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET upgrades,
much of the information can be applied to any upgrade project. Part 1 includes
the following chapters:
● Chapter 1, “Introduction,” looks at the common reasons for upgrading to
Visual Basic .NET and examines some of the strategies that you might con-
sider to ensure a successful and cost effective upgrade.
● Chapter 2, “Practices for Successful Upgrades,” presents a proven methodol-
ogy that covers each step of the upgrade process from planning and applica-
tion preparation, through upgrading, and on to testing and quality assurance
in .NET.
xviii Preface

● Chapter 3, “Assessment and Analysis,” examines the first step of the upgrade
process which focuses on assessing the scope and complexity of the planned
upgrade project.
● Part 2, “Understanding the Upgrade Process,” consisting of Chapters 4 – 6,
provides a more technical overview of upgrading your code to Visual Basic .NET.
Part 2 includes the following chapters:
● Chapter 4, “Common Application Types,” examines the different types of
Visual Basic applications and presents suggestions for how to approach the
upgrade of these applications, shortcuts that can be taken, and some of the
difficulties and issues that can arise and should be kept in mind.
● Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process,” looks more closely at the
preparations and steps of performing an upgrade. The chapter includes the
detailed steps involved in using the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, which is an
add-in to the Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET development system that per-
forms much of the upgrade work for you. This chapter shows you how to
prepare your application so that your use of the upgrade wizard is more
effective and the amount of code that is automatically upgraded is maximized.
● Chapter 6, “Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard,” describes in
detail the capabilities and limitations of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard.
● Part 3, “Manual Upgrade Tasks,” consists of chapters 7 – 16, provides detailed
information on those aspects of upgrading that cannot be performed automati-
cally by the upgrade wizard and therefore require manual effort. Part 3 includes
the following chapters:
● Chapter 7, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects,” catalogs
many of the objects used in typical Visual Basic 6.0 applications that are not
supported in Visual Basic .NET. It gives techniques for upgrading these objects
manually and suggestions for workarounds and alternatives to enable you to
complete the upgrade successfully.
● Chapter 8, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Features,” identifies
additional Visual Basic 6.0 constructs that have changed or were omitted in
Visual Basic .NET. The chapter provides information on the changes that have
taken place and on how to deal with them when you upgrade an application.
● Chapter 9, “Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features,” concentrates on the
differences between Visual Basic 6.0 forms and the Windows Forms package
that is used in Visual Basic .NET. It identifies upgrade problem areas associ-
ated with forms and provides information on how to overcome them.
● Chapter 10, “Upgrading Web Applications,” provides information about how
to upgrade Web-based Visual Basic 6.0 applications.
● Chapter 11, “Upgrading String and File Operations,” gives information that
deals specifically with string and file manipulation. It covers the types of
 Preface xix

operations that are automatically upgraded when you apply the upgrade
wizard, as well as new operations that Visual Basic .NET offers.
● Chapter 12, “Upgrading Data Access,” addresses upgrading data access based
on Data Access Objects (DAO), Remote Data Objects (RDO), and ActiveX Data
Objects (ADO). It shows techniques that you can use to accelerate the upgrade
of database access code that is not handled by the upgrade wizard.
● Chapter 13, “Working with the Windows API,” discusses common issues that
arise when you upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 applications that use Windows API
function calls. It demonstrates how to replace common Windows API function
calls with new methods that Visual Basic .NET provides.
● Chapter 14, “Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET,” presents
options for interoperability between these two versions of the language. It
addresses techniques to access Visual Basic 6.0 components from Visual Basic
.NET assemblies and to access .NET assemblies from clients built in Visual
Basic 6.0. It covers many issues that arise when you use Component Object
Model (COM) to interoperate between these two languages and how COM
works in unmanaged and managed environments.
● Chapter 15, “Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications,” discusses how to
upgrade Microsoft Transaction Services (MTS) and COM+ components. It also
describes some of the deprecated functionality and how to deal with it when
you upgrade an application.
● Chapter 16, “Application Completion,” covers some of the remaining areas of
your application that are not core parts of your application’s functionality, but
are fundamental to having a finished product that provides the user with a
complete application. Topics include upgrading integrated help and product
deployment.
● Part 4, “Beyond the Upgrade,” consists of chapters 17 – 21 and covers what to do
after you complete the upgrade. Part 4 includes the following chapters:
● Chapter 17, “Introduction to Application Advancement,” looks at advance-
ment options that you can use after the application has reached functional
equivalence in Visual Basic .NET. The information in this chapter includes
suggestions for advancing the architecture, design, and implementation of
your applications.
● Chapter 18, “Advancements for Common Scenarios,” suggests advancements
that are based on specific application types, such as forms applications and
enterprise services.
● Chapter 19, “Advancements for Common Web Scenarios,” is a continuation of
Chapter 18 that focuses on advancements for Web-based applications.
xx Preface

● Chapter 20, “Common Technology Scenario Advancements,” focuses on

advancements that apply to almost all types of applications. These advance-
ments include enhancements to application security, manageability, perfor-
mance and scalability, and communication and state management.
● Chapter 21, “Testing Upgraded Applications,” provides detailed information
about strategies that you can use to verify the correctness and completeness of
your application after it is upgraded and after you have implemented the
advancements that you want.

Relevant Chapters for Technical Decision Makers

Technical decision makers will be most interested in information about assessment
and analysis, the risks and challenges of the upgrade, and application advancement.
The following chapters contain this information:
● Chapter 1, “Introduction”

● Chapter 3, “Assessment and Analysis”

● Chapter 7, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects”

● Chapter 8, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features”

● Chapter 9, “Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features”

● Chapter 10, “Upgrading Web Applications”

● Chapter 11, “Upgrading String and File Operations”

● Chapter 12, “Upgrading Data Access”

● Chapter 17, “Introduction to Application Advancement”

● Chapter 18, “Advancements for Common Scenarios”

● Chapter 19, “Advancements for Common Web Scenarios”

● Chapter 20, “Common Technology Scenario Advancements”

Relevant Chapters for Solution Architects

Solution architects will be most interested in the information about the recom-
mended upgrade process, assessment and analysis, best practices for managing an
upgrade project, the risks associated with this process, and application advance-
ment. The following chapters contain this information:
● Chapter 2, “Practices for Successful Upgrades”

● Chapter 3, “Assessment and Analysis”

● Chapter 4, “Common Application Types”

● Chapter 7, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects”

● Chapter 8, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features”

● Chapter 9, “Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features”

 Preface xxi

● Chapter 10, “Upgrading Web Applications”

● Chapter 11, “Upgrading String and File Operations”
● Chapter 12, “Upgrading Data Access”
● Chapter 13, “Working with the Windows API”
● Chapter 17, “Introduction to Application Advancement”
● Chapter 18, “Advancements for Common Scenarios”
● Chapter 19, “Advancements for Common Web Scenarios”
● Chapter 20, “Common Technology Scenario Advancements”

Relevant Chapters for Software Developers

Software developers will be most interested in the material that covers how the
technical features of Visual Basic 6.0 map to Visual Basic .NET. This includes the
features that are converted automatically by existing tools and those that must be
manually upgraded. Furthermore, developers are likely to be interested in learning
how they can advance applications with features of the .NET Framework. The
following chapters contain this information:
● Chapter 4, “Common Application Types”

● Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process”

● Chapter 6, “Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard”

● Chapter 7, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects”

● Chapter 8, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features”

● Chapter 9, “Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features”

● Chapter 10, “Upgrading Web Applications”

● Chapter 11, “Upgrading String and File Operations”

● Chapter 12, “Upgrading Data Access”

● Chapter 13, “Working with the Windows API”

● Chapter 14, “Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET”

● Chapter 17, “Introduction to Application Advancement”

● Chapter 18, “Advancements for Common Scenarios”

● Chapter 19, “Advancements for Common Web Scenarios”

● Chapter 20, “Common Technology Scenario Advancements”

Document Conventions
This guide uses the style conventions and terminology shown in Table 1 on the
next page.
xxii Preface

Table 1: Document Conventions

Element Meaning
bold font Characters that you type exactly as shown, including commands and
switches appear in bold font. Programming elements, such as methods,
functions, data types, and data structures appear in bold font (except
when part of a code sample, in which case they appear in monospace
font). User interface elements are also bold.
Italic font Variables for which you supply a specific value. For example,
Filename.ext could refer to any valid file name for the case in question.
New terminology also appears in italic on first use.
Monospace font Code samples.
%SystemRoot% The folder in which the Windows operating system is installed.

Feedback and Support

Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the content of this guide. All
sample code and procedures have been independently tested. Also, all references
and descriptions of tools, specifications, and standards have been checked and are
believed to be accurate at the time this guide is published.
If you have any comments or suggestions, or if you find any inaccuracies, please
send them by e-mail to [email protected].

Note: There is a community site for this guide on GotDotNet. This site contains a “Downloads”
section where you can obtain the Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool that is described
in this guide. It also contains forums where you can post feedback, ask questions, or provide
suggestions.

Principal Authors
The content for this guide and the accompanying Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assess-
ment Tool were developed by the following individuals at ArtinSoft:
● Project Lead: Federico Zoufaly

● Guidance: César Muñoz , Paul Dermody, Manfred Dahmen, Ronny Vargas,

Hendel Valverde, José David Araya, Oscar Calvo, Allan Cantillo, Alvaro Rivera,
Christian Saborío, Juan Fernando Peña, Xavier Morera, Iván Sanabria
● Assessment tool development: Rolando Méndez
 Preface xxiii

Contributors
The Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool and the Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 to
Visual Basic .NET and Visual Basic 2005 guide were produced with the help of the
following people.
● Program Manager: William Loeffler (Microsoft Corporation)

● Product Manager: Eugenio Pace (Microsoft Corporation)

● Architect: Keith Pleas (Guided Design)

● Test: Edward Lafferty (Microsoft Corporation); Ashish Babbar, Terrence Cyril J.,
Manish Duggal, Chaitanya Bijwe, Arumugam Subramaniyam, Umashankar
Murugesan, Dhanaraj Subbian, Tarin R. Shah, Dipika Khanna, Gayatri Patil, and
Sandesh Pandurang Ambekar (Infosys Technologies Ltd)
● Documentation and Samples: RoAnn Corbisier (Microsoft Corporation); Tina
Burden McGrayne and Melissa Seymour (TinaTech Inc.); Sharon Smith (Linda
Werner & Associates Inc.); Francisco Fernandez and Paul Henry (Wadeware LLC)

Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the following individuals who provided invaluable assistance
during the development of this guide:
● Dan Appleman (Desaware Inc.)

● Joe Binder (Microsoft Corporation)

● Rob Copeland (Microsoft Corporation)

● Jackie Goldstein (Renaissance Computer Systems Ltd.)

● Ed Hickey (Microsoft Corporation)

● Billy Hollis

● Edward Jezierski (Microsoft Corporation)

● Chris Kinsman (Vergent Software)

● Deborah Kurata (InStep Technologies)

● Julia Lerman (The Data Farm)

● Rockford Lhotka (Magenic Technologies)

● Christian Nielsen (Volvo Information Technology AB)

● Jay Roxe (Microsoft Corporation)

● Jay Schmelzer (Microsoft Corporation)

● Scott Swigart (Swigart Consulting)

● The Visual Basic MVPs (Microsoft Valued Professionals)

xxiv Preface

More Information
For more information about the Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool and to
download it, see “Visual Basic 6 to Visual Basic .NET Migration Guide” on
GotDotNet:
http://www.gotdotnet.com/codegallery/codegallery.aspx?id=07c69750-9b49-4783-b0fc-
94710433a66d.
For more information about ArtinSoft, see the ArtinSoft Web site:
http://www.artinsoft.com.
1
Introduction
Before investing time, money, and energy into an upgrade project, it is important
to understand why an upgrade is beneficial. It is equally important to understand
potential upgrade strategies to minimize costs and risks. This chapter presents the
benefits of upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 applications to Visual Basic .NET, and pro-
vides several strategies that you can apply to successfully upgrade your application.

Why Consider an Upgrade Project?

Before deciding to upgrade an application from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET,
it is helpful to understand why you should consider upgrading at all. This section
discusses why and when it makes sense to upgrade your application.
Usually, you have business requirements that compel you to upgrade an application
from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET. Common reasons, or drivers, to upgrade
an application to Visual Basic .NET are:
● To Web-enable the application, or enhance an existing Web-enabled application
with ASP.NET features, such as tracing, flexible state management, scaleable data
access, and improved performance.
● To take advantage of the improvements in developer productivity and the en-
hanced development features that Visual Basic .NET, the .NET Framework, and
Visual Studio .NET provide — particularly if new functionality is required that
is more easily implemented in Visual Basic .NET, such as Web services.
● To consolidate your company’s software assets. For example, if your new applica-
tions are built in Visual Basic .NET, there is often a need to upgrade other applica-
tions built with earlier versions of Visual Basic. This improves system integration
and reduces the overhead of needing experts on different platforms.
2 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● To reduce the cost of ongoing business activity. For example, the increased
scalability and performance of applications that are upgraded to Visual Basic
.NET, and the increased productivity of developers, can reduce the costs of
regular business activity.
● To improve the maintenance of an application in any of these situations:
● Your business does not have an in-house expert on the application.

● Your business has a high turnover of staff.

● Your business does not have enough resources to support the application.

● The available documentation is limited or outdated.

Of course, a combination of these drivers may influence your decision to upgrade.

These drivers can be seen as a kind of spectrum, going from push factors (factors that
compel you to upgrade the Visual Basic application to fit a new environment) to pull
factors (factors that result from the business wanting to seize an opportunity to
grow, reach new customers, or add products and services).

Minimum Information Needed to Make a Decision

To determine whether upgrading your application is appropriate, you should
perform a project feasibility analysis. The first step of your project feasibility analy-
sis is to collect information about the current status of your Visual Basic 6.0 applica-
tions. To make the best possible decision about whether to upgrade the application
to Visual Basic .NET, your analysis should address the following information.
● Project goals and priorities. Be sure to have clearly documented project goals,
with a list of priorities for each goal. Make a point to clarify how an upgrade will
meet these goals. Some questions that you want answered before making an
upgrade decision are the following:
● What is the expected life of the application? Is this a temporary solution or
something more long term? An application with a short expected lifetime
because of changing business needs or processes is unlikely to be worth
upgrading. However, an application whose functionality remains core to the
business and will remain so for a period that is sufficiently longer than the
length of the upgrade project is a good candidate for upgrading.
● When is the upgraded application needed for a production environment? If
the upgrade project will take longer than the schedule allows, it may be more
appropriate to replace the application.
● Do you have realistic expectations for improvements in performance, security,
scalability, and other potential benefits? Do you also understand that addi-
tional modifications may be required to achieve these improvements? It is
important to realize that the upgrade process alone may not improve the
performance or scalability of your application. Improvements like these often
 Chapter 1: Introduction 3

occur during application advancement, which is discussed in Chapter 20,

“Common Technology Scenario Advancements.”
● How many users will this application support in its lifetime? Do you clearly
understand how Visual Basic .NET will help meet increased user demand?
Changes to applications with a large user base will have a significant impact
on those users. However, the impact may be a positive one if the changes are
for the better. Improved performance features and modern technologies
available in Visual Basic .NET may improve the application experience for the
user.
● Do you plan to add new features to the application, such as integration with
other systems or access from the Web? Again, these improvements are part of
application advancement and require effort beyond upgrading the application.
● Business value of the applications. Is the functionality that is provided by this
application unique, or are there third-party applications that can be used to do
the same job? Be sure that you can demonstrate the specialized nature of the
application you propose to upgrade.
A related question is whether the application is a reasonable fit to your business
needs. You need to demonstrate that the application does provide a function that
fits the needs of your business. If the application has been around for a long time,
you need to make sure that the functionality of the application is not outdated,
and that it still closely fits the processes and operations required by your busi-
ness.
● Development environment. Moving to Visual Basic .NET also means updating
your development environment. Your developers will have to learn a new inte-
grated development environment (IDE), and a new language. You will also have
to purchase software licenses for the tools you need to perform the upgrade and
to maintain the upgraded code.
● Developer skills. Do your developers have knowledge or experience with the
.NET Framework in general and with Visual Basic .NET specifically? Although
upgrading an application is a good way to learn a new language, you should
ensure that your developers have basic knowledge of the .NET Framework and
Visual Basic .NET before beginning the upgrade project.
● Quality assurance environment. It is likely that the upgrade project will affect
your quality assurance procedures, especially if they are automated. Make sure
that you also consider any effort that will be required to upgrade your testing
environments.
● Application architecture and complexity. Most applications for large enterprises
have multiple dependencies on other systems within the company, as well as on
systems and libraries from third-party vendors. Make sure you understand the
nature of these dependencies and consider any changes that the systems require
before they will work with the upgraded application.
4 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Also, consider the effects that an upgraded application will have on other appli-
cations that depend on it. How will they be affected by the move to Visual Basic
.NET?
Finally, is the application of good quality? Good quality indicates both its quality
as a business tool and the quality of the source code that implements it. This is an
assessment of the effective value of the application from the view of the user and
the developer. The user requires an application that is stable, that does the job
well, and that is easy to use. A developer requires an application with code that is
understandable, well-documented, and not unnecessarily complex.
Making the following three assessments will help you gather the information that
you need to make a decision about upgrading your application. They will also help
you accurately estimate the effort that is needed to select and complete the appropri-
ate upgrade process:
● Business value assessment

● Code quality assessment

● Development environment assessment

Business Value Assessment

When you are considering investing time and money into an upgrade project, it is
important to evaluate the importance of the existing application’s functionality to
your business. Is there opportunity for return on investment if you do upgrade the
application? This can be shown by determining how much has been invested in the
application so far. Also, you might highlight unique features of the application that
cannot be replaced by a third-party off-the-shelf product. Answering these questions
will help you determine the value of the application to your business:
● Are the application’s basic inputs and outputs based on legacy file formats?
Applications with inputs and outputs based on legacy file formats that are not
easily translatable may be problematic to upgrade. On the other hand, moving an
application to Visual Basic .NET and upgrading data to a more general format,
such as XML, may leverage your application for future enhancements or changes
in technology.
● What kind of data does the application process, and are there other applications
that can do the same job? Applications that are responsible for processing impor-
tant business data are highly valuable to your business. If there are no other
applications, such as third-party off-the-shelf products, available to process this
data, ensuring the lifespan of your application by upgrading it to Visual Basic
.NET may be a logical step.
● How does this application interact with its users, whether they are human or
computer-based clients? Providing a clean, friendly interface for human users
increases the value of an application. New or improved user interface features of
 Chapter 1: Introduction 5

a new language version, such as Visual Basic .NET, may increase user apprecia-
tion. Similarly, an application that coordinates with other applications must have
clean data transmission. It should use dependable data formats and communica-
tion protocols. Newer languages often support improved transmission protocols
or data formats that make inter-application communication simpler and more
reliable.
● What other systems depend on your application, and are there third-party prod-
ucts that could provide the same data or function? If other systems are dependent
on your application, and there are not any third-party products to replace your
application, the value of your application is high. Ensuring the future of the
application becomes more important in this situation.
● What business rules are inherent to your application that are difficult to repro-
duce elsewhere? An application with a large number of business rules that are
unavailable in other applications is very valuable to a company.
● What role does this application play in current business processes in your com-
pany? What would happen to those processes if the application was removed?
An application that automates a small number of mundane tasks is not likely to
be very valuable. In contrast, an application that processes large amounts of
business data will be highly valuable. Even applications designed to assist
employees by automating a large number of data-oriented tasks can be valuable,
if such an application improves user efficiency.
Another driver for upgrading an application is reducing the total cost of ownership
(TCO). The .NET Framework provides many features that increase developer pro-
ductivity, while also lowering deployment and maintenance costs to decrease TCO.

Code Quality Assessment

An important factor in determining whether to upgrade your application is the
current quality of its code design and implementation. Detailed analysis of your
application’s source code will provide information on code quality, design complex-
ity, and component dependencies. You can use the Visual Basic Upgrade Assessment
Tool to help capture some of this information. For a complete description of the tool,
see Chapter 3, “Assessment and Analysis.” The Visual Basic Upgrade Assessment
Tool is provided with this guide on the companion CD or you can download it from
the GotDotNet community site.
The assessment tool was created to help you estimate the effort that is required to
upgrade an application, but it can also help you understand the structural complex-
ity of the application and its design quality. For this discussion, design quality
indicates the suitability of the code implementation given the functionality that is
required by the application. For example, applications that have gone through
multiple iterations over several years with different programmers often contain
excessive redundant dependencies and unused code. This indicates poor design
quality.
6 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The assessment tool collects the following metrics:

● Size metrics. These include metrics such as the number of lines of code, forms,
designers, modules, classes, components, user controls, and data sources.
● Usage metrics. These include functions, types, and properties.

● Complexity metrics. The assessment tool recognizes the same things that cause
the upgrade wizard to generate errors, warnings, and issues (EWIs). These EWIs
imply specific modifications that are required to resolve them. The assessment
tool assigns complexities to these EWIs. This helps you estimate the work that
needs to be performed to remedy all of the reported issues.
● Dependency diagrams. The assessment tool generates the call graphs for each
function and the resulting dependencies between modules and files. In addition,
the tool lists missing libraries and files. Use this information to determine pos-
sible upgrade roadmaps — that is, the order in which modules should be up-
graded.
There are many types of applications and different technologies that can be used to
build them. If you are considering upgrading your applications with the Visual Basic
Upgrade Wizard, you should be aware of some of the tool’s limitations. The follow-
ing types of applications are a sample of the those with features that are only par-
tially supported, or are not supported at all, by the upgrade wizard and some that
are not supported at all by Visual Basic .NET:
● A complex distributed application with several different layers of objects that
communicate through COM.
● A Visual Basic 5.0 or earlier application that has not made the transition to Visual
Basic 6.0.
● An Internet project that uses Microsoft ActiveX® technologies, Web classes, or
DHTML. None of these development technologies is supported in Visual Basic
.NET.
● A database project that is based on the Data Environment Designer, which is also
not supported in Visual Basic .NET.
● A database project that uses data binding to bind data sources to controls.

● An ActiveX control or ActiveX DLL project.

● A database client application with user controls.

Although these features and applications are not directly supported in Visual Basic
.NET, there is always an alternative (and often better) way to achieve the same
functionality within Visual Basic .NET. A more complete list of features that are not
automatically upgraded by the upgrade wizard is given in Chapters 7 through 11.
If your applications fit into any of these scenarios, your project plan should allow
time to identify and analyze upgrade alternatives for the technologies involved. You
should also allocate time to review, re-design, and realize your target architecture.
 Chapter 1: Introduction 7

Code quality is also affected by the status of the development work on the original
application. If any development initiatives are currently in progress, the code will be
less stable. The code may contain bugs, incomplete features, or even invalid code
that will not compile.
The best time to upgrade is when the application code base is stable but is due for
enhancements. This strategy gives you the opportunity to combine the upgrade
effort with feature enhancements. In contrast, it is best to avoid upgrading your
applications when undergoing a period of intense change, unless you have a very
strongly controlled code management process. Upgrading a large application may
take several weeks or even months. During this time, changes made to the original
code base will also be required in the upgraded code base. The process of maintain-
ing two code bases that are each undergoing changes is prone to error and is likely
to result in a disparity between the two versions of the application. If you decide
that it is necessary to make changes to the original applications while you also
upgrade them, it is recommended that you minimize disruption by choosing mod-
ules to upgrade that are stable and that progressively cover all of your application.
Code quality can affect the decision to upgrade in many ways. A stable application
with a well designed, implemented, tested, and documented code base that has
drifted away from the business needs (either through revisions in the application or
changes to the business) is a prime candidate for upgrade. On the other hand, such a
stable application that does fulfill the business needs and does not require improve-
ments is probably better left in its original form. An application of poor quality with
a weak design, complex implementation, and/or poor documentation is also a good
candidate for an upgrade. Upgrading an application of poor quality to a new devel-
opment language, such as Visual Basic .NET, gives you the opportunity to correct
these shortcomings. This will make it easier to maintain and will possibly advance
the application.

Development Environment Assessment

To accurately assess your development environment, you need to consider the skills
of your development team. The productivity of developers in an upgrade project
depends on their knowledge of the existing source code and the target technologies.
It is necessary to assess whether the team’s current skills are capable of solving each
issue that is found during the upgrade analysis. In general, it is recommended that
the developers undergo full training in Visual Basic .NET before they attempt an
upgrade project.
You must also consider other factors, such as the existence of test cases and how well
your development team understands the application that will be upgraded. If the
application does not have well defined test cases, it will be more difficult to demon-
strate the completion of an upgraded application. When test cases do exist, they may
8 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

also need to be upgraded to Visual Basic .NET. This is especially true if the testing
process is performed with automated tools.
If the developers do not have previous knowledge of the application, you must
factor extra time for them to understand the design and implementation of the
application. The time that is required also increases if the application does not have
an adequate set of documentation.

Upgrade, Reuse, Rewrite, or Replace?

When it is necessary to update an application, you have four broad options to
choose from: upgrade, reuse, rewrite, or replace. These options are described here:
● Upgrade. Apply the upgrade process, adding functionality and business reach as
required. The advantages of upgrading are that a great deal of your previous
investment is leveraged (especially in the areas of business logic). Also, compared
to rewriting your application, an upgrade is likely to introduce fewer bugs,
particularly when you use automated upgrade processes.
● Reuse. Instead of updating the application, you can add a layer over the applica-
tion to enable it to interoperate with newer Visual Basic .NET systems in your
organization. However, if you are updating your application for consolidation
reasons, reuse is not an option because with it you will have to maintain both
Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET systems.
● Rewrite. Sometimes the only way to update an application is to start over and
completely rewrite it. This means disposing of the original application and
starting again from scratch. If you determine that gradual changes in your busi-
ness operating procedures have caused the application to slowly lose relevance
and it no longer serves your business needs, you may consider rewriting most or
all of the application. Another reason for rewriting the application is that it has
become overly complex with un-maintainable, redundant code, and has out-of-
date documentation. This can happen when multiple versions of an application
were written by different developers who are no longer available to work on the
latest version.
The advantage to rewriting an application is that you have the freedom to create
a completely new design with the most current technologies. The disadvantage is
that writing a new application, even if it is a redevelopment of an existing appli-
cation, is more costly and more risky than the other options. Also, when you
rewrite a new application, you are effectively discarding all investment in the
existing application.
● Replace. Look for a suitable package to replace the application, or outsource the
work it does. Be prepared to make changes to your business model to meet the
package half-way because it is unlikely that it will exactly suit your current
needs.
 Chapter 1: Introduction 9

Use the following lists of indicators to help you choose an option for updating all or
part of your application:
● Indicators for choosing to upgrade. These include:

● The existing application is a good fit with business needs.

● The existing application needs only moderate functionality changes.

● A new application would require adding significant functionality to it, and it

would need to be closely integrated with the existing application.
● High operational costs are associated with the existing application.

● It is necessary to upgrade to .NET for strategic reasons.

● A future vision of the application includes Web services.

● It is difficult and costly to find resources to maintain the existing application.

● Indicators for choosing reuse. These include:

● The business rules are satisfactory.

● The existing application has low operational costs.

● It is difficult to separate logic from persistent data and presentation layers.

● Only simple Web access is required, which allows you to use a wrapping
solution
● You have sufficient resources to maintain core legacy code.

● Off-the-shelf software is central to the existing application, and it is possible to

rely on third-party support and maintenance.
● Indicators for choosing rewrite. These include:
● The business rules are satisfactory but you will need to add additional func-
tionality to the application.
● The available off-the-shelf solutions do not come close to meeting your needs.

● The existing application has poor quality code.

● The existing application has high maintenance costs.

● The time, cost, and disruption of rewriting the application are acceptable.

● Indicators for choosing replace. These include:

● The existing application is significantly out of line with business needs.

● Making changes to the business model to fit an off-the-shelf solution is accept-

able.
● The time, cost, and disruption of replacing the application are acceptable.

Figure 1.1 on the next page provides a visual summary of these indicators. To use
this graph, you need to first determine where your current application stands in
terms of business value and quality.
10 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Custom

Rewrite Migrate
Business
Value
Replace Reuse

Standard
Low High

Application Quality
Figure 1.1
A visual guide for deciding when and how to upgrade an application

Business value is the vertical access on the left. If your application provides some
level of “standard” functionality that is easily found in other applications, particu-
larly third-party off-the-shelf products, it will be located lower down on this axis. If
your application is a custom built application whose functionality is unique to your
business needs, it will appear higher up on this axis.
The horizontal axis at the bottom represents the quality of an application from the
points of view of both the user and the developer. If your application is difficult to
use, slow, unstable, or gives inconsistent results, the user will see it as a low quality
application. If the code is complex and difficult to maintain, the developer will see it
as low quality. In both cases, the application will be located to the left of the applica-
tion quality axis. If both users and developers are happy with the application, it will
be located to the right of this axis.
After you determine where the application stands on both axes, you can determine
the best course of action for updating your application. In general, applications that
provide “standard” functionality are candidates for replacement or reuse while
applications that provide “custom” functionality are candidates for rewriting or
upgrading. Low quality applications should be replaced or rewritten while high
quality applications should be reused or upgraded.
When indicators are in favor of an upgrade, choosing to upgrade to Visual Basic
.NET will best leverage the existing code base. For more information about some of
these benefits, see the “Moving from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET” section
later in this chapter.

Partial Upgrade
So far, this chapter has discussed the updating of your application as an all or
nothing undertaking. You can upgrade it or you can leave it as it is. You can rewrite
it or you can replace it. However, for many applications it is not a straightforward
question of choosing one of the four options previously listed. In some cases, you
 Chapter 1: Introduction 11

need to look at a combination of the upgrade, reuse, rewrite, and replacement

options. For example, a combination of upgrading and reusing the application is
possible and involves upgrading only part of your application. You can use standard
interoperability mechanisms to integrate the new and legacy components. This
approach is known as a partial upgrade and it makes sense when you determine
that certain parts of your application will benefit from the move to Visual Basic
.NET, but it is difficult to justify the move for others. In particular, if you examine
the indicators previously listed and find that the indicators for choosing to upgrade
apply to part of your application while the indicators for choosing to reuse apply to
other parts, you may want to consider a partial upgrade.
If you determine that a partial upgrade is the way to update your application, you
might find that you will have less upgrade work to do because you are not upgrad-
ing your entire application. However, you may have additional work to do to
integrate your new application with the legacy components that have been left in
Visual Basic 6.0. For more information about interoperability, see Chapter 14,
“Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET.”

Upgrade Strategies
If you decide that the upgrade option is the right approach to update your applica-
tion, you also need to choose an appropriate upgrade strategy. For information
about possible strategies, see the “Selecting an Upgrade Strategy” section in Chapter
2, “Practices for Successful Upgrades.”

Moving from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET

It is important to understand when to upgrade to Visual Basic .NET, and it is just as
important to understand why you should upgrade. It is important to understand the
benefits of upgrading before you begin. All of the features in Visual Basic 6.0 do not
have a one-to-one mapping with features in Visual Basic .NET, and you cannot
automatically upgrade all of the code. A natural question then arises: What reasons
are there for upgrading functional Visual Basic 6.0 applications to Visual Basic .NET?
To fully understand the advantages of upgrading, it is necessary to first understand
the benefits of Visual Basic .NET, the .NET Framework, and the standard .NET
integrated development environment, Visual Studio .NET.

Increased Productivity
The Visual Basic .NET language contains many new language features that increase
developer productivity. This section explores some of these features, and explains
how they benefit application development.
12 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Visual Basic .NET is built around the .NET Framework. Many of the benefits
of Visual Basic .NET are derived directly from the .NET Framework itself.
Microsoft .NET Framework is based on a specification named the Common Lan-
guage Specification (CLS). This specification defines the rules that determine a
minimum set of features that all .NET languages, including Visual Basic, must have.
Included among this minimum set of features are certain object-oriented features,
such as inheritance and exception handling. These features are not available in
earlier versions of Visual Basic. It also specifies which format the compilers create
for the executables, and it ensures that your application will run on any .NET engine
on any platform without recompilation.
The result is that code is compiled to a special format named Microsoft Intermediate
Language (MSIL) instead of the usual platform-specific machine code. MSIL
executables are then compiled to a platform-specific machine code at run time
through just-in-time (JIT) compilation. The benefit of this approach is that a single
compilation of your application is optimized at run time based on the actual proces-
sor and/or operating system on which the code is currently executing. For example,
a .NET application is optimized and run as a 32-bit application on the standard 32-
bit edition of the Microsoft Windows® XP operating system. The same application is
optimized and run as a 64-bit application, without the need for recompilation, on the
64-bit edition of the Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 operating system. Because
this is a published specification, it is possible that new processors and operating
systems can have .NET run-time engines created for them as they are released. This
means that an application written for the .NET Framework can run on and be
optimized for new hardware or operating systems without any recompilation or
upgrading of the application. A multi-platform version of an application or compo-
nent means developers can solve new problems, instead of investing time porting
existing components.
Additionally, the MSIL contains metadata about the classes that it contains. The
result is that developers do not have to create “include files,” type libraries, Interface
Definition Language (IDL) code, or any other additional files to use these classes in
another application. The client application can automatically extract this information
from the MSIL. This makes sharing and using the MSIL a lot easier. Productivity
increases because it is easier to take advantage of existing classes.
The main component of the CLS implementation is named the common language
runtime (CLR), which is the engine on which all .NET applications run and which
enables the interoperability and integration between all .NET languages. The man-
agement of resources (such as memory, threads, exceptions, and security) for .NET
applications is handled automatically by the CLR. Applications that are built using
only .NET technologies are referred to as managed applications or managed code.
The term managed derives from the fact that resources in such applications are
 Chapter 1: Introduction 13

managed by the CLR. Developers who build managed code benefit from the delega-
tion of responsibilities to the CLR because it frees them to focus on the application
logic instead of low level logic of resource management. This allows software
developers to be far more productive because they can concentrate on solving
business problems.
The data typing rules are defined by a section of the CLS named the common type
system (CTS). This specification defines all of the .NET data types and their behav-
iors. As a result, all languages in .NET share a common set of base data types whose
storage requirements and functional behaviors are identical across all languages. For
example, a string is the same regardless of whether it is defined in a Visual Basic
.NET module, a managed Visual C++® library, a Visual C#® component, or a Visual
J#® package. The benefit is that the specification ensures that a parameter that is
passed from a Visual Basic .NET application to a Visual C# library will be inter-
preted correctly within the library, and the return value will behave as expected back
in the Visual Basic .NET application. The fact that the application and the library it
uses are written in two different languages is transparent to the developers of each.
This benefit results in increased productivity because Visual Basic .NET developers
can now more easily integrate existing libraries and components into their Visual
Basic .NET code, even when those libraries are developed in other languages.
An additional benefit of the CTS is that it enables any class written in a .NET lan-
guage to inherit behavior from a class written in any other .NET language. For
example, you can create a Visual Basic .NET class that inherits behavior from an-
other class that was developed in Visual C#. Moreover, you can extend the .NET
Framework itself from Visual Basic .NET. This significantly expands the set of
components that you can use and the ways in which you can use them. The increase
in productivity results from code reuse, even among different languages.
Applications built for the .NET Framework have access to a comprehensive class
library named the .NET Framework Class Library (FCL). It contains a large number
of classes that enable all categories of client and server application development.
The FCL contains classes for programming security, cryptography, Windows Forms,
Windows services, Web services, Web applications, I/O, serviced components, data
access to SQL Server™ and many other database systems, directory services, graph-
ics, printing, internationalization, message queues, mail, common Internet technolo-
gies and protocols, culture-specific resources, COM interoperability, .NET remoting,
serialization, threading, and transactions. The benefit of the FCL is that Visual Basic
.NET developers can use and expand existing components built on the FCL without
having to start from the beginning.
In Visual Basic .NET, the CLR is responsible for memory management. In particular,
the CLR manages the work of freeing up memory for objects that are no longer
referenced in an application. This process, garbage collection, happens automatically
any time the CLR runs low on memory. The benefit of this process is that developers
do not have to destroy unnecessary objects to free memory resources. This results in
14 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

increased productivity because a developer can invest more time in solving business
problems than in resource management issues.
Although Visual Basic 6.0 provided an object-based programming model, it lacks
some features that would make it a full object-oriented language. In particular,
Visual Basic 6.0 does not provide full inheritance. Although it supports interface
inheritance, this limited form prevents developers from taking advantage of the all
of the benefits of this object-oriented programming. For example, this type of inher-
itance does not allow for code reuse and it limits the ability to fully implement
object-oriented designs.
Visual Basic .NET supports full implementation inheritance. You can create new
classes that inherit from existing classes. In fact, you can perform implementation
inheritance regardless of the .NET programming language that was used to create
the super class. This means that you can now more fully reuse existing classes
through inheritance and can truly implement object-oriented designs.
In addition to implementation inheritance, Visual Basic .NET still supports interface
inheritance. An interface is defined with the Interface keyword. Your classes then
inherit from an interface by implementing its methods.
Furthermore, you can create forms that inherit from existing forms. This type of
inheritance is named visual inheritance, and it allows you to apply the layout,
controls, and code for existing forms to new forms. Through this form of inherit-
ance, developers can build standard base forms. These forms can then be inherited
by applications to give them a similar look and style, but it still gives the application
developers the freedom to expand the form by adding new controls or changing a
particular control’s behavior. The result of visual inheritance is that developers can
take existing forms and customize them for new applications, instead of having to
recreate new forms for each application.
The benefit of inheritance is that it enables code reuse. Developers can take existing
classes and forms, and through inheritance, customize them to meet an application’s
needs. The result is increased productivity because less time is invested in building
completely new components.
Visual Basic .NET includes support for a new form development system named
Windows Forms. The Windows Forms framework provides features that make the
creation of powerful forms-based applications easy. These features include all
standard Windows application form controls (such as buttons and text boxes), built-
in support for connecting forms to XML services, and ActiveX controls support.
These are only a few of the many features available in Windows Forms. The benefit
of this framework is that it allows developers to rapidly build forms applications.
 Chapter 1: Introduction 15

Control anchoring frees developers from writing code to deal with form resizing.
Now, controls on a form can be visually anchored so that they remain a fixed length
from the edge of the form and resize whenever the form resizes, with no effort on
the part of the developer. This frees the developer to focus on business logic, instead
of form manipulation, which makes the developer more productive.
For Web applications, Visual Basic .NET includes built-in support for Web Forms
and XML. These features increase productivity by simplifying the work that is
required to include them in your applications. You can even extend a functional
application into a Web service. Moreover, the Visual Studio .NET IDE includes
design tools that help to quickly and efficiently design HTML documents, as well as
XML documents and schemas. All these features provide you with an environment
in which the effort to build a Web application development is comparable to devel-
oping a Windows-based application.
In addition to the beneficial features in the Visual Basic .NET language itself, there
are productivity benefits to using the standard .NET IDE, Visual Studio .NET. Some
of these features are highlighted here.
The Windows Forms Designer gives developers all the tools they need to rapidly
design forms. Controls such as buttons, check boxes, and more can be added to a
form by dragging them to the form.
Visual Studio .NET also provides a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)
designer for Web pages. This enables developers to quickly design Web-based
solutions. Also, as previously mentioned, XML designers provide tools for rapidly
building XML enabled solutions.
Visual Studio .NET provides a Task List display, which shows the outstanding tasks
the developers need to complete. The Task List indicates any ToDo comments that
developers include in code as a way to remind themselves of these outstanding
tasks. The Task List provides a centralized view of these reminders, and allows
developers to jump immediately to the comment when the time to address the task
arrives.
The Task List also displays any compilation errors that need to be corrected. The
Visual Basic .NET compiler continuously works in the background during coding.
Compilation errors are flagged in real time with blue squiggle underlines in the
code. The Task List also updates in real time the list of compilation errors to give
developers a complete list of corrections that they need to make.
The Task List can also be filtered to show only particular types of outstanding tasks,
such as showing only compilation errors or only ToDo comments. Figure 1.2 on the
next page shows a typical Task List in a Visual Basic .NET solution.
16 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 1.2
ToDo comments in the Task List

The background compilation and Task List features enable developers to be more
productive by reminding them of unfinished tasks.
As mentioned earlier, the .NET Framework is designed for cross-language
interoperability. Controls and components written in one language can easily be
used in another language because the CLR unifies all data types. Anyone who has
struggled to get a Visual Basic 6.0 user control to work in a Visual C++ project can
recognize the benefits of this interoperability. Not only can you easily use a compo-
nent written in another .NET language, you can also inherit from a class written in
any other .NET language. You can also create components in other languages that
inherit from your Visual Basic .NET classes. Surprisingly, this interoperability does
not complicate development. Visual Studio .NET provides a single environment
for developing and compiling multi-language applications. A Visual Studio .NET
solution can contain several projects, where each project can be developed using a
different .NET language. Using the unified debugger, you can step through the
various components, even if they were written in different languages. You can also
debug COM+ services and step into SQL Server stored procedures.
A new feature of Visual Studio .NET is the Processes dialog box that allows you
to attach to and debug an already running process. Certain types of applications
require specialized execution environments that Visual Studio is unable to provide.
For example, a Windows service execution is handled by the Windows Services
Manager. Such applications do not have graphical user interfaces. Although it is
possible in some cases to provide a Windows service with a Main method and an
 Chapter 1: Introduction 17

appropriate test framework to enable debugging, it is often impossible to reproduce

a problem through any means except running the service in its natural environment
as a Windows service. Another situation in which the Processes dialog box is useful
is when you are executing an application outside Visual Studio .NET and the appli-
cation starts to behave in some unexpected way that is difficult to reproduce. The
Visual Studio .NET debugger provides a Processes option that allows the debugger
to attach to a currently executing process. This feature provides a means to debug
applications that are running outside of the IDE; this gives developers the flexibility
to handle these kinds of situations.
Visual Studio .NET provides a very high level of integration with SQL Server. You
can connect to SQL Server using Server Explorer. After you are connected, you can
browse the database and even create new objects. In particular, you can create and
edit stored procedures written in the native SQL Server procedure language TSQL.
After they are created, you can execute stored procedures from within Visual Studio
.NET. You can step into the stored procedures just as you can step into Visual Basic
.NET methods to debug them. You can set breakpoints so that SQL Server returns
control to Visual Studio .NET when a certain line of code is reached during the
execution of a stored procedure, function, trigger, or extended stored procedure.
Visual Studio .NET provides the ability to add references to other projects to your
solutions. When you do this, Visual Studio automatically calculates the dependen-
cies and the build order for your project and referenced projects. It also ensures that
all of the referenced assemblies are always up to date and that they are available in
the appropriate directories when they are needed.
The Immediate windows from earlier versions of Visual Studio have been enhanced
and are now named Command windows. You can use these windows to read values
from and write values to variables in a paused application, evaluate expressions,
and execute statements. You can also use them to execute any of the Visual Studio
commands that are available from menus, keyboard shortcuts, or toolbars. For
example, you can issue commands to add new or existing items to the project or
solution, perform search and replace operations using regular expressions, toggle
break points, add watches, examine the call stack and memory, and display the
current list of threads in a program. The Command window supports IntelliSense,
even for file names, which makes using the Command window much more efficient.

Better Integration
Visual Basic .NET is designed to easily interact with components built on the .NET
Framework and with legacy components. This section explores how improved
integration can benefit applications.
Assemblies are the fundamental unit of deployment in .NET. An assembly is a
collection of types and resources that form a logical unit of functionality, such as a
component or application, in the form of a dynamic link library (DLL) or executable
18 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

(EXE). An assembly also maintains information used by the CLR, such as the version
number of the assembly, the names of other assemblies it is dependent on, and
requests for security permissions.
An important part of being able to maintain and control dependencies between
components of an application is the ability to publish public interfaces that define
how the components can be used. This is important because it allows the developer
of a component to modify it, to improve it, or fix problems, without breaking code
written by clients of the component. Assembly isolation allows the component
developer to ensure that only a predefined subset of the component can be used
directly by clients. This allows the developer to make changes to the implementation
of the component without causing problems for or requiring changes to the clients,
as long as the public interface does not change.
Another benefit of assembly isolation is that it allows side-by-side execution. Side-
by-side execution refers to the ability to install multiple versions of an application,
third-party components used by an application, or the .NET Framework itself and to
have clients choose which version of the framework and/or components it uses at
run time. This results in better integration because developers no longer need to
worry about corrupting existing applications with the release of newer versions of
a module, component, or framework. Assemblies cannot corrupt each other, and
clients always know the correct version of an assembly to refer to.
Visual Basic .NET includes features that allow interoperability with COM compo-
nents. COM interop allows developers to create a bridge between managed Visual
Basic .NET code and the unmanaged code of a COM component for all basic data
types, such as numeric types and strings. Data types of parameters passed to and
return values received from COM components are converted to the proper equiva-
lents between the managed and unmanaged code. This mechanism, referred to as
data marshaling, ensures clean interoperability between the managed code of your
upgraded application and the unmanaged code of the COM component. Note that
in some instances, custom code for performing marshaling may be required for user-
defined types.

Application Extendibility
Extending an application with new technologies helps to leverage the investment in
that application. Visual Basic .NET includes many features that ease the process of
extending an application with additional technologies.
Visual Basic .NET supports multiple distributed technologies. One such technology
is Web services, an open standard that enables developers to expose a set of software
services over the Internet through XML. The .NET Framework provides built-in
support for creating and exposing Web services. Software services exposed in this
way are both scalable and extensible and embrace open Internet standards — HTTP,
XML, SOAP, and Web Services Description Language (WSDL) — so that a service
 Chapter 1: Introduction 19

can be accessed and consumed from any client or Internet-enabled device. Support
for Web services is also provided by ASP.NET.
Another example is a new technology unique to the .NET Framework named .NET
remoting. Remoting is similar to DCOM. It enables communication between applica-
tions. This communication can occur between applications on the same computer,
between applications on different computers on the same network, and even be-
tween applications on different computers across different networks. Support for
.NET remoting is available in Visual Basic .NET.

Improved Reliability
Some of the new features in Visual Basic .NET improve the reliability of components
and applications. This section describes some of these features and how they result
in improved reliability.
In Visual Basic .NET, data types are bound statically. This means that the type of a
variable must be known at compile time. Using this strategy, the compiler can verify
that only valid operations can be applied to a particular variable or value. The strict
data typing rules that are enforced by Visual Basic .NET and the CTS are not just to
provide a high level of compatibility between different languages. These rules also
create a development platform where errors caused by incorrect use of data are
identified as early as possible in the development life cycle, typically at compile
time. The increased interoperability of data types across components and strict
enforcement of data typing rules in Visual Basic .NET result in more reliable applica-
tions and components.
Visual Basic .NET helps you reduce programming errors by supporting stronger
type checking. For example, using the wrong enum value for a property or assign-
ing an incompatible value to a variable is detected and reported by the compiler.
Also, with ADO.NET, you can add typed datasets to your application. If code refers
to an invalid field name, it is detected as a compile error instead of a run-time error.
The earlier an error is found during the development cycle, the easier it is to correct.
Identifying type errors at compilation time instead of at execution time makes them
easier to correct.
It is possible to force even stronger type checking at compile time by using Option
Strict On in your application code. This option completely prohibits late binding
and requires you to use conversion functions whenever you assign to a variable a
value that is of a different type. This helps developers identify points in their code in
which subtle errors due to conversion may occur, such as the loss of a value due to
truncation when assigning a higher-precision value to a lower-precision variable (for
example, assigning a Long value to an Integer variable).
Another new feature of Visual Basic .NET that results in improved reliability is a
security feature that enforces the adherence to object-oriented concepts such as the
20 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

encapsulation of data and behavior. This feature, named type safety, protects memory
locations by restricting access to private members of an object. It ensures that when a
field or method is marked as private, it may be accessed only within the class to
which it belongs.
The term type safety also has a broader meaning that refers to language features that
reduce the number of run-time errors that relate to incorrect data types. In this
context, type safety refers to the compile-time checks that ensure operations are
performed on appropriate data type values.
In contrast, the type safety that is used to ensure .NET security is checked by the
compiler and can optionally be verified at run time using verification. Verification is
required because the runtime has no control over how various assemblies in the
application were compiled, but they may be skipped if the code in question has
permission to bypass verification. This kind of type safety guarantees that a class’s
public interfaces are respected, and that assemblies can be isolated from other
assemblies in the application domain. This improves reliability and security because
no other code can adversely affect execution by altering data or invoking functional-
ity that has been marked private. For more information about type safety and
verification in .NET, see “Type Safety and Security” in the .NET Framework
Developer’s Guide on MSDN.
Structured exception handling is another new feature of Visual Basic .NET that can
improve application reliability. In addition to supporting the familiar On Error
GoTo error catching mechanism from Visual Basic 6.0, Visual Basic .NET provides a
new structured error handling mechanism: the Try/Catch/Finally block and the
Throw statement.
A Try/Catch/Finally construct encloses code that may result in errors or other
exceptional conditions, and it provides handlers for each potential exception. A
software developer has full control over the granularity of the exception handling,
from an individual line of code, to an entire block of code, to all the code in a func-
tion. The developer also has control over the types of exceptions that are handled,
from specific exceptions to general catch-all exceptions. The optional Finally portion
of the construct provides a way to specify code that should execute regardless of
whether or not an exception occurred.
The Throw statement is a way for a developer to signal the occurrence of an errone-
ous or exceptional condition. This allows the developer to signal to a client that an
unexpected condition has occurred, and it gives the client the opportunity to decide
how to deal with the condition. A client may be able to recover from the condition or
provide a strategy to allow an application to gracefully degrade.
Structured exception handling gives developers a way to either recover from or
gracefully exit on error conditions. These strategies can help to prevent data loss;
this improves an application’s reliability even in the event of error.
 Chapter 1: Introduction 21

Improved Security
Application security is an important feature of Visual Basic .NET. The .NET Frame-
work provides a set of sophisticated security features without overcomplicating
requirements for developers. Security management in the CLR prevents others from
modifying the assemblies that contain an application or its dependent components.
It also ensures that components cannot access memory that they are not authorized
to access.
Developers can control the permissions of applications and components that use
configuration files. A developer can control access to a resource based on the privi-
lege level of the user running an application or based on the trust level of the appli-
cation itself. This can restrict untrusted code from accessing a resource even if the
user of the code would ordinarily have full access. For example, even if untrusted
code runs within a super-user account, its access to a resource can still be restricted.

Improved Deployment Options

Before .NET, deploying client applications typically required applying registry
settings and/or copying DLLs to appropriate directories. An application could
easily break if the registry settings were corrupted or if another application replaced
a DLL with an incompatible version.
Visual Basic .NET has many new features that have been designed to simplify rich
client application deployment. These features include the following:
● The .NET Framework provides application isolation. DLLs for one application do
not affect other applications. This is referred to as zero-impact installation.
● Components and DLLs by default are installed privately for the application.
These components must be shared explicitly to make them visible to other
applications.
● Multiple versions of a DLL can be shared transparently. An application’s assem-
bly contains all the required version information for any DLLs used. As a result,
even if multiple versions of the DLL exist on the target computer, only the correct
version will be used by the application.
● Self-contained applications and components can be deployed without registry
entries or dependencies. All that is required is copying the appropriate files to
the application’s bin directory. This type of installation is referred to as XCOPY
installation.
● Applications can take advantage of features available in the Microsoft Windows
Installer, such as advertisement, publishing, repair, and install-on-demand.
● Incremental installs provide for smaller downloads. Furthermore, if installation
fails, the target computer is fully restored to the stage it was in before the installer
began.
22 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● A new type of installer called a merge module provides a much simplified way to
package and install components that will be shared by multiple applications.
Merge modules (.msm files) allow you to share components between multiple
deployment projects. You can create your own merge modules with Visual Studio
.NET, or you can use existing merge modules that are available for many stan-
dard components from Microsoft, as well as from third-party vendors. A merge
module is created once and is included in all applications that use it. It handles
all the details of remembering which applications are using the component and
when the last application that needs it has been uninstalled. For more informa-
tion about merge modules and other installation and deployment options, see
Chapter 16, “Application Completion.”
One of the results of improved deployment features in Visual Basic .NET is that
installations can no longer corrupt other application installations.

Increased Performance
Some new features of Visual Basic .NET can be used to increase the performance of
an application. This section explores some of these features and how they can be
used to increase performance.
A typical Visual Basic application is single threaded, which means that only a single
task at a time can be performed. However, Visual Basic .NET now provides support
for multithreaded applications, so that multiple tasks can execute concurrently.
Multithreading can improve application performance in the following ways:
● Program responsiveness increases because the user interface can remain active
while other work continues.
● Idle tasks can yield their designated processor time to other tasks.

● Processor-intensive tasks can periodically yield to other tasks.

As an example, consider a server application that provides information to clients

from a database. In a single-threaded application, the server is capable of servicing a
single client at a time. This means that if multiple clients need information at the
same time, only one is serviced. The other clients have to wait until the first client’s
request is complete before they receive attention. In a multithreaded application, the
server has multiple independent threads of execution servicing individual client
requests simultaneously. As a result, each client receives immediate attention from
the server.

Technical Support
As of March 2005, Microsoft ended the mainstream phase of support for Visual Basic
6.0, and entered into a period of extended phase support. The current extended
phase support is available until March 2008, at which point Visual Basic 6.0 will no
longer be supported.
 Chapter 1: Introduction 23

The impact of these support policies is that free support for Visual Basic 6.0 is no
longer available. During the extended phase, customers can still receive professional
product support for Visual Basic 6.0 through telephone and online incident support
channels on a per-incident fee basis or through Premier Support. Similarly, critical
updates and hotfixes are only available for a fee during the extended phase.
For more information about the support policies for Visual Basic 6.0, see “Product
Family Life-Cycle Guidelines for Visual Basic 6.0” in the Microsoft Visual Basic
Developer Center on MSDN.

Benefits of the Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard
If you choose to upgrade your application, you can best achieve this by using the
Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard included in the Visual Studio
.NET IDE. By using the upgrade wizard to upgrade your application, you can:
● Produce source code that is both easily extendable and maintainable.

● Acquire functional equivalence, with all of the built-in features of the original
program intact.
● Gain a robust and intelligent automatic restructuring of the code.

● Keep original code comments.

● Maintain cross-references for all the application components.

Some of these benefits may be reduced or lost if an application uses many technolo-
gies that are not supported in Visual Basic .NET. The Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade
Assessment Tool can help to identify an application’s dependence on such technolo-
gies, and this guide provides the solutions for addressing dependence on unsup-
ported technologies in Visual Basic .NET.

Summary
When you decide whether to upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 applications to Visual Basic
.NET, you have many factors to consider. Some applications are not well suited to an
upgrade, either because they will not benefit from .NET technologies or because the
cost or complexity of the upgrade is prohibitive. Other applications practically
compel the move because the benefits far outweigh the costs. The main point of this
chapter is that an upgrade should be considered on a per-application basis. There
are many convincing reasons for upgrading applications to Visual Basic .NET, but
there are often just as convincing reasons to leave an application alone. Upgrade an
application only if and when it makes sense to do so. If an upgrade is warranted,
risks and costs can be minimized by preparing an upgrade plan. The remaining
chapters of this guide provide you with the tools and techniques to prepare such a
plan, and to help you perform the actual upgrade as efficiently as possible.
24 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For More Information

For more information about the Visual Basic Upgrade Assessment Tool or to down-
load it, see “Visual Basic 6 to Visual Basic. NET Migration Guide” on the GotDotNet
community site:
http://www.gotdotnet.com/codegallery/codegallery.aspx?id=07c69750-9b49-4783-b0fc-
94710433a66d.
For more information about type safety and verification in .NET, see “Type Safety
and Security” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html
/cpcontypesafetysecurity.asp.
For more information about the support policies for Visual Basic 6.0, see “Product
Family Life-Cycle Guidelines for Visual Basic 6.0” in the Microsoft Visual Basic
Developer Center on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/support/vb6.aspx.
2
Practices for Successful Upgrades
This chapter examines the upgrade process in detail, and further discusses two key
concepts that were introduced in Chapter 1: functional equivalence and application
advancement. This chapter also presents upgrade practices that apply to these two
concepts and explains some best practices for managing a successful upgrade
project.

Functional Equivalence and Application Advancement

When you upgrade an application from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET, you
can either choose to stop the upgrade process when you have a Visual Basic .NET
version of an application that looks and behaves the same as the original, or you can
choose to add new features that are available in the new language. This section
explains these two options, functional equivalence and application advancement.

Functional Equivalence
Functional equivalence is an important concept for any upgrade project. In the
context of a Microsoft Visual Basic upgrade, achieving functional equivalence means
that the exact functionality of a Visual Basic 6.0 application is retained in the Visual
Basic .NET application after it has been upgraded, but before new features are
added. Achieving functional equivalence guarantees that your application logic does
not change as a result of the upgrade and that your existing business rules are
functional in the upgraded application.
By making functional equivalence a goal for your upgrade project, your organiza-
tion can benefit in several ways:
● Because your Visual Basic .NET application is functionally equivalent to the
original Visual Basic 6.0 application, you have a perfect specification for the
application upgrade project. This means that you can easily identify discrepan-
26 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

cies in application behavior and in output, and you can clearly measure the
success of the upgrade project.
● With a functionally equivalent application, you will not encounter scope in-
creases or changes, and you can predict and facilitate the testing phases of the
project. You will still need to prepare specifications for any new functionality that
is added after functional equivalence is achieved.
● The goal of achieving functional equivalence gives you a clear, easy-to-under-
stand means of tracking the progress of the project. As you upgrade parts of your
application, you can compare the functionality with the original application.
● A functionally equivalent application eliminates the need for existing users to
adapt to an upgraded application and reduces any change management processes
to the IT department.
● Achieving functional equivalence is the fastest way for an organization to transi-
tion from older to newer technology. It is also the most efficient way for an
organization to regain autonomous control and to resume normal incremental
maintenance of the application.

Application Advancement
Achieving functional equivalence provides you with a working .NET version of
your application, but it is usually considered an intermediate step in the process of
upgrading an application. As described in Chapter 1, “Introduction,” a principal
benefit of upgrading your application to the .NET Framework is that you have
access to significantly improved application performance, integration, productivity,
extensibility, reliability, and security. Using this new technology to add or improve
functionality in your application is referred to as application advancement.
Application advancement involves identifying, and then modifying or extending,
the areas of your application that would benefit from the many improvements that
the .NET Framework offers. In fact, application advancement could be considered to
be the key reason for upgrading to Visual Basic .NET in the first place. However, it
might seem that you are wasting effort by first achieving functional equivalence in
an application that you ultimately plan to change, but by doing this, you are actually
providing a solid basis for a more controlled approach to application advancement.

Organizational Structure and the Software Life Cycle

Whether your upgrade project is focused on functional equivalence, functional
equivalence followed by application advancement, or pure application advance-
ment, you should view the application upgrade as a standard software development
project. Although the design of your application has been determined already (for
the most part) and it is already implemented, you still need to plan for the usual
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 27

stages of the development cycle. These stages — managing expectations, design,

implementation, and testing — are vital elements in the upgrade process.
While testing is very important to an upgrade project, you might be able to reuse
test processes that you developed for the earlier version of the application. For
example, you may find that some of the testing assets — such test plans, test cases,
and test code — that were used for the Visual Basic 6.0 application are still useful
after the upgrade. This topic is covered in more detail later in the chapter.

Overview of the Upgrade Process

The upgrade of your Visual Basic 6.0 application is not a trivial task. As with any
development project, it is important to have a clear concept of process. This will help
you keep the project on schedule and within your budget.
The process described here was developed as a result of many Visual Basic upgrade
projects performed by Microsoft and its partners. This chapter looks at the upgrade
process as a series of phases that represent milestones within the upgrade. Some of
these phases, such as planning, must be completed for the entire project before any
other phases can start. Other phases can be applied to individual pieces of the
application at the same time while other sections of the application are already in
later phases. For example, if you have chosen a staged upgrade strategy, it is pos-
sible that some of the sections of your Visual Basic application are being prepared
for upgrade while others have already been upgraded and are ready for testing.

Advance

Deploy

Test

Upgrade

Prepare

Plan

Figure 2.1
A graphical representation of the upgrade process.
28 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The main phases of the upgrade process are planning, preparation, upgrade, testing,
deployment, and advancement. They are briefly described here and will be explored
in more detail later in this chapter:
● Planning. Planning is the first phase of the upgrade project. It involves defining
goals, expectations, and constraints. Planning requires that you assess the appli-
cation to be upgraded so that you can evaluate risks and determine the steps
needed to upgrade the application. It is particularly important for you to deter-
mine the order in which the modules should be upgraded. During the planning
phase, you will also need to evaluate the cost of upgrading the application.
● Preparation. The second phase involves preparing your application for the
upgrade. Although the preparation phase is optional, it is strongly recommended
because by preparing your application in advance you will save a great deal of
time during the upgrade phase. Preparing your application includes modifying
certain implementation details of the application so that the process of using the
Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard is as efficient as possible. This, in turn, reduces the
work you need to do after the upgrade wizard has been used.
● Upgrade. During the upgrade phase, you use the upgrade wizard to upgrade as
much as possible of the Visual Basic 6.0 code to Visual Basic .NET code. After-
ward, you manually upgrade the remaining code. The result of this phase should
be a Visual Basic .NET application that is functionally equivalent to the Visual
Basic 6.0 application.
● Testing. Usually, testing is the basis for demonstrating functional equivalence in
your application. Although listed here as a phase to follow the upgrade phase,
testing should be performed throughout the process, even in the early stages of
the upgrade. For example, unit testing can be applied to individual components
as they are upgraded to ensure they are correct before testing their behavior in
the entire system.
● Deployment. Because deployment also must be tested, the deployment phase
often overlaps with the upgrade and testing phases. This is especially true for
projects that require a successfully deployed application before the testing phase
can be completed.
● Advancement. The final phase involves advancing your functionally equivalent
application by implementing new .NET features or by improving existing fea-
tures with .NET functionality. Keep in mind that any new features will also have
to undergo testing.
Before you begin the project in earnest, you might consider using a subsection of
your application in a test run of this process. A test run can hone your cost estima-
tions and possibly reduce upgrade risks by identifying issues that could block the
progress of the actual project.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 29

Proof of Concept
When planning your project, you should evaluate the need to test any major up-
grade issues with a proof of concept or with a prototype. A proof of concept is
evidence that demonstrates whether a project is ideal or feasible. It, or a prototype,
can help you to avoid wasting time on poor coding decisions and can allow you to
validate solutions in an isolated condition. A proof of concept will help you to
determine the real cost of the most common issues that appear in the upgrade
wizard’s upgrade report. For more information about the upgrade wizard, see
Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process.”
The proof of concept for an upgrade project will help you familiarize yourself with
details of the upgrade process. A good way to develop a proof of concept is by
upgrading a practice application. When choosing a practice application, consider a
simple application that is a good candidate for use with the upgrade wizard and one
that is not tightly integrated with other technologies. (For more information, see the
“Performing an Application Analysis” section later in this chapter). After you have
chosen and then upgraded the practice application, you and your team can gain
valuable experience by analyzing and solving generic issues in the upgraded code.
This activity will help you to identify issues that can affect the execution of your
more complex, real-world project. Learning to upgrade is like learning anything
else: by starting with a simple project, you learn in manageable pieces. Also, because
you will probably have the application upgraded and running quickly, your team
will build the confidence that is needed to tackle a larger project. Finally, this prac-
tice upgrade will help you to assess the feasibility of upgrading a larger, more
complicated application.
If the proof of concept convinces you of the feasibility of upgrading a more complex,
real-world application, choose one that will benefit from the new features of the
.NET Framework so that you can review the process from the point when the appli-
cation has achieved functional equivalence through the final phase of application
advancement. Think about the way the architecture is going to be modified. For
large applications, the principle of divide and conquer applies. You should upgrade
the application module-by-module. For example, you may start with the client
modules, and then move up the dependency hierarchy by next upgrading the
business logic and data tier modules. (For more information about upgrade strate-
gies, see Chapter 1, “Introduction.”) As you move along in the process, be sure that
you test each module of the application as it is upgraded so you know that you have
quality code before you move forward.
After you and your team have had some experience with the upgrade process and
you have chosen a real-world application to upgrade, you will be ready to begin the
work of defining the scope of the project.
30 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Note: If you plan to upgrade your application one piece at a time, you must apply
interoperability techniques that allow the components that remain in Visual Basic 6.0 to
communicate with the upgraded Visual Basic .NET components. For more information about
interoperability, see Chapter 14, “Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET.”

Planning the Upgrade

In addition to the tasks your organization typically performs during a software
development project, your plan for the upgrade project should include the following
activities:
● Defining the project scope. Define the objectives of the upgrade project. Be clear
about which components and features will be upgraded and what you expect
from the upgrade.
● Performing an application analysis. Profile the application you want to upgrade
to determine the best upgrade strategy.
● Assessing the current and the target architecture. Assess the design and imple-
mentation of the application being upgraded. Clarify any architectural aspects
that need to change during the move to Visual Basic .NET.
● Analyzing and designing new functionality. If expectations include functional-
ity that is not in the current application, plan for the analysis and the design of
the new features.
● Selecting an upgrade strategy. Based on the design of your application, you will
probably opt for one upgrade strategy over another. When you make your choice,
you must create measurable milestones and testing processes for intermediate
releases of the application.
● Making an inventory of source code. Specify the amount of source code that
needs to be upgraded. Be sure to include all other dependencies on the applica-
tion that will be required for its compilation and execution.
● Preparing the source code. Plan enough time to prepare the code for the up-
grade. Resist the urge to dive into the upgrade phase before your team or the
code is ready.
● Preparing to handle upgrade issues. Based on the results of your application
assessment, schedule the appropriate amount of time to manually complete
functionality that cannot be fully upgraded by the upgrade wizard. You will also
need to spend time on functionality that was successfully upgraded but may
behave differently in the .NET environment.
● Unit testing. Although this is an upgrade project, you will still need to perform
testing at the unit level to ensure that even low-level code behaves as expected.
Doing this ensures that integration and acceptance testing are more efficient.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 31

● Validating functional equivalence and acceptance. If it is necessary for you to

prove that the new application does indeed behave exactly like the original
application — or within a predetermined margin of error — you need to define
the criteria that will be used to measure functional equivalence and application
acceptance.
● Implementing and testing new functionality. Schedule time and resources to
implement and test all new functionality that you will add to the upgraded
application.
● Deploying the Visual Basic .NET application. No upgrade is complete until the
new application has been deployed and is in production. Make the necessary
plans to transition from deploying the original application to deploying the
newly upgraded .NET version.

Defining the Project Scope

Defining the scope of your project is the all-important stage of project planning
where you establish the project goals and the manageable tasks that will accomplish
these goals. You will also define the milestones and criteria that you will use to
measure whether you have succeeded in meeting them.
Upgrade project plans include certain goals that are not usually required in other
software development projects. Primarily, the project scope should include criteria
for measuring whether the upgraded application is functionally equivalent to the
original application.
You need to specify the criteria that you will use to measure the success of reaching
milestones and to prepare the mechanisms that you will use to validate them. Start
by creating test cases. Test cases are an important tool for measuring progress during
the upgrade process and also for measuring functional equivalence. As with any
software development project, test cases help you maintain a level of high quality in
your application.
By answering the following questions, you can further define the scope of your
project:
● Do you expect the first version of the upgraded application to have additional
functionality? Your first aim should be to achieve functional equivalence. If you
want to add functionality, keep this goal separate by defining specific milestones
for the tasks that involve application advancement. Additional functionality is
not an automatic result of upgrading an application; you must plan for it.
● Do you expect to see improvements in the performance of the functionally
equivalent application? Better performance in an application is not an automatic
result of upgrading it. However, performance is a valid requirement for the first
iteration of your upgraded application so these requirements should be well-
documented early.
32 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Do you expect improvements in security, usability, or reliability? These im-

provements are additional features that you need to implement after the applica-
tion has achieved functional equivalence. Their implementation is part of
application advancement.
● Do you plan to take advantage of new techniques for deployment and interna-
tionalization? Again, the implementation of these new features is part of applica-
tion advancement and should begin after the application has achieved functional
equivalence.
● Are you aware of new dependencies that come with Visual Basic .NET and the
.NET Framework and how they may affect your deployment requirements? The
deployment of a functionally equivalent application is a reasonable expectation,
and planning for any new dependencies is vital to its success.
● Do you expect the upgraded application to look identical to the original appli-
cation? Are you prepared for differences in appearance? For some types of
applications, there will be unavoidable changes in appearance, so you must plan
to document these changes for users. For information about some of the visual
and behavioral differences you can expect when you upgrade your application to
Visual Basic .NET, see Chapter 9, “Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features.”

Performing an Application Analysis

An important step in managing risk and estimating costs for an upgrade project is
having a team of experts (which may be internal or external to your business)
perform a technical analysis of the application. This will determine the most appro-
priate upgrade strategy for the project. The goal of this activity is to ensure that the
project adapts to your real business needs and that your expectations are realistic
about the outcome of the project. The analysis should produce an outline of the
project’s time and cost estimates, as well as a technical profile of the application.
Both the outline and the profile are imperative to the success of the project.
Begin the profile by identifying and analyzing the application code that will be
upgraded. A good way to start is by producing an inventory of the application
source code, including references to libraries and resources. Then, you need to
identify and classify possible issues that you will have to handle during later stages
of the upgrade. For this task, an initial test run using the upgrade wizard would be
very valuable. When doing this, you may want to distinguish those features in the
source code that will be automatically handled from those that may require manual
intervention or that you might have to consider re-architecting later on as you move
through the process.
As part of the analysis, review the upgrade report that the upgrade wizard pro-
duces. The upgrade report contains information about the upgrade process and a list
of issues uncovered during the upgrade that will need to be addressed before your
project can be compiled and run. Study the different issues in the upgrade report
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 33

and the solutions that are recommended for resolving them. Remember, you can
reduce the number of issues that need to be addressed by preparing your Visual
Basic 6.0 code before applying the upgrade wizard. For more information about
using the upgrade wizard, see Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process.”
The purpose of the application analysis is to generate information that will be used
to estimate the effort of the upgrade project and to create a technical profile of the
application. The output of application analysis should cover the following items:
● Current and target architecture

● Inventory to upgrade

● Source code metrics

● Handling of unsupported features

● Assessment of upgrade report information

Assessing the Current and the Target Architectures

As part of the analysis, you will want to clearly understand the current architecture
of the application and the way its components will be replaced in the target architec-
ture. For instance, you may plan to replace ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) with
ADO.NET and COM components with native .NET Framework components. The
resulting target architecture should also include the new components that will
support the new application requirements. These new components are identified as
part of the new requirements analysis and design you create.
It is likely that your upgraded application will interact with other existing Visual
Basic applications, modules, or components, and any portion of the application that
you may decide will be reused but not upgraded. Identify those interactions within
the application architecture and clearly differentiate between the components that
will interact and those that will require interoperability. Also, identify the compo-
nents that can be replaced with equivalent .NET components.

Analyzing and Designing New Functionality

Upgrade projects can be an ideal time to introduce new functionality or features to
an existing application. If there are features that you want to add, document the
requirements for these new features, specify how they will interact with existing
features of the application, and design their inclusion in the upgraded application.
Because this guide is concerned with reaching functional equivalence, details for
analyzing and designing new functionality are not discussed here. However, for
information about possible new features you might consider adding to your applica-
tions, see Chapters 17 – 21 of this guide.
34 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Selecting an Upgrade Strategy

Chapter 1, “Introduction,” examined the options you have available to you if you
need to update your application. If you decide that an upgrade is the right approach
to updating your application, you should consider the following two upgrade
strategies: a complete upgrade and a staged upgrade.
The complete upgrade strategy suggests that you upgrade all your application as a
whole and not release any code until the entire application is upgraded and running
on the new platform.
The staged upgrade strategy allows you to upgrade some parts of your application
before you upgrade others. This is less risky, but it requires more effort to enable
interoperability between the upgraded and non-upgraded parts of the application.
Do not confuse staged upgrade with partial upgrade, which was discussed in
Chapter 1. A partial upgrade is an alternative to updating an entire application. A
partial upgrade means that you chose to move some of your application or applica-
tions to Visual Basic NET while others remain in Visual Basic 6.0.
After you have chosen to upgrade — whether it is to a partial or a full upgrade —
you can choose to upgrade your application as a whole (complete upgrade) or one
piece at a time (staged upgrade).

Complete Upgrade
With a complete upgrade, all components of your application are upgraded and
deployed as a whole. This does not mean they are upgraded in parallel; it means
only that no effort is made to deploy the application in a production environment
until all components have been moved to .NET. This strategy may require significant
effort, and therefore it can be very expensive. It not only involves upgrading code
from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET, but also upgrading all of the technologies
to their .NET equivalents when they exist, or applying alternative technologies
when they do not. For applications that do not make significant use of deprecated
technologies, a complete upgrade can be very fast and inexpensive. The more
dependent an application is on dated technologies, the more expensive and time
consuming the upgrade process becomes.
This strategy has the following advantages:
● Upgraded applications can be advanced with new functionality that uses .NET
technologies and techniques. Examples and strategies of this can be found in
Chapter 17, “Introduction to Application Advancement,” Chapter 18, “Advance-
ments for Common Scenarios,” Chapter 19, “Advancements for Common Web
Scenarios,” and Chapter 20, “Common Technology Scenario Advancements.”
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 35

● Upgraded applications can be integrated into new .NET solutions, making

them usable in more scenarios. This integration can be accomplished regardless
of the programming language used to develop the new application and without
requiring any changes to the existing application.
● Fully-upgraded applications can be used on new hardware and new versions
of Windows. They can be used without requiring any upgrade or recompilation
if the new hardware or the new version of the operating system has a fully
functional .NET Framework engine.
Despite the advantages of complete upgrade, there are also disadvantages, as listed
here:
● Some Visual Basic 6.0 features cannot be automatically or easily upgraded to
Visual Basic .NET. Although alternatives for such features exist in Visual Basic
.NET (and are often better), upgrading this kind of application requires that you
change it to achieve functional equivalence. These changes can be time consum-
ing and costly.
● A completely upgraded application could have a different user interface or
may have different behavior. This will result in the need for complete testing of
the application as a new application. It may also require retraining of users.
● A Visual Basic .NET application requires a compatible version of the .NET
Framework to be installed on target computers. This requires additional plan-
ning and deployment by IT professionals, particularly in large companies.
● Developers responsible for performing the upgrade or for maintaining the
resulting application may have to learn new skills to perform the upgrade. This
has an associated cost in both time and money.
A complete upgrade can be an expensive strategy, but it is often the most desirable
alternative because it positions the application for the future. It is important that you
fully assess your application before making a decision. In many cases, the assess-
ment will demonstrate that the benefits of a complete upgrade far outweigh the
costs, and you will find that moving the application to Visual Basic .NET is the right
decision for your business.

Staged Upgrade
Unlike a complete upgrade, where all pieces of the application are upgraded in a
single complex process, a staged upgrade strategy allows a more controlled, gradual
upgrade where the application is upgraded a part or component at a time. Each
newly upgraded component can be rolled out as it is upgraded, instead of waiting
for the complete upgrade of the entire application. This strategy is only possible
when the existing application is composed of multiple distinct components, each
36 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

developed as a separate project. Also, interoperability techniques must be applied

for the upgraded and unchanged components to function together.
A staged upgrade provides a reasonable compromise to a complete upgrade. Staged
upgrades are likely to be the best alternative for large-scale legacy applications. This
strategy has the following advantages:
● Upgrading the application in stages allows you to have more control over the
progress and the cost of the upgrade project and allows you to minimize risk
because you returns the application to a stable production-quality state after each
stage. Because your development team will gradually become better acquainted
with .NET at each stage, their productivity will improve — as will your estimates
of effort and cost.
● Upgraded components can often immediately benefit from the performance and
scalability features of .NET, without having to wait for the entire application to be
upgraded.
● Upgrading of the low priority or costly portions of an application can be post-
poned indefinitely, resulting in a partial upgrade. A staged approach like this
effectively gives you the freedom after the upgrade project has begun to opt for a
mixed upgrade/reuse solution as described in the “Upgrade, Reuse, Rewrite, or
Reuse?” section in Chapter 1, “Introduction.”
The disadvantages of staged upgrade include the following:
● Performance improvements will not be as noticeable as in a full upgrade because
of the added overhead required for COM interoperability. COM interop between
.NET components and COM components is not as fast as managed components
working together in the .NET Framework or COM objects in Visual Basic 6.0
working together. However, the difference in performance should only be notice-
able in applications that perform a large number of COM method calls, such as
those with tens of thousands of transaction requests.
● Applications with a dependency on COM components are harder to deploy and
maintain than applications that are fully upgraded to .NET because COM objects
need to be registered and have versioning issues that .NET objects do not.
● A staged upgrade requires the implementation of wrappers or interfaces to
provide the interoperability mechanisms between the .NET and the legacy code.
These wrappers will often be temporary and will be discarded later.
Despite the disadvantages, staged upgrades may be the most appealing strategies
for large-scale applications with multiple components.
Staged upgrades can be further classified as vertical and horizontal:
● Vertical upgrades. These involve isolating and upgrading all n-tiers of a single
module of your application without modifying other parts of the application.
● Horizontal upgrades. These involve upgrading an entire tier of your application
without modifying the other tiers.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 37

Whether you choose a horizontal or a vertical approach to a staged upgrade will

depend on the architecture of your application. Therefore, the solution architects in
your team should be highly involved in the selection of the strategy. You also will
find advantages and disadvantages to each strategy based on the application you
are upgrading. Usually an assessment of the design and implementation of the
application will point to the best strategy to adopt.
The next sections examine the horizontal and vertical upgrade approaches to help
you choose the one most suitable for your application’s architecture.
Vertical Upgrade
In the vertical upgrade strategy, one or more of the application components that cut
through several, if not all, application tiers are identified and selected to be up-
graded. Essentially, this involves extracting a piece of your application that has
minimal interaction with other pieces and upgrading it independently of the rest of
the application.
If parts of your application are well isolated from others, you have an outstanding
candidate for a vertical upgrade. An ideal candidate will typically share very little
state information with the rest of the application and can easily be upgraded with
little impact on the rest of the system.
The following scenarios describe application architectures that are well suited to the
vertical upgrade strategy:
● Application tiers are tightly integrated. If you make heavy use of ADO
recordsets between tiers, a vertical upgrade is worth examining. Many applica-
tions pass disconnected ADO recordsets from the data and business tiers to the
presentation tier. The presentation tier then iterates through the recordsets and
generates HTML tables. This type of application is well suited to a vertical
upgrade because you can focus on specific aspects of the application individually.
For example, an ADO to ADO.NET upgrade and interoperability requires special
consideration. Upgrading vertically can minimize the work involved in achieving
interoperability with ADO.
● You are planning to redesign the application. Vertically upgrading parts of your
application to new architecture provides a good test bed for a new application
design. The .NET Framework makes it easier to provide the functionality that
newer architectures are built on. For example, you can use HttpHandlers to
perform many of the tasks that you would previously use ISAPI extensions for,
but with a much simpler programming model.
After the chosen portion is upgraded, any remaining interfaces between the new
managed code and the unmanaged code will function through COM
interoperability. You will need to do some development and testing to make sure
that the new and old pieces of the application work together, share data, and pro-
vide a seamless experience to the end user or client developer. Afterwards, you will
38 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

have the basic infrastructure that will make it possible to continue with the upgrade
of other applications using the same vertical approach — or to extend the updated
portion of the original application.
Horizontal Upgrade
In a horizontal upgrade strategy, you upgrade an entire tier of your application to
Visual Basic .NET without immediately upgrading the other tiers. By upgrading a
single tier at a time, you can take advantage of the specific features that the .NET
Framework provides for that particular tier, in many cases without modifying
application code or affecting the operation of other application tiers. Deciding which
tier to upgrade first is the first step in a horizontal upgrade strategy.
Middle-tier COM components can be upgraded to Visual Basic .NET with few or no
changes to the presentation tier. You should consider the following points when
deciding if a horizontal upgrade strategy is appropriate, and if so, which tier is the
most suitable to upgrade first:
● Your application is on a large number of Web servers. A prerequisite for the
deployment of a Visual Basic .NET application is that the common language
runtime (CLR) must be installed on each Web server. If your application is de-
ployed on a large number of servers in a Web farm configuration, this can be an
issue. If you have relatively fewer servers in middle tiers than in other tiers,
consider using a horizontal upgrade and then upgrading the middle tier first.
● Your application uses a large amount of shared code. If your Visual Basic
application uses a large number of DLLs or other types of shared code, constants,
or custom libraries in the middle tier, choosing to upgrade this tier first can help
you manage the upgrade of your entire application. However, if you do this, you
will destabilize a large number of components that use the shared code and
thereby affect the testing process.
● Your application has a complex middle tier. Complex object hierarchies in the
middle tier should be kept as a unit. Deciding where to isolate an application
with a complex middle-tier object hierarchy is difficult, and upgrading only parts
of a complex middle tier typically necessitates numerous interoperability calls
between environments, resulting in performance degradation.

You should also consider the following issues when replacing the middle tier:
● To transparently replace middle-tier components with .NET components without
affecting client code, you must maintain the original GUIDS and ProgIDs of your
COM components. In addition, you must properly handle replacement of the
class interface generated by Visual Basic components when you attempt to
transparently replace a COM component.
● You will have to translate the ADO.NET datasets that are returned from your
upgraded middle-tier components to ADO recordsets that are used in your
original Visual Basic code.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 39

● You will need to deploy the interoperability assemblies for the middle tier com-
ponents.
● Interoperability between Visual Basic .NET and Visual Basic 6.0 can become
prevalent in this type of upgrade, depending on how you choose to define the
application tiers. If the distance between the tiers is widened by making one side
of the communication a .NET assembly, you may be increasing the amount of
marshaling that is occurring in your application, which can negatively affect
performance.
After you decide on an upgrade strategy, you can increase the efficiency and chance
for success in the upgrade process by producing a project plan for the upgrade. For
more information, see the “Producing a Project Plan” section later in this chapter.

Testing
To make sure that your application achieves functional equivalence regardless of the
upgrade strategy you choose, you need to produce comprehensive unit and system
test plans for the entire system, as well as for individual upgrade modules and tiers.
For detailed information about testing in upgrade projects, see Chapter 21, “Testing
Upgraded Applications.”

Making an Inventory of Source Code

Identify the relevant source code that will be upgraded. This should include librar-
ies, resources and components. You can use the application’s Call Graph view to
make a dependency diagram in the form of a tree view to help you recognize the
relevant Visual Basic 6.0 projects and files. For any dead code you find, you will
need to decide to make it part of the inventory or exclude it partially or entirely.
Tools such as the Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool can help you identify
dependencies and dead code in your source code. For more information about these
tools see Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process.”
In addition, identify the application components that will be upgraded and any that
will be left alone and reused, including all of the components that the application
currently uses. In the case of third-party components, determine the availability of
existing .NET equivalents.

Preparing the Source Code

Investing time to prepare your source code for the upgrade will increase the effi-
ciency of the upgrade project. For information about how to do this, see the “Prepar-
ing the Visual Basic 6.0 Source Code” section later in this chapter.
40 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Preparing to Handle Upgrade Issues

If you identify potential issues before you begin the upgrade, you will be better
prepared to address them during the upgrade process than if you wait until you are
deeply involved in implementing the upgrade changes. This section provides
guidance on how to obtain the information you need to help you build a catalog of
issues.

Obtaining Source Code Metrics

Obtain metrics information from the application source code. This information
should include size metrics, such as the number of lines of code, projects, forms,
designers, modules, classes, components, user controls, data sources; and usage
metrics, such as functions, properties and events used.
You also need to obtain metrics on how frequently each component is used in the
application. Knowing in what way and how frequently a component is used helps to
determine whether you can replace each component with an equivalent .NET
version after the application has been upgraded.
Figure 2.2 shows partial source code metrics for a sample stock management appli-
cation. It gives information about the source code inventory.

Figure 2.2
Partial source metrics for a stock management application

The figure shows partial information about data types and controls occurrences, the
source code inventory (in the form of a tree view), and the location of specific uses of
data types; in this case the Integer and String types. The assessment tool provides
all this information in easy-to-read HTML reports. For more information about the
assessment tool, see Chapter 3, “Assessment and Analysis.”

Identifying Unsupported Features

Identify all of the Visual Basic 6.0 features that are not supported in Visual Basic
.NET, and note how often they are used in the application. You should investigate
and make prototypes of Visual Basic .NET functionality that could replace these
unsupported features. This is also a good time to identify where additional function-
ality is needed. For more information about early version and obsolete Visual Basic
6.0 features and the alternatives that are available in Visual Basic .NET, see Chapter
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 41

7, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects”, Chapter 8, “Upgrading

Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features,” and Chapter 9, “Upgrading
Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features.”

Assessing the Upgrade Report Information

After you run the upgrade wizard on your application, it generates a report that
identifies the upgrade issues it encountered and the number of times that they occur
in the application. Each type of issue is identified by an issue number, a description,
a link to related documentation, and the steps you can take to possibly resolve the
issue. For example, the issue number 1037 corresponds to the issue “Late-bound
default property reference could not be resolved,” and the report will link you to
documentation for resolving this issue.
The following list summarizes the most probable causes for common issues identi-
fied in the upgrade report:
● A small number of Visual Basic 6.0 core functions have no direct .NET equivalent
or core Visual Basic 6.0 functions behave differently when they are upgraded.
However, even for the few functions that have no direct equivalent or those that
behave differently when the are upgraded, Visual Basic .NET provides alterna-
tives for achieving the same functionality in your application. These alternatives
typically require manual modification of the code and cannot be automatically
upgraded.
● Certain ActiveX controls are not supported in Visual Basic .NET.

● The upgrade wizard found language changes in the upgraded code and prompts
you to manually review them. An example of this is the case default properties in
Visual Basic 6.0. Whenever possible, the upgrade wizard will resolve default
properties and explicitly expand them in the upgraded code; however, you
should review these expansions to verify that the correct property was substi-
tuted for the default property in the original code.
A useful way to begin to analyze the upgrade issues in your application is to orga-
nize them into the following two categories:
● Not upgraded and unsupported issues. These issues indicate the presence of
unsupported features, the use of control properties or methods, or the existence
of statements that require manual intervention. All of the issues in this category
prevent successful compilation of the upgraded application. After unsupported
features are addressed, the vast majority — as much as 95 percent — of the
remaining issues in this category are resolved by using simple code analyses to
find solutions in Visual Basic .NET. For example, some classes and methods of the
COM+ interface, such as ObjectContext and Commit are not upgraded. Equiva-
lent members and functionality can be found in the .NET namespace
EnterpriseServices. The remaining 5 percent of the issues require either minor
changes in the application logic or in the implementation of supporting function-
ality.
42 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Different behavior issues. These issues indicate that the upgraded code might
have behavior that differs from the original behavior in the Visual Basic 6.0
application. With these issues, you should manually review the possible conse-
quences of the new behavior under the code context because you may need to
modify the code. Issues in this category do not prevent the upgraded application
from compiling successfully, but they may produce run-time errors and cause the
upgraded application to fail. Experience with this category of issues has shown
that only a few of them require manual intervention. Their descriptions can also
provide guidance during unit testing of the upgraded application by describing
the behavioral differences. By using this information, testers will know what
behavioral differences to expect and can test whether or not the differences break
the functional equivalence of the upgraded application. For this reason, you
should not remove them from the code until after application has been success-
fully unit-tested.
For each category, note the different issue numbers and the frequency of their
occurrence. Beginning with the most frequently occurring issues, determine the best
solution and the effort required to resolve them. Because these issues occur the most
frequently, you should work on them first. Next, determine solutions and effort
estimations for any remaining not upgraded or unsupported issues. Then, finish up
by determining the resolution and effort required for issues that relate to behavior
differences. Not upgraded and unsupported issues are usually more critical to
resolve than behavior-related issues. A practical way to estimate how much effort is
needed to resolve an issue is to perform a test run of the upgrade where many of the
issues can be resolved, and use data from this experience as a benchmark.

Producing a Project Plan

As with traditional software development projects, it is important to plan and
schedule time for the following phases of an upgrade project:
● Project management (administrative tasks)

● Training for the upgrade process and for .NET

● Setting up the development environment, including setting up databases,

organizing source code, and installing necessary applications
● Code preparation

● Performing the upgrade process

● Converting and validating test cases

● Code and unit testing

● Functional testing

● Transferring information and the deployment of upgraded code

 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 43

As with any software development process, carefully plan and schedule so that you
can meet the milestones for each deliverable. This will help you to manage the
expectations of your internal and external customers. Also, be sure that when you
schedule your upgrade project, you consider the rest of the projects being conducted
within your company to ensure that your project has the IT support it needs.

Estimating Cost
Estimating the cost requirements for a software development project is typically a
complex task because of the wide range of quality in software implementation and
the varying programming abilities of developers. Estimating the cost requirements
for an upgrade project is no different. Many factors affect the amount of effort that
will be required to upgrade an application. Similarly, these factors affect the cost of
the application; therefore, estimations for cost will vary widely depending on the
application.
Some factors that affect cost estimations are common to all upgrade projects. These
common factors include:
● The methodology of the Visual Basic 6.0 code; whether the code was written in an
object-oriented fashion, the extent that it relies on a common set of services
shared across a family of applications, and the interdependencies between parts
of it that will be upgraded and parts that will remain in Visual Basic 6.0.
● The maintenance history of the original code. Applications with a history of
requiring frequent fixes are likely to require frequent fixes during the upgrade.
● The complexity of the application requirements.

● The degree to which the application is integrated with other systems.

● Security considerations.

● The size and experience of your development team.

● Any third-party toolsets that are used within the application.

● The testing infrastructure and commitment to quality control.

Other factors that could affect your cost estimation are specific to the code and the
platform of the application. Factors such as the use of mechanisms and constructs
such as RDO/DAO data binding, late-bound objects and ActiveX documents affect
estimations of cost. For ASP code, factors include the use of render functions (as
opposed to Response.Write), the use of multiple languages per page, the use of
nested include files, reliance on 16-bit integer size, default parameters, and GOSUB,
among other specifics.
44 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The following tasks will also affect the final estimations for the costs of your up-
grade project:
● Resolving unsupported features. It is necessary to estimate the costs for different
issues that affect unsupported features. These issues include:
● The research costs for alternative solutions.

● The costs of developing and testing the chosen solution.

● The cost of replacing an unsupported feature increases the more it is used in

an application. It will increase depending on the particular feature and how it
is used. Multiple uses of a feature might need individual attention or in some
cases may be resolved by simply using a find-and-replace mechanism.
● Resolving reported issues. For every issue in the upgrade report, you need to
estimate the cost to resolve it. A good way to estimate these costs is to perform a
test run of the upgrade. By testing the upgrade of a select portion of the applica-
tion you will see an example of the type of issues that the upgrade wizard will
find. With this information, you can then obtain accurate information on the cost
of resolving the issues. The test run will also provide valuable insight into your
team’s capabilities in the upgrade process.
● Testing. You need to estimate the cost of testing the upgraded application. A test
run (mentioned in the previous bullet) will provide valuable information on the
testing requirements that you will need. By doing a test run you can evaluate
whether your current testing processes will work, or if they need extensions or
adjustments to certify that the upgraded application has achieved functional
equivalence. You will also need to estimate the cost of testing additional function-
ality that will be implemented during the application advancement phase of the
project.
Also, realize that because you will be testing the entire upgraded application and
not just new features (as you might do for an application that is being updated)
the testing process can take longer and possibly require several iterations, which
will increase your usual costs for testing.
● Manually replacing Visual Basic 6.0 components with .NET equivalent compo-
nents. For each Visual Basic 6.0 component that cannot be automatically replaced
with a .NET equivalent by the upgrade wizard, you will need to estimate the cost
of manually replacing it. When you do this, be sure to consider the frequency that
this feature will appear in the upgraded application.
● Third-party .NET components. From each third-party component that your
application relies on, you will need to obtain the license cost of the .NET compo-
nent that you plan to use a replacement in the upgraded application.
● Secondary features. If your application has secondary features such as an inte-
grated help system, an installer, and manuals, you will need to consider the costs
of adding these to your new application.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 45

● Deployment. Estimate the cost of deploying the upgraded application.

● New requirements. You will need to estimate the costs of designing, developing
and testing new features that you want to add after the application has been
upgraded. Estimating the cost for the application advancement phase of the
project is comparable to estimating the cost of a typical software development
project.
A sensible way to estimate the cost for upgrading an application is by using your
organization’s experience in estimating the costs for traditional software develop-
ment projects. Clearly, traditional development projects also consider general and
specific factors, such as the ones previously mentioned, to ensure success. When
estimating the cost for an upgrade project, keep in mind that some typical project
phases may not be required and should not be included in your cost estimates.
For example, traditional software development projects include phases such as
analysis, design, development, testing and deployment. In an upgrade project
common phases usually include a shorter analysis phase in addition to the upgrade,
testing, and deployment phases. The typical analysis and design phases are rarely
needed because the source code itself is the specification.
Cost estimations for the upgrade phase of the project are based primarily on the
output of the application analysis: the cost of solving different upgrade issues found
during the application analysis. If appropriately addressed, solving these issues
should be much less expensive than rewriting code. Pay special attention to the
impact that non-supported, or obsolete features of the application may have on your
costs. You can minimize these impacts by preparing or cleaning up the source code
before proceeding with the upgrade process. Additionally, make sure you assess
carefully the abilities of developers to handle upgrade issues.
Estimating the cost of the testing phase of an upgrade project primarily depends on
the quality and the status of the infrastructure that will be used to test the applica-
tion, or the portions of the application that will be upgraded. Remember that achiev-
ing functional equivalence is directly related to test cases being able to certify the
expected behavior of the upgraded code and will typically define the project accep-
tance criteria. Therefore, if automated testing is available, consider any work needed
to revise it so that it runs on the .NET Framework. Allocate budget resources to
extend testing coverage where it is needed. Also, understand the depth of testing
that the upgraded .NET application might require in contrast to the usual (possibly
localized) testing performed on a Visual Basic 6.0 release. You may find that apply-
ing your full regression test cases to the upgraded application can take longer and
require several testing iterations, which might affect the usual testing costs. In
general, testing costs have two parts: creating the test cases and running them.
Because the goal here is achieving functional equivalence, the test case creation
46 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

phase can be skipped if your original tests cases are adequate and it is only neces-
sary to adapt them to the new platform. As for any development project, the execu-
tion of test cases must be done in an iterative way as you get closer to completing
the project.
Finally, estimating costs for the deployment phase of an upgrade project is compa-
rable to the deployment costs of traditional software development projects. Of
course, you need to train your team to understand and deal with the issues of .NET
deployment. The good news is that generally, .NET deployment consists of a much
more streamlined mechanism than COM-based applications.
Using the information in this section as a guide, you should be able to estimate costs
for the work-hours that are required for the upgrade project. After you complete the
first estimate, you can further refine the figures and make adjustments as necessary.
This process can also apply to the upgrade plan. When you estimate project costs in
this way, you will notice that the main difference in expenditures for a traditional
software development project and those for an upgrade project involve the testing
phase. The testing process for a traditional project represents approximately 20
percent to 30 percent of the total cost. The testing process for an upgrade project can
easily represent 60 percent to 70 percent of the total cost. However, the overall work-
hours required for an upgrade project are considerably fewer than those required for
a traditional software development project.
Upgrade tests performed by Microsoft and its partners found that when code is
adequately prepared prior to the upgrade, the cost of upgrading from Visual Basic
6.0 to Visual Basic .NET is typically 15 percent to 25 percent of the total development
cost. This figure takes into account the learning curve of Visual Basic developers
who move from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET. The next section investigates
how to best prepare your application for the upgrade.

Preparing for the Upgrade

After finish the planning stage of the project, the actual implementation of the plan
will begin. The first step in the implementation of this plan is not necessarily a head-
first dive into applying the upgrade wizard, and then resolving the individual
errors, warnings and issues (EWIs) produced by this tool. Although this will work, it
is not the best course for upgrade projects other than those that involve the simplest
of applications.
More complex applications will benefit from the initial preparation of searching the
source code for specific and common practices (such as the use of default properties)
and then modifying the code. The modifications allow the upgrade wizard to
understand the code more easily and as a result, make much better decisions about
correctly translating the code to Visual Basic .NET. At first glance, this preparation
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 47

may seem like additional work, but in the end, these early modifications will save a
great deal of work.
Before preparing the source code for the upgrade, it is important to first prepare the
development environment that you will use to upgrade the application.

Preparing the Development Environment

This section describes the basic set of tools that are needed by the developers who
will work on the upgrade of the application. The tools are introduced in this section
and some are described in more detail in other chapters. The introductions identify
the tools you need, explain why the tools are needed, and where to get more infor-
mation about the tools.

Visual Studio 6.0

Visual Studio 6.0 will be needed to prepare the Visual Basic 6.0 code for the upgrade
and to ensure that the code will compile before you upgrade it using the upgrade
wizard. This IDE can be installed on any computer without conflicting with the
other tools you will need for the upgrade.
During the preparation of the source code, you will use a list of tasks that will have
been produced by the Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor, as discussed later. These tasks
involve modifying the source code and then recompiling. All this work must be
performed inside Visual Studio. NET.
With Visual Studio 6.0 source code, you will use a list of tasks that will have been
produced by the Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor, as discussed later. These tasks
involve modifying the source code and then recompiling. All this work must be
done inside Visual Studio 6.0.
It is also quite common to run the upgrade wizard, review the upgrade report, and
then to return to the Visual Basic 6.0 to make further modifications.
Although these tasks can be performed on a different computer, you may find it
more convenient to do it all on a single computer, especially if you find yourself
switching between the original code and the upgraded code.

Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor

The Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor is an add-in for Visual Studio 6.0. It can be used
to scan your Visual Basic 6.0 source code for practices that do not comply with
configurable coding standards. These standards are based on practices developed by
Microsoft to produce robust and easy-to-maintain code. The code advisor will also
highlight issues in your code that make it difficult for the upgrade wizard to auto-
matically convert your code to Visual Basic .NET.
48 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The code advisor must be downloaded and installed on your computer before you
can use it. It is not installed automatically with Visual Studio 6.0. For more informa-
tion about the code advisor, see Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process.”

Visual Studio .NET

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET is the development environment that you will use to
develop and maintain Visual Basic .NET applications. You will also use it to run the
upgrade wizard that will convert your Visual Basic 6.0 projects to Visual Basic .NET
projects.
Visual Studio .NET is an advanced integrated-development environment that has
many new and improved features that were not available in Visual Studio 6.0, as
well as most of the features that you are used to.
You can build applications for multiple languages and platforms within the same
IDE and even within the same workspace or solution. You can build applications in
Visual C++, Visual Basic .NET, Visual C#, and Visual J# for desktops, servers, the
Web, and mobile devices. There are also great new features that ease deployment
such as built-in Windows Installer technology for both Windows and Web deploy-
ment. Maintenance has never been easier with features, such as side-by-side applica-
tion execution that cuts down on, or even eliminates, DLL versioning issues.
Another big addition to this version of Visual Studio is the support for Web services.
Creating a Web service requires only a little more effort than any other class in
Visual Basic .NET. The advanced support for deploying and debugging Web services
allows you to focus your efforts where they are most valuable: on building your
application.
A feature that is not available in Visual Studio .NET is Edit and Continue. This
feature allowed you to modify code in the debugger as you continue to run the
application with the new code without having to restart the application. This feature
is very helpful in Visual Basic 6.0 because you can efficiently make small changes to
code during debugging. This feature will be added to a future version of Visual
Studio.
For more information about Visual Studio, see the Microsoft Visual Studio Devel-
oper Center on MSDN.

Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard

The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard is the tool that you will use to perform the auto-
matic steps of converting your Visual Basic 6.0 source code and project files into
Visual Basic .NET. The upgrade wizard is built into Visual Studio 2003 and runs
automatically when you try to open a Visual Basic 6.0 project. There are no special
steps required to install or run it.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 49

For more information about the upgrade wizard, see Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic
Upgrade Process.”

ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant

The ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant is an add-in to Visual Studio .NET that can
be used to help you upgrade your ASP pages and applications to ASP.NET.
This migration assistant will rename files, update hyperlinks, and it will also fix
syntax differences in the VBScript between ASP and ASP.NET. It will also attempt to
resolve the correct type of any variable that is not explicitly typed in VBScript code
and therefore relies on late-binding to resolve default properties that are not sup-
ported in ASP.NET.
For more information about the migration assistant, see Appendix C, “Introduction
to Upgrading ASP.”

Preparing the Visual Basic 6.0 Source Code

Almost without exception, if you take steps to prepare your application in Visual
Basic 6.0 before upgrading it, the process will be more efficient. Certain common
practices in Visual Basic 6.0 produce code that is correct and humanly readable but
that the upgrade wizard cannot appropriately convert into Visual Basic .NET.
Several tools can be used to provide a list of issues that will come to your attention
when you pass your code through the upgrade wizard. Such a list can help determine
areas of your code that may be easier to modify in its original source code, especially
if your developers know Visual Basic 6.0 better than they do Visual Basic .NET.
The Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor, described earlier in this chapter, should be the
first tool that you use when you start preparing your application for the upgrade.
The second tool should be the upgrade wizard. It produces a report that contains
all of the errors, warnings, and issues that it finds during the upgrade. The report
frequently includes issues that the code advisor does not identify. Addressing the
issues indicated by the upgrade report may require several iterations to best prepare
the source code before you can achieve functional equivalence. Frequently, several
issues reported by the upgrade wizard are related to the same problem that when
fixed, simultaneously eradicates many other issues. For example, if you use the
default property in a late-bound variable, specifying the type of the variable explic-
itly will remove all issues related to the use of the default property. Experience using
the upgrade wizard shows that, on average, fixing a single issue in the Visual Basic
6.0 source code prior to the upgrade resolves five to eight issues that the upgrade
wizard would have reported. Figure 2.3 on the next page shows a graphical repre-
sentation of the iterative process for modifying code based on suggestions in the
upgrade report.
50 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For more information about how to prepare your code for the upgrade, see Chapter
5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process.”

Code Advisor
Report

Modify

Upgrade
Report

No Ready for
Upgrade

Yes

Figure 2.3
A graphical representation of the code preparation phase

Upgrading Applications Written in Earlier Versions of Visual Basic

The upgrade wizard is designed to upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 applications. For
projects written in Visual Basic versions 1.0 through 5.0, it is necessary that you first
upgrade them to Visual Basic 6.0 before upgrading to Visual Basic .NET. To upgrade
a project that was developed in a version earlier than Visual Basic 6.0, simply open
the project in the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE and save it. If Visual Basic 6.0 prompts you to
upgrade controls to Visual Basic 6.0, choose Yes. If the project contains Visual Basic
5.0 ActiveX controls, it is often best to replace these controls with Visual Basic 6.0
versions. This is because these controls use a different threading model than models
used by Visual Basic 6.0 controls. The earlier threading model is not supported in
Windows Forms.
For 16-bit projects written in Visual Basic versions 1.0 through 4.0, you may need to
make extra modifications to the application to convert it to Visual Basic 6.0. Some
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 51

VBX controls will not be automatically converted. You will also have to replace
Win16 Windows APIs with their Win32® counterparts.
Visual Basic versions 2.0 and 3.0 often require an extra step. Visual Basic 6.0 can only
open files in text format, whereas Visual Basic versions 2.0 and 3.0 support two file
formats: binary and text. Before upgrading these projects, ensure the entire applica-
tion is saved in text format by using the following procedure.

To convert Visual Basic 1.0 and 2.0 files to text format
1. On the File menu, click Save As.
2. In the Save dialog box, select the Save As Text check box.
Because Visual Basic 1.0 can only save files in binary format, all of these projects will
first need to be opened in Visual Basic 2.0 or 3.0 and then saved as text before they
can be converted to Visual Basic 6.0. After converting the project to Visual Basic 6.0,
you can begin the process of upgrading it to Visual Basic .NET.

Verifying Compilation
The upgrade wizard is designed to work with valid Visual Basic projects, so it is
very important to verify that the code is syntactically correct before trying to up-
grade it. If files have errors the upgrade wizard might have problems when it is
trying to parse the code and you may get some misleading error messages or, worse,
unexpected results. Correct syntax can be verified by compiling the Visual Basic 6.0
project before applying the upgrade wizard.
This also helps you ensure that all the necessary source code is available. The up-
grade wizard first analyzes all the code, and then uses the information it obtains to
make decisions. It then starts the conversion of the code. If there are missing files,
some of the decisions that the upgrade wizard makes may prove to be incorrect.
Compiling the original source base in Visual Basic 6.0 before applying the upgrade
wizard will help ensure that the tool will have all the information it needs to make
the best choices possible. The better the decisions the upgrade wizard makes, the
less manual intervention will be required to achieve functional equivalence.

Upgrading the Application

After the code is prepared, it is time to convert the code and produce the function-
ally equivalent .NET application. This is done in two steps.
First, you use the upgrade wizard to load the prepared Visual Basic 6.0 code into
Visual Studio .NET. If you have prepared your application as outlined in the previ-
ous section, this step will be almost effortless because any issues of missing files or
compilation problems are resolved. The code that is produced by the upgrade
wizard during this step will be used as the baseline for all further development of
52 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

the upgraded application. At this point, the generated code is referred to as green
code because it is fresh out of the upgrade wizard and has not yet been manually
modified.
In the second step, you modify the green code so that it will compile and replace all
remaining code that was not completely upgraded with valid Visual Basic .NET
equivalents. Samples of the kinds of modifications that are necessary are listed in the
“Preparing to Handle Upgrade Issues” section earlier in this chapter.
For more information about these two steps, see Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Up-
grade Process.”
After the application successfully compiles and all issues that were reported by the
upgrade wizard have been addressed, you are ready to begin testing. Testing is
discussed in the following section.

Testing and Quality Assurance

Testing ensures that an application and its components behave according to their
individual specifications. Does your program do what is expected of it? Does it
perform as fast and as well as expected? A good testing process will ensure all of
these requirements are met.
Continuous testing is a vital part of software development. This is equally true in an
upgrade project. Continuous testing allows you to find bugs early, it can prevent the
reappearance of bugs, and it can create confidence in the software and the develop-
ment effort because developers can be sure that they are not introducing new bugs.
All of this saves time and money, and increase customer satisfaction because cus-
tomers experience fewer bugs when they receive the final product.
Any change to code has the possibility of introducing bugs. As the application is
upgraded and the new version evolves, you will need an appropriate set of regres-
sion tests to guard against bugs.
For detailed information about testing your upgraded application, see Chapter 21,
“Testing Upgraded Applications.”

Deployment
After you have upgraded and tested your Visual Basic .NET application, it is time to
start the deployment of the completed application. The main objective of deploying
.NET applications is the same as deploying Visual Basic 6.0 applications: you need to
install your application and get it running on the client’s computer or on the produc-
tion servers. However, the way you do this, the dependencies that your application
has, and the mechanisms for handling updates and security have all changed. The
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 53

reason for this is the .NET assembly — the new packaging mechanism for .NET
applications.
The primary new dependency that you will have to confirm when deploying your
.NET application is whether the .NET Framework is installed on the target comput-
ers. If there is a chance that the .NET Framework is not installed on the target
computers, you should consider providing a way for your users to install it.

Assemblies
The smallest deployable unit of a .NET application is called an assembly. An assem-
bly is a collection of classes, configuration files, resource files, and any other files
that your application needs at run time. An assembly can be an executable (EXE) or
a dynamically linked library (DLL).
What makes an assembly different from previous types of executable files and DLLs
is that the assembly contains extra information, called metadata, about itself and
about the classes it contains. Among other things, the extra information that an
assembly contains helps distinguish different versions of the same assembly.
The assembly also contains security related information that can ensure that the
assembly comes from who you think it comes from and that it has not been modified
since the original creator released it.

Private and Shared Assemblies

By default, assemblies are installed into the same directory as the owning applica-
tion. This type of assembly is called a private assembly. Because it is installed in the
application directory, there is no chance of it interfering with other applications
installed on the same computer.
You can also create shared assemblies that are installed into a system wide reposi-
tory for assemblies called the global assembly cache. These assemblies can be used
by multiple independent applications. The advantage of these assemblies is that
they use less disk space and less memory.

Versioning
You can easily install multiple versions of the same assembly in the global assembly
cache and the global assembly cache will maintain these assemblies separately.
These versions can have the same name and the same GUID (for exposure to COM)
but have different versions. The .NET Framework will ensure that only the version
of the assembly that your application was compiled against will be linked to it at
run time. For you to change the version of a DLL that an application uses without
reinstalling the application, you need to insert special directives into the configura-
tion file for that application. This installs an incompatible version of a DLL, thereby
54 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

effectively eliminating the problem of new applications interfering with applications

that are already on your computer.
The global assembly cache also distinguishes assemblies that have the same version
but were compiled for different architectures or different processors. For example,
you can install the same .NET assembly for 32-bit and 64-bit platforms and the
global assembly cache will automatically choose the most suitable assembly for your
application. You can even optimize your assemblies for different models of 64-bit
processor and the global assembly cache will automatically pick the one that is most
appropriate.

Side-by-Side Execution
The benefit of allowing different versions of the same assembly to be installed on
the same computer and shared by different applications is that you can now easily
install multiple versions of your .NET applications on the same computer and allow
them to run side by side without interfering with each other.

Configuration
Deployment and side-by-side execution are also facilitated by the fact that .NET
applications do not need to keep any configuration information in the Windows
registry. This eliminates the registry as a source of collisions between different
versions of an application.
Configuration information for .NET applications is kept in XML-based configuration
files in the same directory as the application itself. Another file exists that applies to
all the versions of the same application, while a third exists at the computer level.

Update Deployment
As previously mentioned, an installed application will only normally link to the
same version assembly that it was compiled against. However, it is possible to add a
configuration setting to the application’s configuration file to tell it to stop using the
version of a DLL that it was installed with and to start using an updated DLL. This
redirection can only occur with explicit redirection. This makes it easy to modify
installed applications with service packs or application updates. In this situation,
deleting the old DLL and installing a new version is not enough; this will simply
stop the application from running.

Microsoft Windows Installer

Visual Studio .NET provides special project templates that allow you to build
installers for different types of applications.
After you have chosen a project, you can customize the installation procedure by
modifying the registry, adding file types, adding shortcuts and any arbitrary files
(including documentation), and specifying conditions that must exist on the target
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 55

computer before the installation will continue. In addition, you can add your own
custom installation actions and application specific dialog boxes to the installation
process.
The setup projects offered by Visual Studio .NET are usually built to create Windows
Installer files (.msi) that can be stored and distributed on a CD, on a Web site, or on a
shared network directory for installation across a network.
Visual Studio .NET provides the following deployment projects for installing differ-
ent types of applications:
● Setup project. This is a generic Windows application setup project that you can
add arbitrary files and actions to.
● Web Setup project. This kind of project is intended for installing Web applica-
tions and can automatically handle issues with registration and configuration.
● Merge Module project. This type of project is used for deploying shared compo-
nents by incorporating them into other installation projects.
● Setup Wizard. This is not a type of project, but a wizard that helps you build an
initial setup project from existing Visual Studio .NET application projects. These
projects can be customized later.
● Cab project. A Cab project allows you to assemble a collection of files and project
outputs for compression and for copying onto other computers. This type of
project is commonly used for packaging ActiveX controls.

Advancing an Application
After testing is complete, you should have a working application that is functionally
equivalent to your original Visual Basic 6.0 application. In many cases, the reason for
upgrading an application in the first place was to add new features to it. After you
have functional equivalence, you can begin application advancement to achieve the
results you envisioned. All new development will be done in Visual Basic .NET.
Application advancement is the improvement of the upgraded application beyond
the specifications of the original application. It often includes adding features that
are easier to implement in Visual Basic .NET than they were in earlier versions of
Visual Basic. For some features, such as threading, it may be the first time it is
possible to implement the feature in your application.
For detailed information about application advancement, see Chapters 17, “Intro-
duction to Application Advancement,” Chapter 18, “Advancements for Common
Scenarios,” Chapter 19, “Advancements for Common Web Scenarios,” and Chapter
20, “Common Technology Scenario Advancements.”
56 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Managing an Upgrade Project

In terms of management, upgrade projects differ from standard development
projects in ways that are important to understand. This section discusses many of
the best practices and techniques to ensure that your upgrade project goes as
smoothly as possible.
The practices and techniques described here come from experience with many
Visual Basic upgrade projects. Microsoft and their partners have learned some
valuable information by upgrading millions of lines of Visual Basic 6.0 code to
Visual Basic .NET. This section shares some of those lessons with you to give
you the benefit of this experience.

Change Management
You will find that source management issues are more complicated during an
upgrade project than they are during typical application development projects. If
you do not have a source control system you should consider purchasing one; it will
save a lot of headaches caused by multiple programmers working on the same set of
files and overwriting each other’s work.

Using Source Control

A source control system is a software program that manages the work done by a
group of two or more developers who are working on a single set of source files. It
prevents the developers from modifying the same source files at the same time only
to lose valuable work as a result.
Different source control systems can have widely varying features for supporting
different types of files and different numbers of users. However, most source control
systems will have the following basic set of features:
● Storage of the entire source tree and related files. The source control system
includes a directory structure that contains all the source code and related files
for your application. This directory structure is referred to as a source tree. The
source tree is centrally managed by the source control system and is stored on a
server that is accessible by all developers.
● Exclusive access to files. Users can check out a file for temporary exclusive write
access. While checked out a file can only be modified by the user that checked it
out. Other users cannot check out the file or modify it during this time; they can
continue to read the file, but they only see the version of the file that existed
before it was checked out. After the user has finished modifying the file they can
check it back in and the changes are available to all other users. Another user can
then check out the file to work on. This way a developer is much less likely to
overwrite changes made by another developer.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 57

● Version history. As files are changed and the application progresses, source
control systems keep histories of the files that allow you to see how the applica-
tion looked at any point in time. This feature makes source control systems useful
even for single developers who need to keep track of previous versions of their
source code. For example, in most systems you can label versions of source files
so that you can easily extract a version of the source control that matches the
version that a particular customer has. With the exact version you can more easily
reproduce bugs.
● Source branching. Most source control systems allow you to have multiple
branches in your source tree where different teams of programmers are working
on different versions of the application simultaneously. Usually, at some point,
the different versions are merged into a single branch again. For example, in the
case of the customer who has a bug in their version of the application, you may
need to replace the application with a more current version. However if you have
continued to develop the application and it is not yet stable or you do not want to
give them new features that are in the current version, you can branch the code at
the version of the source that they have and fix the bug within their version. The
resolution of this bug can then be merged back into the main source branch later.
Some of the advantages of using a source control system are:
● You minimize lost work due to programmers overwriting each other’s work.

● You always know who is working on each source file and can coordinate multiple
changes to those files.
● You simplify the coordination of multiple programmers working on the same
application.
● You always have access to any previous version of your application.

● You have a controlled way to release a single programmer’s source file changes to
the rest of the development team.

Dangers of Multiple Check-Outs and File Merging

Managers of source control systems sometimes allow developers to check out the
same source files at the same time. When this happens you might find that two
developers have made independent changes to the same file. Many source control
systems allow this and provide tools to help merge those changes. Usually the
developers will coordinate with one another to minimize the impact by modifying
different parts of the source files.
When development work begins on the code generated by the upgrade wizard,
many of the source files for the application will not compile. Also, some of these files
will have complex interdependencies that prevent them from compiling until the
files that they depend on are compiled first.
58 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

It is tempting to solve this problem by allowing multiple check-outs of source files.

If you do, developers can work on the source files independently to resolve issues so
that dependent files can compile. This should be avoided in Visual Basic upgrade
projects, especially at the beginning when the project is first being compiled. In most
cases two developers working on the same file will have to make the same set of
changes to that file so that it can compile. This results in duplicated work and
sometimes a more difficult merge because the same lines of code have been changed
by more than one developer.

Source Branches
As previously discussed, many source control systems will allow you to create
independent branches in your source code where there are multiple versions of your
application being developed independently. Depending on the source management
policies of your office, you will probably use several different source branches
during the upgrade project. The following source branches may be included:
● Original source branch. The original source code will usually have its own
branch. If there is any chance that you will need to continue development of the
original Visual Basic 6.0 application, you should leave the original version of the
application in its own branch and create a new branch for the upgrade.
● Code preparation branch. As previously discussed, code preparation involves
modifying the original Visual Basic 6.0 source code to prepare it for use with the
upgrade wizard. Although the application remains a valid Visual Basic 6.0
application, the modifications involve changes to the source code that can intro-
duce bugs.
Some development centers have strict restrictions about changes made to the
source code and rules about how those changes are tested and even checked in.
For example, it is common for many companies to insist on an initial set of tests
before files are even checked in; these are referred to as check-in tests.
In these cases it is useful to create a source branch especially for the code prepara-
tion. In this way all of the changes that you make to the original application are
kept separate from the main branch of development and the original application
can continue to evolve.
● Green code and functional equivalence branch. After the code is prepared
you will pass it through the upgrade wizard and a new Visual Studio .NET
solution will be created. As previously explained, this new solution is referred to
as green code.
The green code is a brand new version of your application, independent of the
source code branches that contain the original and the prepared code source trees.
When you are happy with the output of the upgrade wizard, all further develop-
ment will apply to the green code.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 59

Instead of using a new branch from the original application, it is common to create
a brand new source tree. This new source tree will be used as the basis for the next
step in the upgrade process: compilation.
In fact, after the upgrade wizard has generated the source tree, the green code is
typically used for the remaining steps of the upgrade. The first step is to achieve
functional equivalence with the original Visual Basic 6.0 application and the second
step is application advancement that involves adding new features and improving
existing functionality. All of this work is serial and can be performed on the same
source tree just as with any other development process.
At times, you may want to create reports of the changes that were made to the green
code. As previously mentioned, your source control systems provide a mechanism
to generate a copy of the original green code files and a copy of the source code at
any point. With these reports, you can determine the exact changes made to the
source code by comparing the files of the green code versions to the functionally
equivalent version.

Managing the Project after Using the Upgrade Wizard

After you use the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, your application will have a large
number of source code files that do not compile. It can be a challenge to determine
the best way to manage the compilation of the files, especially if you have a large,
complex project. Certain goals will be obvious but how to reach these goals may not
be. The following tips can be helpful in managing the compilation of source code
files after you use the upgrade wizard:
● Make sure that all bottlenecks are identified early. Avoid having one developer
work on a single file that the rest of the team must wait for before they can do
their work.
● Start work with the files that have the fewest dependencies on other files but that
also have the greatest impact on the application.
● Make sure that the same problems are not being fixed multiple times by different
developers.
● Minimize the number of bugs that are introduced by developers making unneces-
sary changes to the code.
● Minimize repetitive and laborious tasks that can be avoided.

● Minimize the effort that is required to achieve functional equivalence for your
application.

Handling Non-Compiling Files with Complex Dependencies

If you take a random file from your green code and attempt to compile it you will
find references to objects in many other files that are not yet compiling. You will find
that you cannot complete the file you are working on until the other files that it
60 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

references are also compiling. If you have multiple developers working on separate
files you will find that they all will have dependencies on common files and they
will have to wait while one person fixes the file they all need.
The obvious way to minimize occurrences of this scenario is to determine the files
that have the fewest number of dependencies on other files and to start correcting
those. Another characteristic to consider is how many other files depend on the files
that you start working with. The files that are most important to start with are those
that depend on no other files but have many dependants. This way when the file
does compile you enable the compilation of as many other files as possible at the
same time.
The assessment tool provides a lot of valuable information and even suggests the
order that files should be handled during compilation. For more information about
the assessment tool, see Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process.”

Prioritizing File Compilation

Obviously, before your application reaches functional equivalence all of the files
must compile. To keep your developers productive, make it a priority to fix files so
that they can compile, even at the expense of temporarily losing some functionality.
Needless to say, the interdependence between files can make compiling those with
dependencies on other files a frustrating task.
You will often find that to proceed with work on some files, certain other files must
be able to compile first. Occasionally, you will also determine that some groups of
files must be worked on simultaneously. This might be because of co-dependencies,
where files depend on each other, or where you simply need to start making
progress on some files even though the files they are dependent on are not yet ready.
In these cases, an iterative approach is typically the best way to manage compilation
work on several files at the same time.
The first step is to address all of the local compilation issues in the file. These are
issues that are caused by, as well as fixed by modifications to the file itself. For
example, these can be syntax issues, missing functionality issues, or uses of default
properties. Issues that are caused by problems in an external file can be skipped
during this step.
Each developer should fix all of the issues that they find in their respective files and
then check in the modified files for other developers to use.
After all of the local compilation issues have been addressed, the developers can
address the global or external compilation issues. These are issues that are caused by
a problem in a different file that is being edited by a different developer. Global
compilation issues are problems with the code that can only be resolved by editing
files that are external to the file being compiled. Many of these issues will be re-
solved automatically by the developers that solve local compilation issues in their
own files. The rest of these issues will have to be specifically addressed.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 61

As developers resolve local issues and check in their files, other developers should
perform additional searches for local issues in their own files. Often a change in one
file will fix the problem in another file, effectively converting what was once a global
issue into a local issue.
With this approach, you will gradually move your files into a state where they will
compile successfully. This process will be easier if the files have as few external
dependencies as possible

Shortcuts for Getting Files to Compile

A common strategy for getting files to compile as soon as possible is to comment out
functionality that has not yet been upgraded completely. Commenting out code to
make it compile is effectively postponing the resolution of problems until later. This
can be good and bad.
If the problem you are avoiding is a superficial fix to the GUI, or involves a piece of
isolated functionality in the behavior of the file, or application, it may be okay to
comment out. However, if it is a fundamental piece of functionality whose absence is
difficult to notice during routine testing, such as logging messages, inserting or
modifying data in a database, or including certain data financial calculations, it may
be costly to comment out because the missing functionality might go unnoticed until
much later when it will be more costly to fix.
If you do decide to comment out functionality to quickly get files to compile, it is
important that you do not forget about it, and thereby introduce new bugs into the
application. You should record what you comment out, either in a task list in Visual
Studio .NET or by having the application print a message each time that area of the
code is executed. Record it in a way that the commented-out functionality will be
noticed and can be addressed later.

Divide and Conquer

As with managing most big tasks, a good approach is the classic divide-and-conquer
strategy. There are two ways to apply this concept to your upgrade project. The first
way is to delegate the work based on projects or files. Assign individual project or
source code files to your developers and have them focus on getting them to compile
first. As previously mentioned, the assessment tool (available for download from the
community site for this guide, as discussed in the “Feedback and Support” section
of the Preface) will help you determine the optimal order for working on the files.
The goal here should be to get all of the files to compile. Whether you do this with
projects, groups of files, or individual files really depends on the sizes of the files.
62 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

After all of the files are able to compile, there are usually remaining issues that
concern missing functionality that need to be resolved. Either code was commented
out, or green code was marked as code that potentially behaves differently. These
issues usually result in a list of tasks in the Visual Studio .NET Tasks window and a
list of EWIs and other code that was commented out while making the files compile.
You can continue to delegate work based on project or source code files. Alterna-
tively, it may now make sense to delegate work based on EWIs or tasks. You can
assign specific EWIs to developers or you can assign them selected lists of tasks. You
may want to do this when some issues need specialized knowledge and it makes
sense to assign them to appropriately capable developers. The advantage of this is
that it allows your developers to specialize in certain aspects of Visual Basic .NET to
speed up progress on the project.
The following common tasks can be assigned to developers instead of assigning
them files to compile:
● Typing variables that have no type or are typed as objects. The upgrade wizard
that ships with Visual Studio .NET does not attempt to induce the type for
variables that are not typed explicitly or are assigned some generic type. (The
ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion will do this. For more infor-
mation about the upgrade companion, see Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade
Process.”) This leads to variables that have inappropriate types and the inability
to recognize the use of default properties. An important task that needs to be
done is to find variables in each file whose types have been upgraded to Object
and assign them a more suitable type.
● Manually fixing code that did not convert correctly. Typically, functionality that
was not upgraded correctly by the upgrade wizard in one file also appears in
other files in your application. An API such as the printing API, and the use of the
Windows Forms collection that has no direct equivalent in Visual Basic .NET, are
examples of functionality that can not be upgraded and will appear in multiple
files in your application. To fix these problems, you can assign developers specific
APIs and have them review and upgrade the uses of those API’s in your applica-
tion.
● Testing ActiveX/OCX components. Many ActiveX and OCX components will
work with the wrappers that are generated by the upgrade wizard however,
some will not. It is useful to know the ones that will not work at the outset of
your upgrade project. Before you start your upgrade project, determine the
Active X and OCX components that will not work in the .NET environment. You
should do this outside the application’s context to simplify the fixing of bugs in
the component. This ensures that any problems are a result of incompatibility
between the component and the wrapper, or between the component and the
.NET Framework, and not because of issues within the upgraded application.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 63

● Removing dead code, redundant declares, structures, and consts. It is common

when using functionality from DLLs to copy and paste code that contains all the
necessary Declare statements from Web pages or help files and to include a lot of
code that is not required because you do not need the functionality they provide
access to. This leads to a lot of redundant external references that can clutter up
your code and make the upgrade more difficult. These statements can be cleaned
out of your green code at any point, if they were not removed during code
preparation.

Upgrade Project Complications

Even well prepared code may have complications that appear during the upgrade
process. This section investigates common complications and how to address them
in your upgrade projects.

Managing a Continuously Developing Visual Basic 6.0 Application

If your company has active technical support and customer service departments
along with a large user base for you application, you may find that your application
is under continuous development. Typically, such development cannot be put on
hold during an upgrade. The primary solution to this problem is to create a source
branch in your source control system (or simply create a copy of the source code)
and to upgrade a version of the application from some specific point in time when
the application is functionally stable.
After the application is upgraded, you will have a Visual Basic .NET application that
is functionally equivalent to an older version of your Visual Basic 6.0 application. If
all of the changes that were made to the original application up to that point are
recorded in sufficient detail, you should be able to quickly add the new functionality
to the .NET application to bring it up to date.
Practically speaking, if this scenario applies to you, the process of moving your user
base from the old version of the application to the new version of the application
will be a major undertaking in itself and will overshadow any minor bugs reported
while the application was being upgraded.

Dealing with Strict Compilation Requirements on Checked-In Source Code

This section only applies to you if you are already using a source control system and
your office policies restrict changes that can be made to your application’s source
code. Policies like this might require check-in tests to be performed before you check
in code or they may require expensive quality assurance cycles after you check it in.
If this is the case for you, you can create an independent branch in your source
control system that you can use to perform the code preparation. Any changes you
make to your source code are independent from the main branch, and you are free to
check in the source code as you want.
64 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Handling Multiple Visual Basic 6.0 Projects with Shared Files

A problem can occur with files that are shared between projects because the upgrade
wizard will not recognize these files as shared. It will upgrade them repeatedly, once
for each project that uses them. This is easy to spot because the upgraded files will
have the same names and namespaces in Visual Basic .NET; however, they will not
show up until compilation.
You can create a new Visual Studio .NET solution to hold all the projects that you
will need to manually review. In it, you can see the files that were shared and are
now repeated in different projects to determine which project the files really belong
to. With this information, you can fix the references accordingly.
Care should be taken when you do this because there are likely minor differences in
the shared files because of the context differences in the way they were upgraded.

Handling Circular Dependencies in Visual Basic 6.0 Projects

Circular dependencies are a sign of bad programming practice, but they do exist.
They are caused by groups of two or more projects being co-dependent. For ex-
ample, two projects are co-dependent if each project had a reference to a DLL in the
other.
If this happens, the upgraded projects will suffer from the same co-dependence. To
fix this issue you will have to locate the sources of the dependencies and try to
resolve them so that they are no longer circular. You can usually do this by moving
code from one project to another. It is preferable to make these changes during the
code preparation phase of the upgrade because it will lead to better source code in
the upgraded application.

Managing a Partial Upgrade

If you have decided to perform a partial upgrade (meaning that some of your
application will remain in Visual Basic 6.0 while you upgrade the rest of it), you
need to decide how to handle the source code management of this process. Obvi-
ously, the issue is that some components of the application are being removed and
replaced by new .NET components while others are not.
Chapter 14, “Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET,” examines in
detail interoperability between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET. Refer to this
chapter to familiarize yourself with the concepts and their limitations before under-
taking a partial upgrade.
In terms of the management of source code in a partial upgrade, you have two
approaches to choose from; both will probably apply.
In the first approach, you replace a component, such as a COM object or DLL, with a
.NET DLL. If you can manage to do this without changing the code that uses the
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 65

DLL, you will have a much easier process. In this case you simply create a new .NET
project that will eventually replace your old DLL. Whether or not you are using a
source control system, it is a simple process because you create the new DLL inde-
pendently of the current DLL and start using the new DLL when it is ready.
The second approach involves replacing the user of a component, such as a COM
object or DLL, with a .NET equivalent. The development of the client is independent
of the original client and the new client is used when it is ready. If you can avoid
changing the shared component, the process is much easier. If the component must
be changed, try to make the change to the original project before starting the up-
grade instead of during code preparation.

Using Historical Information

Every application is different. It is impossible to know how many and what kind of
upgrade issues your application will have. To provide some guidance for you, this
section provides a few general statistics that are based on a large number of success-
ful upgrades that have already been performed. Please note that all of the statistics
in this section are from projects that were first prepared in Visual Basic 6.0 for the
upgrade to Visual Basic .NET. If you do not prepare your application in Visual Basic
6.0 first, you can expect your actual numbers to be much higher. However, do not be
afraid of a large number of issues being reported by the upgrade wizard. Most of
them will be very simple to resolve after you understand why they have occurred
and how to correct them.
The five most common upgrade issues generate 88 percent of the total issues. Table
2.1 lists them with the percentage that each generally occurs:
Table 2.1: Top Five Upgrade Issues
Issue Occurrence
Could not resolve default property of object “<objectname>” 52%
Property/method was not upgraded 13%
Property/method/event is upgraded but has a different behavior 12%
COM expression not supported 7%
Use of Null/IsNull() detected 4%

These are all micro issues. Micro issues are commonly-occurring, easy-to-fix prob-
lems. From these projects, 41 percent of the issues occur in the design of forms, 59
percent of the issues occur in modules, classes, code-behind-forms, and other project
items. On average, modules, classes and code-behind-forms have one upgrade issue
for every 106 lines of code; forms have one upgrade issue for every five controls.
66 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Best Practices for Performing Your Upgrade

The following recommendations can help you maintain better control over the
execution of your project and will also help you manage potential risks associated
with the upgrade:
● Software applications are usually living assets in their companies, so freezing the
code development on an application is hard to accomplish. Do your best to
perform the upgrade during a period when you can restrict the coding of that
application to solving major bugs. This allows you to accelerate the upgrade
process, reduce the probability of having to make changes to the original applica-
tion as well as the upgraded one, and simplify the source code control during the
upgrade. If it is not possible to halt development, you must upgrade a frozen
copy of the source code and record changes and bug fixes that must be applied to
the application during or after upgrade.
● Try to assemble an upgrade team composed of developers and testers who know
the Visual Basic 6.0 application, and developers and testers who have experience
with the .NET Framework. This combination of team members will handle
technical aspects of the upgrade, while team members who have the required
business skills but not necessarily the technical knowledge can ramp up to speed.
● Make your upgrade project a priority and ensure that your developers are dedi-
cated to it. This support helps your team focus and begin working on the new
code base.
● Understand and categorize the upgrade issues that need manual intervention.
While many of them can be fixed quickly and mechanically, others require closer
attention. Assess your team’s abilities to fix the different categories of issues,
including their potential affect on the project schedule.
● Share upgrade knowledge with your entire team. A single solution may apply to
all occurrences of several issues found during the upgrade. Keep your developers
up-to-date with the solutions that are being implemented by others. You can do
this with knowledge base software, documents that are posted to your intranet,
regular team meetings, and any other knowledge dissemination mechanism that
your company uses.
● Make achieving functional equivalence a goal. When your Visual Basic .NET
application is functionally equivalent to the Visual Basic 6.0, you have a solid
basis for adding new functionality. Even if the upgraded application does not
entirely follow the recommended practices for the .NET Framework, or it has not
been fully optimized, you have the opportunity to validate its functionality. Then,
in a controlled way, you can begin improving the application with fine-tuning,
security implementation, and remote deployment, in addition to many of the
other features that are offered by the .NET Framework.
 Chapter 2: Practices for Successful Upgrades 67

● When solving a problem during the upgrade, keep in mind that you want to
preserve the functionality, not the code. Sometimes it is better to replace an entire
piece of code with functionality that is provided by the new platform than to try
to re-implement the old features in the new platform just to keep things exactly
as they were in the original application.
● Divide the testing phases into partial testing and full testing. Partial testing can
be understood as code and unit testing; it is focused on isolatable pieces of the
application such as components, classes, a particular method, and so on. Full
testing — also referred to as system testing — comprises the testing of the func-
tionality of individual components, the functionality of the entire application,
and the application’s integration with other applications. Partial testing will find
errors before you integrate the entire system. It is not unusual to find bugs in the
upgraded application that also exist in the original application but that have not
yet been detected. Differences in the execution of the applications in the two
environments can identify such errors. Resolving these bugs may be simpler
when they are found during unit (localized) testing instead of during full system
testing.
● Test cases are a great measurement tool for quantifying the progress of the up-
grade process. They also confirm when the application reaches functional equiva-
lence. As with any software project, test cases help to maintain a high level of
quality in your application.
● Dedicate resources to testing. If you do not have dedicated testers, assign one set
of developers to perform the upgrade and a different set of developers to test the
upgraded code. This will improve the effectiveness of bug detection. Assign team
members who know the business perhaps better than they know the code to
testing.

Avoiding a Common Pitfalls

During the first phases of the upgrade, resist the temptation to redesign the applica-
tion. While preparing the code for the upgrade it is easy to find ways to improve the
application. If you start tinkering with the code at this stage, the upgrade process
can easily spin out of control, causing you to over extend your schedule and budget.
During the stages of compilation and achieving functional equivalence you should
focus only on these tasks — not on redesign. The algorithms worked before so stick
with them for now, but all the while do keep track of areas you can improve after the
application has reached functional equivalence.
Also, if the code generated by the upgrade wizard works, do not try to improve it
just because there is a .NET alternative for it. Leave these tasks for the application
advancement stage.
Remember that the primary goal of your upgrade project should be to achieve
functional equivalence. Only when functional equivalence is reached should you
begin the tasks for improving and optimizing the application.
68 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Summary
Deciding whether reaching functional equivalence is sufficient or if you need to add
new features to an application is an important decision that you should consider
before you begin an upgrade project. Although you can start by first achieving
functional equivalence before adding new features, you should plan ahead for
future advancements so that any necessary hooks can be included during the up-
grade to facilitate future development work.
Understanding the different upgrade strategies and when each should be applied is
important so that you can make decisions, plan the upgrade, and the associated
estimate costs and effort. Should you upgrade your entire application, or only parts
of it (leaving parts in Visual Basic 6.0, which will require the use of interoperability
techniques)? Should you perform the upgrade all at once, or do it stages one compo-
nent at a time? These are questions you will have to answer before you can even
begin upgrading.
Finally, a successful and efficient upgrade project relies on a methodical approach
with clearly defined stages. The process outlined in this chapter provides you with
the knowledge you need to prepare and to carry out realistic upgrade project plans.

More Information
For more information about Visual Studio, see the Microsoft Visual Studio
Developer Center on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/.
3
Assessment and Analysis

Introduction
Assessment and analysis usually means two things: determining how best to up-
grade your applications to the Microsoft .NET Framework and how much it will
cost to do this. This chapter discusses the best ways to gather this information.
The “Evaluating Upgrade Objectives” section discusses many of the common
expectations that come with an upgrade to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and dis-
cusses the realities behind those expectations.
The “Gathering Data” section provides information about what you should have
ready to help you make important decisions for the upgrade process and how best
to gather that information.
The “Application Analysis” section examines the Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assess-
ment Tool (included with this guide) and how to use it to get statistical, structural,
and functional information from your applications. You will also learn how to use
this information to help you make decisions about the best way to upgrade your
applications.
The “Estimating Effort and Cost” section explains how to estimate the time and cost
of your upgrade project.
Each section describes how to collect the information you need and the value of this
information to the project. You will see how best to use the information to reduce
costs and risks and to increase your return on investment (ROI).
To best determine the strategy and cost for upgrading your application, you need to
ensure your scope and plan your project appropriately, and then test the upgraded
application fully after it is a .NET Framework application. You have to be aware of
70 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

all the assumptions you are making and the expectations you have and to ensure
that they are all correct. This chapter helps you learn how to do so.

Project Scope and Priorities

Probably the most important information that you can get from analyzing your
application, and the information that has potentially the greatest effect on the effort
and cost of the upgrade project, is the information that is needed to define the scope
of the project. When you are defining the scope or your project, the considerations in
this section will be helpful.

Identifying Components That Must Be Upgraded

Many factors will contribute to deciding which parts of your application must be
upgraded to .NET. For example, it may be that you want to consolidate your server-
side technology, but you may decide that upgrading the client is secondary. Alterna-
tively, you may want to improve the integration with the Internet or Web services or
add this functionality. In these scenarios, it may be necessary to upgrade only those
portions that will interact directly with the improved or newly added functionality.
These requirements will mean that certain components of your application must be
upgraded to Visual Basic .NET. Through normal dependencies, other components
will also need to be upgraded. However, because of the interoperability possibilities
between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET, you will not need to upgrade all
your code. For more information about interoperability, see Chapter 14, “Interop
Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET.” For more information about
upgrade strategies, see Chapter 1, “Introduction.”
Also, the parts of your application that you upgrade may be limited by available
resources, such as how many developers are available, how much time you have
to perform the upgrade, and how much effort would be needed to complete the
upgrade.
Later in this chapter you will learn how to track the dependencies between compo-
nents of your applications. You will also learn how to measure the size of your
applications and estimate the effort required to upgrade the individual components.
This information will prove valuable in determine the scope of your upgrade
project.

Identifying Obsolete Components

When assessing your application for upgrade, you will find areas of functionality
that are no longer used. This is especially true in earlier applications that were
developed by a series of development teams over several years. Often, features are
added to applications and then later those same features are no longer used because
the business changes focus or operating procedures. Frequently, these features can
be removed before the upgrade, potentially saving significant amounts of work.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 71

Typically, the older a feature is, the more likely it is that it depends on some behav-
ior of an earlier version of Visual Basic that is no longer supported in Visual Basic
.NET — a behavior that would be difficult to upgrade to Visual Basic .NET.
There are several analysis techniques that you can use to determine the features that
are no longer used and can be left out of the upgrade. Use case analysis and input/
output analysis are two such techniques that are discussed later in this chapter.

Managing Upgrade Expectations

Managing expectations is important in any development project. It is even more
important in an upgrade project because people have different ideas of what an
upgrade is and different reasons for performing the upgrade. Later in this chapter,
you will find a list that includes many of the common expectations that people have
for an upgrade project and the objectives that they believe the upgrade is attempting
to reach. This list helps you manage the expectations of various people interested in
your project and prevent unwelcome surprises.

Planning
To create an effective project plan, you have to know exactly what has to be done,
who is available to do it, and how long it will take. Some of this was described in the
“Project Scope and Priorities” section earlier in this chapter. The following sections
discuss some other considerations that you should keep in mind during planning
and that can be clarified with careful application of the Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade
Assessment Tool (hereafter referred to as the “assessment tool”).

Identifying Components Requiring Significant Upgrade Effort

Some components can be upgraded to .NET more easily than others. For example,
you may not have access to source code for third-party components. Other compo-
nents may rely on features that require a lot of work to be upgraded; for example,
components that make extensive use of Data Access Objects (DAO) or Remote Data
Objects (RDO) for data access. These components should be given special attention
during the upgrade planning stages because they correspond to the riskier areas of
the upgrade.
Later in this chapter, you will find detailed information about the assessment tool
(included with this guide) and how to use it to identify the components that will not
upgrade easily to Visual Basic .NET.

Quantifying the Amount of Code to Upgrade

The number of lines of real code in your application, not counting comments or
blank lines, is a useful indication of the complexity of an application. In fact, the
number of lines of code is not used directly to estimate effort; instead, it is used as
72 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

a weight that affects other elements of the estimation. For more information, see
“Estimating Time and Cost” later in this chapter.
For example, the number of lines of code affects the amount of time required to
create an inventory of the application, define the order of the upgrade, review the
upgrade report generated by the first run of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, and
so on.
The assessment tool reports how many lines of code there is in the application and
in each of the files and components that comprise the application.

Determining Upgrade Order

Because of the complex interdependencies that usually exist between components
and files in an application, it is normal to wonder which files, components, and
modules you should approach first in a large upgrade project. Physically, the files
that make up your application contain dependencies that force you to approach the
upgrade of the files in a predetermined order, unless you are prepared to redesign
some of your application. However, logically and even strategically, it makes more
sense to upgrade your applications on a component-by-component basis, indepen-
dent of the relationships between the files.
Your own business and technical needs will determine the order in which to up-
grade the individual components of your application. When there is doubt, the
assessment tool can shed light on current physical dependencies between compo-
nents to help support your decisions at the component level. It is common to find
dependencies between components that were unexpected and highlight weaknesses
in the design or implementation of an application. After you choose the order in
which to upgrade the components, and depending on how many files make up the
component, you have to decide the order in which to upgrade individual files. The
recommended approach is to start with the files that depend on the fewest number
of other files, and then work your way through the dependency hierarchy. The
assessment tool helps a great deal with this because it shows exactly what depen-
dencies each file has and even suggests an upgrade order based on this information.

Assessing the Necessary Technical Expertise

When planning what needs to be done and in what order, you must also decide who
will be responsible for each of the tasks that you identify. The assessment tool
produces a report in the MainReport.xls file to assist with making these kinds of
decisions. The Config – Resources tab of this file provides a list of recommended
resource categories with a description and cost-per-hour for each category. Although
default costs for each category are provided, these values can be modified to fit the
actual costs for your company.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 73

The MainReport.xls file also provides a fairly complete set of information about the
kinds of tasks that need to be completed to upgrade your project. Furthermore, it
hints at the resource categories needed to complete those tasks.
For example, each error, warning, or issue (EWI) that is found by the upgrade
wizard has an associated suggested resource, such as developer or architect, that
implies a minimum level of experience for the individual that is responsible for
resolving that EWI. These are default suggestions provided by the assessment tool,
but these can be adjusted in the Config – EWI tab if you disagree with any of the
suggestions.
Also, all the different features of Visual Basic 6.0 code that require manual upgrad-
ing have associated with them suggested resources in the Config – General tab of
the MainReport.xls. These values can also be adjusted, which allows you to select
your own resource if you disagree with the suggestion.
The suggestions made for the type of resource required to deal with the various
upgrade tasks are based on experience with numerous Visual Basic 6.0 upgrade
tasks. However, your situations may vary depending on the resources available in
your company. The configurability of the reports allows you to adjust them to suit
your environment.

Estimating Time and Cost

These two estimates are usually the most important and traditionally the most
difficult to determine. Among other things, they depend on the available resources,
developer skills, experience, and knowledge, and quality and size of the application.
The MainReport.xls file produced by the assessment tool provides assistance with
cost and effort estimates by providing suggestions of the types of resources needed
for various upgrade tasks, the cost for each type of resource, and the length of time
that resource will need to perform the task.
The MainReport.xls file contains several tabs the report the estimated cost and effort
for upgrade tasks, as listed here:
● Effort – Total: This tab provides a report of the complete estimated effort and
cost.
● Effort – By Resource Type: This tab summarizes the effort estimate for each
resource category.
● Effort – By Task: This tab summarizes the effort estimate for each upgrade task.

● Effort – EWI: This tab summarizes the effort estimate for each EWI.

Each of these tabs is discussed in more detail in the “Estimating Effort and Cost”
section later in this chapter.
The estimates shown in these tabs are based on configurable values found in other
tabs. As mentioned in the previous section (“Assessing the Necessary Technical
74 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Expertise”), you can use the Config – Resources tab to adjust the cost for each type
of resource. The values you supply will automatically be used in the effort reports.
The Config – EWI and Config – General tabs suggest the type of resource and the
length of time required to perform various upgrade tasks. These values can also be
modified to suit your needs, and any changes you make will be reflected in the
effort reports that depend on them. Thus, the task of estimating cost and effort for
your upgrade project is simplified because you need only specify modifications in
the configuration tabs and all effort reports are automatically adjusted to reflect your
modifications.
The configurability of the various estimates in the MainReport.xls file will help your
organization improve their accuracy over time. The more upgrade projects your
developers participate in, the more information you gather about the costs and effort
required to handle different aspects of upgrading. This information can then be used
to adjust cost and effort estimates in the assessment tool reports in future projects.

Defining Priorities
Another important goal of the type of application analysis is defining upgrade
project priorities. This is important because it helps focus effort and direct decisions.
Priorities depend on the business and technical objectives at the root of the upgrade
project, but to some degree, it also depends on the result of the analysis of the
content, the operation of the application, and on the time and budget available.
Depending on the content of the application, priorities might include risk manage-
ment by requiring a pilot project or initial testing of certain parts of the application.
One example scenario is where new business requirements include specific increases
in performance or scalability to a handle a larger user base. This requires a close
analysis of the current architecture and bottlenecks and a good understanding of the
features of Visual Basic .NET that can increase performance and scalability. Chapters
1 and 14 discuss some of these features. Prioritizing bottlenecks helps to speed the
upgrade.
Another example scenario is the addition of a new Web service interface in as little
time as possible. If interoperability is an acceptable solution, a partial upgrade may
be all that is necessary because you only need those components that provide
content to the Web service; the other components can remain in Visual Basic 6.0.
Here, prioritizing only the additional service would achieve the most efficient
solution in terms of time and cost.
One final example is a scenario where the priority is consolidation. In this case, a
partial upgrade is not an option and focus must be placed early in the project on
those components that are more difficult to upgrade because they are the potential
show-stoppers.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 75

Evaluating Upgrade Objectives

This section examines some of the common reasons that people have for upgrading
from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET and the expectations that often accom-
pany the upgrade project.
The reason should be clear for clarifying your expectations and the expectations of
your sponsors, users, and clients. You want to ensure that you are upgrading your
applications for the right reasons. You also want to make sure that the goals of your
project are achievable and that you are clear about the amount of work needed to
achieve those goals.
Most of these expectations come from one simple fact. When an application is
upgraded using the automated tools provided by Microsoft Visual Studio .NET,
most of the code used to generate the new application is based on the code that
implemented the original application. This is usually the case. However, in some
cases no code can be generated. For example, this can happen when the behavior is
not in the source code of the original application, but instead, the behavior is in a
third-party library that is no longer available.
The following sections list common objectives and the associated expectations that
lead people to believe that the objectives will be met. In each case, the reasoning
behind the expectations is discussed.

Business Objectives
Upgrade projects will have an impact on business objectives of your company. This
section addresses some of the key considerations and expectations of an upgrade
project from the perspective of business objectives.

Minimizing Organizational Disruption

An automated upgrade helps ensure that the look and feel of the original applica-
tion is maintained in Visual Basic .NET. This usually leads to the expectation that the
users do not need any training for the new application. This can sometimes be true,
but some applications fail to meet this level of equivalence for a variety of reasons.
The most common reason for this is third-party components that are not available in
.NET. In this situation, you are forced to write your own component or replace it
with one that is a little different in Visual Basic .NET. This can result in slightly
different behavior.
Any changes in performance can affect the apparent behavior of an application and
can confuse users. For example, if your .NET application performs differently, a user
may be surprised by this difference and be left wondering whether his or her trans-
action was completed properly.
76 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

After assessment, you may determine that certain features are no longer needed or
used. This is a good opportunity to reduce upgrade time and clean up the new
application by removing code and features that are no longer used. However, you
have to be careful when making decisions like this because other features may have
undocumented dependencies on the features you remove. Also, you may find that
some users do in fact use those features although they did not report that they use
them or they use them for reasons other than those for which they were originally
intended. For example, it is common to read information from reports that is actu-
ally secondary to the prime intent of the report simply because this report is easier
or faster to create than the one that should be used.
Other changes that can cause disruption come from the fact that any procedures you
had in place for testing and deployment will likely have to change. Because the
application is no longer based on Visual Basic 6.0, you may have to modify your
testing procedures, especially if they were automated. Also, deployment require-
ments will change, so you must also update your deployment procedures.
Finally, although the new application will contain most of the business logic from
your original application, this does not mean that your programmers have nothing
new to learn. Visual Basic .NET is a new language. It has new syntax rules, a new
API, supports a new programming methodology, and no longer supports many
common practices of Visual Basic 6.0 programmers. Upgrading your original appli-
cation is a great way for them to learn this new language, but they will need some
level of familiarity with Visual Basic .NET before the upgrade begins.

Leveraging Existing Knowledge Capital

Because the business logic encapsulated within an application represents a major
investment of time and money, throwing it all away and starting a rewrite from the
beginning is not typically the best solution. Part of the reason for choosing an
upgrade instead of a rewrite is the possibility of maintaining the most possible
investment in the original code. When an application is upgraded, very little of the
existing business logic needs to be manually rewritten in the new language. Because
much of this upgrade is automated, it can be done by developers who were not
involved in the original application development.

Reducing Risk
If the earlier application is working well and is fulfilling user and business needs, a
common expectation is that a direct upgrade to the new platform involves far less
risk — it is simply the identical business logic moved to a new platform.
Legacy code has often been facetiously defined as “code that works.” It has been
used, tested, and improved over a long period of time. If it works, there is no need
to rewrite it. Writing new code also implies creating new bugs that must be found
and fixed. Because much of the original code is automatically upgraded, you do not
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 77

need to write as much new code as you would if you rewrote the application from
the beginning. This results in less risk of introducing new bugs to the application.

Maximizing Return on Investment

Businesses only approve new projects that, directly or indirectly, will show a return
on investment. For this reason, expectations about a return on investment are im-
plicit in any upgrade project.
Traditionally, calculating the ROI is a complex task because there are so many
variables to consider. This guide can provide some pointers for calculating the ROI,
but many of the variables come from your own business practices and how the
upgraded applications are used. In simple terms, the ROI is a combination of the
amount of extra money your business makes because of the upgrade, plus the
amount of money that the upgrade saves you, minus the cost of executing the
upgrade:
ROI = Money Made + Money Saved – Cost of Upgrade.
The money you make because of the upgrade is completely dependent on the
applications that you upgrade and how they are used in your business. However, it
is often related to the new features, services, and performance that your application
offers as a direct result of the upgrade. The cost of the upgrade can be estimated
before you start the upgrade; later sections explain this in detail.
You have to analyze your applications yourself and look at how the improvements
offered by the upgrade affect the operating and maintenance costs of the applica-
tions. Because of the new technologies offered by Visual Studio .NET, there is also a
possibility that the upgraded application can reach new markets or be used by a
broader audience.
The .NET Framework and Visual Studio offer important improvements for software
development and maintenance that reduce the overall cost of building and maintain-
ing your applications. Deployment, configuration, and maintenance of the deployed
application are easier and require fewer administration resources. XML-based
configuration files, new deployment possibilities, and less invasive deployment
activities mean that deployment is less likely to cause damage to or be damaged by
installations of other software. Each of these aspects helps to reduce overall costs.
Increased performance, security, and scalability mean that your applications are
more responsive and secure. This results in less downtime, more transactions, and
more user satisfaction. All of these aspects translate into higher productivity and
more effective business processes.
Finally, because Microsoft is going to stop providing support for Visual Basic 6.0 and
all earlier versions, it is likely that soon after there will be decreasing numbers of
developers who have a good knowledge of Visual Basic 6.0. This will make finding
78 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

developers more difficult and maintaining your application more and more expen-
sive. Also, many businesses have made significant investments in training their
people and want to know that their skills are current. If they still need to go outside
the company for expertise, they also want to know that there is a ready pool of labor
that they can choose from. Otherwise, in time, the ROI from an upgrade will come
from the fact that it is simply more expensive to not upgrade.

Achieving Functional Equivalence

Functional equivalence is discussed in some detail in Chapter 2 and it is suggested
as the necessary primary goal of any upgrade project. In fact, functional equivalence
at a minimum is only natural to expect from a project that involves moving your
application to a new platform.
For the most part, this is a valid and an achievable goal. However, it is not without
its obstacles. Functionality that is provided by components that are not under your
control and are not available in .NET may need to be rewritten or replaced by other
third-party components or custom in-house components.
If you promise functional equivalence, make sure to confirm that it is achievable by
checking the compatibility of all third-party COM components and libraries with
.NET or, alternatively, the availability of a .NET version of those components.

Dealing with an End to Official Support for Visual Basic 6.0

As mentioned in Chapter 1, official support for Visual Basic 6.0 from Microsoft will
cease completely in March 2008. It is a major objective of many businesses to ensure
that their IT department and all their software operate on platforms and toolsets that
have manufacturer-provided support.
If you opt for a full upgrade of all your applications, instead of just a partial up-
grade as discussed in Chapter 2, you will no longer be dependent on Visual Basic
6.0. In a partial upgrade, you upgrade only certain parts of your applications and
use one of the mechanisms available for interoperability between Visual Basic 6.0
and Visual Basic .NET to get them to communicate with the parts that were not
upgraded. (For more information, see Chapter 13, “Working with the Windows
API.”) However, if you take this approach, parts of your application will obviously
still require Visual Basic 6.0. If one of your objectives is to follow Microsoft’s
planned support path, you will eventually need to move all the pieces of applica-
tions over to Visual Basic .NET.

Technical Objectives
Any upgrade project will have technical objectives behind it. This section discusses
some of the common technical objectives for performing an upgrade.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 79

Adding New Functionality

Upgrading applications to a newer framework such as the Microsoft .NET Frame-
work enables organizations to enhance their systems with cutting edge technology.
This allows them to meet ever-expanding user and business needs such as Web
enabling, Web services, XML, ADO.NET, and ASP.NET. And because critical applica-
tions are no longer dependent on outdated and/or unsupported legacy environ-
ments, there is a clear path for longer-term support and evolution.
This is a common expectation and is often a prime reason for moving to .NET in the
first place. However, remember that these features do automatically appear. The key
word is enable; .NET enables you to take advantage of these technologies. After an
application is upgraded to .NET, you have all the capabilities and possibilities of
.NET available to you, but you still need to plan how to start taking advantage of
these technologies and then initiate a development cycle to implement the plan.

Achieving Better Performance and Scalability

Better performance and better scalability are two key improvements that .NET
provides. It is common to expect better performance and scalability from your
upgraded application.
In some cases, without any extra effort beyond upgrading your code to .NET, you
can see dramatic performance improvements in your applications. For example, the
white paper titled “Advantages of Migrating from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic
.NET” (available on MSDN) documents developers who upgraded an ASP and
Visual Basic 6.0 application to .NET. After the upgrade, they saw the throughput and
the number of users supported simultaneously increase threefold without any
modifications to the code other than what was needed to get the code running in
.NET.
Such performance improvements are not always this automatic. When you start
your upgrade project, you should consider the design of your application. For
example, you should consider how it does things in Visual Basic 6.0 and how it will
do them in Visual Basic .NET. Sometimes you may need to reconsider how things
should be done in .NET in order to improve performance and scalability. For ex-
ample, rewriting your ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) data access code to use
ADO.NET will likely show great improvements. The rest of the chapters in this
book, particularly Chapter 20, “Common Technology Scenario Advancements,” give
many pointers to where you can improve the performance and scalability of your
applications when you upgrade to Visual Basic .NET.
80 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Accelerating the Development Process

A decision to rewrite code implies building the application entirely from the begin-
ning. In contrast, it is reasonable to expect that an upgrade can benefit from the fact
that much of the conversion of your original code is automated. In fact, this results
in huge improvements in productivity from upgrading, as compared to rewriting.
The main reason for this huge difference is that a rewrite involves designing, creat-
ing, testing, and debugging new algorithms, whereas an upgrade means simply
translating algorithms to the new language and ensuring that the code performs
identically to the original application.

Consolidating to a Single Framework

One of the common reasons for upgrading your applications is consolidation or
framework unification by upgrading several languages and/or frameworks to one
language and framework.
One of the biggest problems for IT organizations is supporting multiple applications
that run on different frameworks and/or are written in different programming
languages. This causes compatibility and integration issues among the applications
and can be very costly to manage. Instead, if applications run on a single frame-
work, it would be easier to manage, tune, enhance and deploy them as well as
integrate and make them interoperate. The only impediment to migrate applications
to run on single framework is the time and effort required to and the only way to
overcome this impediment is to automate the migration.
In the context of this guide, if an organization has applications based on the .NET
Framework as well as applications based on Visual Basic 6.0 then it makes sense to
upgrade the Visual Basic 6.0 applications to Visual Basic .NET. With the help of the
Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, all the Visual Basic 6.0 applications can be made to
run on the .NET Framework using the Visual Basic .NET language at a fraction of
the time and cost that would be required to rewrite them. This will help your organi-
zation support and maintain its applications better than having to support both
Visual Basic 6.0 and the .NET Framework.

Ease of Deployment
Also of importance to IT is deploying an application across an entire organization.
Applications with sophisticated deployment schemes can be costly to install among
multiple computers. DLL versioning conflicts result in lost productivity for users
and costly trouble-shooting for IT personnel.
The .NET Framework provides application deployment options that simplify the
process of deploying applications. It also provides options to help in protecting
against version conflicts, thus ensuring that deploying a new application will not
break currently installed applications.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 81

For more information about deployment options, see the “Upgrading Application
Setup” section in Chapter 16, “Application Completion.”

Gathering Data
As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, our goal is to determine how best to
upgrade your applications to Visual Basic .NET and how much it will cost to do so.
With this in mind, this section examines two ways to view your applications and
extract information about them to help with your upgrade decisions.
The first way to view the application is based on how it is used. In this case, you will
have to look at the environment in which the application executes, who the users are
and how they use the application, and what features the users actually use. When
looking at your application from this perspective, remember that users in this
context can be human end users or other systems that interact with your applica-
tions. This technique for analyzing the application is especially useful if you have
reason to believe that your application contains a lot of features that were created
long ago but are no longer needed.
The second way to view the application is to analyze its content. This includes the
features that it offers, the technologies that it uses to provide those features, the code
that was written to manipulate the technologies, and the interactions between all
these pieces. Therefore, you are interested in the source code that was used to build
the application, its size, complexity, and the third-party libraries it references. Also
of interest is how the applications are structured, what subsystems the design
highlights, what dependencies the applications have on external systems, and the
mechanisms used by these subsystems and external systems to interact with each
other. The assessment tool included with this guide is a great way to start this kind
of analysis.
The following subsections examine the techniques for analyzing your application’s
usage and how the assessment tool helps catalog the elements of your application.

Assessing Application Usage

A necessary activity in developing an upgrade plan is to perform an assessment of
the application’s usage. This section examines two techniques for doing this: use
case analysis and input/output analysis.

Use Case Analysis

A very common technique for describing the requirements of software applications
is through use cases. A use case is a document that describes one particular scenario
where that system is or will be used. A complete set of use cases amounts to a set of
functional requirements for a software application and it can be used as the starting
point for more detailed functional specifications and test plans. For this discussion, a
82 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

set of use cases can be used to define the set of functionality that needs to be up-
graded to Visual Basic .NET. If your application already has use cases, you can use
them as a starting point. Just keep in mind that new usage scenarios may have been
added since the original use cases were created because use cases are usually created
before any application development even begins.
Examples of Use Cases
A use case usually consists of text describing a set of steps that lead to the comple-
tion of a specific task. For example, it can describe the steps a user would be ex-
pected to execute to process a check received from a client.
A typical use case contains information such as the following:
● Name. This identifies the use case.

● Description. This describes the use case.

● Pre-conditions. These indicate assumptions about what should be true before the
steps in the use case are executed.
● Steps. These are the steps that are required to execute the use case.

● Post-conditions. These indicate the conditions that should exist after successful
completion of the steps of the use case.
● Actors. This indicates who would normally execute these steps.

● Variations. These indicate alternatives to the steps. Finally, post-conditions

indicate a way to confirm that the steps were performed correctly.
The actual size of a use case can vary from a few of lines to several pages, depending
on the detail needed and the complexity of the task that is being described. At a
minimum, a use case should have a name that identifies the task in just a few words
and the steps expected to execute the use case. Names should be short but descrip-
tive; for example, “Print a document,” “Transfer between current accounts,” “Check
production level,” and “Export report to Excel.” The steps should describe the
information that must be provided to the application and the information that is
expected in return, but it should not add detail where it is not necessary.
There is a lot of documentation available for creating effective use cases, and it is all
appropriate to upgrade projects. Some simple things to remember when defining
use cases are:
● Use descriptive and precise names for your use cases. Avoid vague terms and
software-related terms. Use terminology from the business domain to which the
application belongs (such as Account, Client, Purchase Order, or Report) instead
of from the world of software and databases (such as classes, objects, SELECT, or
query).
● Address atomic tasks with each use case. Avoid creating use cases that involve
more than one goal and avoid creating use cases that address a partial process.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 83

● Scope the use case properly. Make sure the scope of the use case is clear. This can
be done by including triggers and expected results with each use case. A trigger is
some event that usually requires or causes the initiation of the use case. Expected
results are the direct consequences of the use case.
● If you are using use cases that were created for the original application require-
ments, confirm that the use case covers a scenario that is still valid and useful.
Some older use cases may describe tasks that are no longer needed or have
changed since their original conception.
● Involve the users in the development of these use cases. In the end, it is the user’s
requirements that are reflected in the use cases, and they should be involved in
creating and verifying use cases.
Creating New Use Cases
Ideally, you should already have use cases from when the original application was
being designed. If there are no such use cases available, here are some ideas for how
to create use cases now:
● Interview current users of the application.

● Run focus groups and brainstorming sessions with stakeholders.

● Gather information through questionnaires and surveys.

● Observe users’ daily routines.

● Analyze external systems and their interaction with your applications.

Getting Information from Use Cases

After you have a representative set of use cases, you are in a position to categorize
code, components, and projects into those that implement required features and
those that are no longer needed. This helps avoid upgrading unnecessary parts of
your application, which reduces cost and effort.
Another application for the use cases is as the basis of a set of system tests that can
be used to ensure the existence and the quality of required functionality.

Inputs/Outputs Analysis
A classic way to describe computer software is by means of cataloging the full set of
data that it receives and the full set of data that it produces. This technique is a
simple but effective way of creating a formal specification for the behavior and the
usefulness of an application.
This guide does not document the implementation of the pieces of the application,
and it documents protocols, formats, the user interface, and other forms of interac-
tion with the application only in relation to the input or output being described. For
example, the user interface screen that a user interacts with to add client information
to your application is described in terms of its content instead of its layout.
84 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Examples of Inputs
Inputs are anything that is entered into the application by an employee, a client, or a
user of any other kind, or an external application. Examples of inputs include:
● Raw data manually entered by a user to a data entry screen of the application,
such as customer information.
● Any documents built externally to the application and sent to the application,
such as e-mail messages, reports, lists, or raw data.
● Asynchronous messages received from other applications.

● Requests from users over the Internet or intranet.

● Software events for which the application is monitoring including timers,

amounts, or email messages.
● Hardware events for which the application is monitoring.

Examples of Outputs
Outputs are anything that the application produces, displays on the screen, prints,
sends to other applications, or stores on some storage device such as a hard disk,
floppy disks, CDs, tapes, or the network. Examples of outputs include:
● Reports that contain raw or summary information based on existing data and
usually in response to some query or as a result of a scheduled event.
● E-mail messages, faxes, or other electronically transported documents.

● Graphs, text, bar charts, graphics, sound, and other representations of data.

● Events, alerts, and other messages that are transparently logged or require
immediate attention.

Getting Information from Inputs/Outputs

With a complete set of inputs and outputs, it is often even easier to identify code
that is responsible for those inputs and outputs than it is with use cases. Again, this
is useful if you believe that you can save time by identifying components, files, or
even projects that are no longer used and therefore do not need to be upgraded.
Inputs and outputs can also help with testing because it is usually possible to create
mappings from inputs to outputs, and based on this, to build tests that can confirm
the correct functionality of the upgraded software.

Application Environment
The environments in which the applications are developed and deployed both play
an important role in helping define priorities and avenues of investigation when
issues need to be resolved.
For example, if you are not a part of the original development team, it is important
to know who is responsible for the original development, architecture, design,
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 85

implementation, and, if appropriate, product management. It is essential to have a

clear idea of the experience of the programmers who will work on the upgrade
because you may need to arrange for training or bring in someone else with more
experience in Visual Basic .NET to manage the project.
At the deployment site, you should also know who is responsible for support and
administration of the application. Here, too, training may be required because the
application technology and deployment characteristics will change.
In each case, you will need to know who makes the decisions so that you can get
direction when you need it.

Application Analysis
Determining and understanding the effort required to execute an upgrade project is
a complex task that requires the support of different tools. This process involves the
division of the entire application into smaller, more manageable pieces that can be
independently counted, understood, and estimated. As a consequence, upgrade
effort estimation is an analytical process that can be supported at different stages by
automated tools.
The original application analysis is an essential part of an upgrade project. It pro-
vides a better understanding of the application to be upgraded and produces infor-
mation necessary for planning and decision making. The assessment tool will
generate all that information in addition to information that is useful for the execu-
tion of the upgrade, such as the Recommended Upgrade Order report.
The Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool works as a measuring instrument for
an application upgrade effort. This tool analyzes the application components and
the relationships between them from an upgrade perspective, which considers
elements, constructs, and features that consume significant resources during an
upgrade project.
The main goal of the assessment tool is to analyze Visual Basic 6.0 projects and
obtain information useful for planning the upgrade to Visual Basic .NET and for
estimating the cost of the upgrade. This tool will generate a group of reports that are
used as a basis for further calculations related to task effort and cost. The assessment
tool user can specify configuration values that will override the initial estimation
inputs; in this way, the assessment tool can be adapted to specific organizations.
The assessment tool analyzes the original application using a Visual Basic 6.0 parser
that takes into account all the projects specified by the user. The obtained data is
then processed to identify usage patterns and features that are difficult to upgrade.
After all these features are classified and counted, a series of reports with detailed
and summarized data is generated.
86 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

It is important to take into consideration that the assessment tool considers a high
percentage of the known upgrade issues that can arise when upgrading a Visual
Basic 6.0 application with the upgrade wizard; nonetheless, there are issues that are
detected only after the full automated upgrade. The detection of these issues re-
quires complex pattern recognition rules that are available only in the upgrade
wizard. These issues can be estimated as a percentage of the rest of the issues, as is
done by the assessment tool in the Upgrade Issues report.
The following sections explain the reports produced by the assessment tool and the
aspects that are considered in the effort estimation.

Using the Assessment Tool

The assessment tool that accompanies this guide generates two Microsoft Excel®
2003 files. This first file is named MainReport.xls and contains a high level look at
the results of the assessment. When you first open the file, you will see a page like
the one illustrated in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1
MainReport.xls Main Page

From the page illustrated in Figure 3.2, you can access the rest of the report in an
ordered fashion.
The first thing to notice is that this report contains a link to the second report, which
is in a file named DetailedReport.xls. To allow you to keep changes that you make to
the cost and effort configuration between uses of the assessment tool, you can re-link
the main report to any other detailed report from any other assessment. All of the
application specific data in the main report is linked to the specified detailed report.
The following sections discuss the different sheets that exist in these two reports.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 87

In general, the MainReport.xls file contains all the configuration settings, all the
estimates of cost, and summaries of the estimates of effort. The DetailedReport.xls
file contains detailed reports about the content of the application. The first page of
the DetailedReport.xls file is illustrated in Figure 3.2.

Figure 3.2
DetailedReport.xls Main Page

Current and Target Architecture

The original application architecture and project types are identified by the assess-
ment tool and analyzed to extract all referenced files and components. The depen-
dences between projects are also considered when assessing project groups.
The assessment tool can analyze the following types of Visual Basic 6.0 project types:
● Standard EXE. Standard features and functionality are considered when making
estimations that are based on average productivity values.
● Internet Information Services (IIS) application. The application is analyzed in
the standard way.
● Application that uses distributed components. The usage of distributed func-
tionality is identified and accumulated to estimate the upgrade cost of this
feature.
Visual Basic 6.0 project groups are collections of related projects that can share
resources and functionality. The assessment tool is able to process project groups
that are combinations of the preceding project types. Shared components are identi-
fied and taken into consideration when generating the Recommended Upgrade
Order report.
The upgrade path to be followed during the project depends on the relationships
between the base components, which are analyzed by the assessment tool to pro-
duce an upgrade order suggestion. Another aspect that affects the upgrade path is
88 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

the upgrade strategy you choose; it can be a horizontal or vertical strategy, as ex-
plained in Chapter 2, “Practices for Successful Upgrades.”
Most of the application component relationships will remain in the target applica-
tion and the application’s general architecture according to the application type
equivalencies presented in Chapter 4, “Common Application Types.” Project type
changes or re-architecture tasks are not considered in this analysis for effort estima-
tion because these are deemed to be post-upgrade tasks after the functional equiva-
lence is achieved.

Inventory to Upgrade
The first aspect to be considered in the application analysis is the inventory of
resources and components involved in the upgrade process, which includes mod-
ules, third-party components, and intrinsic components. Some of these components
are user-defined, and their implementation needs to be upgraded In addition to the
source code that uses them. For third-party and intrinsic components it is necessary
to upgrade the code that accesses the corresponding component; in this case, for
assessment purposes, it is relevant to make an inventory of the class members and
other elements that are used in the application.
The table illustrated in Figure 3.3 is from the DetailedReport.xls file and shows an
example of the Project Files Overview report that is generated by the assessment
tool.

Figure 3.3
Project Files Overview report

This report presents the projects that were processed by the assessment tool and the
quantity of the different types of modules included in each project. This report can
be useful to identify projects with different types of functionality; for example,
projects that provide user interface elements (with a high percentage of form mod-
ules) or projects that implement the business logic functionality (with a high per-
centage of classes and modules).
User components account for a significant percentage of the upgrade effort; as a
consequence, the inventory of user component definitions and instances declared
must be taken into consideration when determining the inventory of resources to
upgrade. Figure 3.4 illustrates the DetailedReport.xls file and shows an example of
the User Components Summary report.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 89

Figure 3.4
User Components Summary report

The User Components Summary report considers all user-defined components and
the lines of code (LOC) contained in each of them. This report also presents the
quantity of instances of each class that are declared in the rest of the user code. The
estimation worksheet generated by the assessment tool also includes a detailed
report of the user components that provides the member usage for each component.
Third-party and Visual Basic 6.0 intrinsic components are also considered in the
application inventory to be upgraded. The upgrade of these components involves
the processing of the application source code to identify accesses to each of the
component members. All member usages will be analyzed to determine if there is an
equivalent member in the target environment; some of these members will not have
an equivalent in Visual Basic .NET and will require additional manual work to be
upgraded to .NET. Figure 3.5 illustrates the Third Party Component Summary
report from the DetailedReport.xls file; it includes all the components used in the
application and the quantity of instances that are created for each class.

Figure 3.5
Third Party Components Summary report

Visual Basic 6.0 intrinsic components are treated in a similar way to third-party
components, with the exception that most of the intrinsic components have an
equivalent in the .NET Framework and most of the member accesses require some
90 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

type of transformation. The inventory of intrinsic components used in the applica-

tion is included in the Visual Basic Intrinsic Components Summary report in the
estimation worksheet generated by the assessment tool.
User COM objects are also included in the inventory to upgrade; the quantity of
occurrences will be considered for effort and cost estimations. It is important to
notice that user COM objects will be considered as third-party components when
accessed from a project different from that in which it was declared.
In the case of user-defined components, there is an important percentage of upgrade
effort dedicated to the processing of the components’ internal code, including
member declarations and usage of features that have a high upgrade cost. Detection
of these features is done by the assessment tool and is included in the estimation
worksheet it generates. The detected features include:
● API calls. The report includes the function name and library in addition to the
data types of the parameters received. One column shows the quantity of usages
of the function in the rest of the code.
● Data access. The report presents the usage of different data access technologies,
including ADO, RDO, and DAO.
● COM+. The report presents a summarized and detailed view of the usage of
COM+ and Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) classes.
Using the information presented in these reports, it is possible to identify compo-
nents of the application that require special attention in the upgrade planning. For
example, heavy use of ADO recordsets is an indication that a vertical upgrade
strategy should be used for the affected components. For more information about
upgrade planning, see Chapter 2, “Practices for Successful Upgrades,” and Chapter
4, “Common Application Types.”

Source Code Metrics

Typically, the size of an application is defined in terms of the lines of code. Also, the
application source code can be classified and counted according to the origin of the
code; for example, the assessment tool is able to identify code lines related to visual
component declarations, comments, blank lines, and user-written code. The quantity
of lines of code has some limitations as an estimate of the complexity of an applica-
tion from the upgrade perspective. A large application that uses only features
supported by the upgrade wizard can have a low upgrade effort while a small
application that makes extensive use of unsupported features can have a high
upgrade cost. However, source code metrics can still be used to estimate the size and
effort necessary to execute some tasks involved in the upgrade process. These tasks
have a limited complexity and depend mainly on the size of the application and the
quantity of modules and components that form it. Examples of these tasks are the
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 91

Application Resource Inventory and the Migration Order Definition; both of these
are estimated in the Effort – Total report generated by the assessment tool.
The assessment tool helps to capture source code metrics by producing a report of
the number of lines of code in a project. Figure 3.6 shows an example of the lines of
code (LOC) report in the DetailedReport.xls file produced by the assessment tool.

Figure 3.6
Lines of code (LOC) report

Source code lines are classified by the assessment tool as a result of analyzing all the
content of the application modules. Each line is parsed and classified to determine
how many visual lines, code lines, and comment lines are written in the Visual Basic
6.0 projects processed. Visual lines are lines that were generated by Visual Studio.

Handling Unsupported Features

The upgrade wizard automatically upgrades most of the language constructs and
intrinsic components. It also supports third-party components and different types of
Visual Basic 6.0 projects. However, there are still features that are not fully sup-
ported by the upgrade engine and require some level of manual work to be up-
graded to Visual Basic .NET. The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion,
available from ArtinSoft, supports many features that are not supported by the
upgrade wizard.
When an application is upgraded, the unsupported features produce different types
of errors in the target application. Compilation or run-time errors can be produced
and user intervention will be required to fix them; this results in the need for re-
sources to review the code, perform the correction, and execute the appropriate
tests.
The assessment tool detects the unsupported features by analyzing the code and
searching for code patterns that will produce upgrade issues after the application is
upgraded. The estimation worksheet has a Config – EWI tab where the cost and
effort values associated with each issue can be reviewed and adjusted according to
specific needs. The values that are initially inserted in this tab are derived from
ArtinSoft’s experience in Visual Basic upgrade projects. The configuration values are
taken into consideration when generating the Effort – EWIs tab in the
MainReport.xls report file, as illustrated in Figure 3.7 on the next page.
92 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 3.7
Upgrade Issues tab

The Effort – EWIs tab of the MainReport.xls file generated by the assessment tool
reports all the detected issues and the corresponding quantity of occurrences, their
complexities, and cost estimation values. It is important to take into consideration
that the assessment tool does not detect all possible issues that can be generated by
the upgrade wizard; however, most of the issues that have a significant impact on
the upgrade effort are considered. As previously stated, the Config – EWIs tab
includes a column that can be used to adjust the effort value obtained for the up-
grade issues to make your estimates more accurate.

Application Dependences
The assessment tool identifies the dependencies between the application compo-
nents analyzing different aspects of the source code, including:
● Application references. Explicit references to user components indicate that there
is a dependence relationship between different user projects.
● Variable declarations. When a variable is declared using a type that is defined in
a different module or project, a dependence relationship between different
modules or projects is established.
● Member accesses. Member accesses also produce dependences between subrou-
tines, functions, or properties.

The assessment tool identifies dependencies between members of project groups.

When a project references another project that forms part of the same project group,
the assessment tool identifies the referenced project as a user component and in-
forms the user about the relationship between these projects.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 93

Knowledge about the usage relationships between components is essential for

different aspects of the upgrade plan, including upgrade order definition, testing,
and debugging. For more information about upgrade planning, see Chapter 5, “The
Visual Basic Upgrade Process.”
Based on the dependence relationships analysis, the assessment tool generates an
Upgrade Order report in the DetailedReport.xls file that includes a suggestion of
the file upgrade order. An example of this report is illustrated in Figure 3.8.

Figure 3.8
Example Upgrade Order report

The report is divided into sections that correspond to each of the application’s
projects. The files in each group are ordered according to the dependences between
the files in the group. The first file in each group has no dependences on other user-
defined files in the same group. As a result, this file can be upgraded and tested
independently. The next file in the list can be upgraded and tested based on the
previous upgraded file.
Each of these files can be upgraded in a staged way, providing increasing levels of
functionality. The assessment tool produces the Upgrade Order report by looking for
modules that depend on the minimum quantity of user components, and then a new
dependency level is generated based on the components included in the previous
level. In this way, each level is built on the functionality provided by previous levels.
This report is useful for identifying possible upgrade paths; if a horizontal upgrade
strategy is going to be used, the suggested upgrade order can be followed. It is also
possible to upgrade modules from different groups at the same time if a vertical
upgrade strategy will be executed for some pieces of the application.

Missing Application Elements

After the initial upgrade preparation steps are complete, it is possible that some of
the application components are not yet available on the computer where the auto-
mated upgrade is going to take place. After these components are identified, it will
be necessary to correct the environment before the upgrade process can be restarted.
These additional steps will consume time and resources that need to be accounted for.
The assessment tool identifies missing application elements that can be reviewed in
the Missing Components and Missing Files reports included in the estimation
94 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

worksheet. Missing elements are identified according to the user defined modules
and explicit references included in the analyzed projects.
Figure 3.9 illustrates the Missing Components report from the DetailedReport.xls
file.

Figure 3.9
Missing Components report

The Missing Components report includes the file name and path of the missing
components in addition to the corresponding version and the registered name. It is
necessary to install these components on the upgrade computer to execute the
automated upgrade. The quantity of missing components is considered in the effort
estimation (Effort – By Tasks tab in the MainReport.xls file produced by the assess-
ment tool) according to the missing elements configuration data.
Figure 3.10 illustrates the Missing Files report from the DetailedReport.xls file.

Figure 3.10
Missing Files report

This report includes the file name, path, and module type for each missing file. The
project where the missing file is detected is also included. In the same way that the
missing components are considered in the estimation effort, missing user files are
also considered.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 95

Estimating Effort and Cost

After deciding the best way to upgrade your application, the second goal of applica-
tion analysis and assessment is determining how much effort is actually needed to
upgrade your applications to functionally-equivalent .NET applications. When
estimating effort, you need to include all the steps of the upgrade from the initial
analysis of the requirements up to the deployment of the application and retraining
of developers and users if necessary.
After you have an estimate of effort, you have the most important piece to estimate
the cost of the upgrade. However, the cost of the upgrade also depends on other
elements. One such element is the cost of the people that do the work. Different
parts of the upgrade require people with different profiles. Project administrators,
developers, testers, and architects all cost different amounts of money.
Other things to keep in mind are training, hardware, software licenses, and any
interruptions to your business or the cost of avoiding those interruptions when you
switch to the new version of your application.
The effort estimation reports (Effort – Total, Effort – By Task, Effort – By Resource
Type, and Effort – EWIs) generated by the assessment tool provide configurable
parameters that help fine-tune a calculation of the effort and time required to com-
plete the upgrade of a project. This report is created along with all the application’s
technology details.

Methodology Overview
It is important to understand the concept of effort in the upgrade context. The effort
of each task is expressed in hours that correspond to normalized time, that is, it
corresponds with the time that the task would take if it was executed using average
resources. If there is a highly experienced programmer in charge of that task, it will
be finished in less time. In addition to average resources provided by default, the
Effort Estimation report includes parameters such as junior developer, junior tester,
senior developer, and senior tester; each with a different cost per hour.
The cost of most tasks is directly derived from the cost of the resources necessary to
perform the tasks and the estimated effort required to execute the task. For example,
the cost of upgrading a COM component is higher if a senior developer is respon-
sible for the conversion, although this may result in reduced effort. In contrast, a
junior developer will cost less than an experienced developer but will require more
time to achieve a functionally-equivalent upgrade. For more specific tasks, the cost
is obtained from a per-occurrence cost that is related to the each task’s degree of
difficulty and the kind of resources necessary to perform it. The Config – General
tab in the MainReport.xls file generated by the assessment tool contains default
values for cost and effort for different upgrade tasks. These values can be modified
96 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

to match more closely to your own development capabilities and costs. Figure 3.11
illustrates the Config – General tab.

Figure 3.11
Config – General tab

Some tasks directly depend on the number of lines of code that comprise individual
components or files. The estimated effort is the number of lines of code multiplied
by some constant. This constant is based on work performed on previous upgrade
projects involving various different types of applications.
For tasks whose cost is derived from the quantity of occurrences of a feature, the
application conversion estimate of effort is calculated by counting up all features’
occurrences within the project and adding the cost to upgrade each occurrence and
the effort per occurrence in terms of time. This is included on the Effort – By Task
tab in the MainReport.xls file generated by the assessment tool, with totals reflecting
time and cost for all occurrences of each feature. Figure 3.12 illustrates a sample of
this tab.
Each EWI has an effort and cost associated with it. All these values are derived from
the steps necessary to resolve each issue in other upgrade projects. These values can
be configured on the Effort – EWIs tab in the MainReport.xls file. An example of this
table is shown in Figure 3.13.
This tab allows you to change the default effort and cost associated with each EWI to
help you prepare a more accurate estimate of the effort required to address upgrade
issues.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 97

Figure 3.12
Manual Code Adjustment Effort tab

Figure 3.13
Effort – EWIs tab

Aspects to Be Estimated
The different phases to be estimated relate directly to the steps of the upgrade
procedure. In summary, the items to be estimated are:
● Project kickoff. This includes the estimated time for the upgrade project kick-off
meeting. Typically, it is not a large value. It serves as a reminder that these cost
estimates have a well-defined scope. It also reminds you of the many things that
you must do before the upgrade project begins, such as training, research, and
purchasing software and hardware, which are not included here.
● Application preparation. This includes the estimated time for the setup and
verification of the development environment of the original application. This
includes compilation of the original application to verify that it is complete and
source code modifications to accelerate the conversion process later on.
● Application conversion. This includes the estimated time for the execution of the
upgrade wizard and completing the upgrade with manual changes.
● Testing and debugging. This includes the estimated time for the execution of the
original test cases and fixing any run-time errors.
98 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Project management. This includes the estimated time for administrative tasks
related to scheduling and management.
● Configuration management. This includes the estimated time for configuration
management of the products obtained throughout the entire upgrade process.
For more information, see Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process.”
The application composition is the inventory to be upgraded; this is reflected on the
Project Files Overview tab. The inventory of the application is the first aspect to be
considered when estimating the upgrade effort. This inventory will provide a
general vision of the projects and modules to be upgraded. The content of these
modules will be detailed in the Effort Estimation report. The application composi-
tion is an important report to plan the rest of the upgrade and set priorities for the
different projects and modules. For instance, if there are several user controls that
present a dependency among classes, it is wise to set a high priority to those compo-
nents to have them ready when upgrading the forms and classes that depend on
them.
As mentioned in the “Methodology Overview” section, the Config – EWI tab
includes an estimation of the effort needed to upgrade an issue. The values provided
by the assessment tool and that are generated as part of this tab affect the following
worksheets:
● Effort – EWIs

● Effort – By Task

● Effort – Total

The Effort – By Task tab consolidates different aspects of the effort estimation,
including features/code items such as property pages, designers, third-party com-
ponents, ADO, RDO, COM, COM+, and more. Each element is a summary of more
detailed information that can be found in the DetailedReport.xls file.
The tasks included on the Effort – By Task tab have a high degree of detail behind
them, and the estimation is calculated as a function of the data in the details. The
types of resources used to perform the different tasks are also explicitly indicated in
this report to give an idea of the level of experience that each task will likely need,
and the subsequent cost.

Understanding the Effort – Total Worksheet

A complete summary of the effort and cost estimations can be found on the Effort –
Total worksheet in the Microsoft Excel workbook that is generated by the assess-
ment tool.
Before looking at the worksheet in detail, be aware that it generates an estimate that
you must fully review and customize before you use it in your own project estima-
tions. Although almost every aspect of your application is covered somewhere in
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 99

this workbook and each has an associated weight indicating the effort required to
upgrade that particular aspect, the weights for some aspects are left at zero. This
means that the assessment tool does not consider that all aspects are important to
the estimation. The aspects that do have weights for effort and cost have values that
may not be appropriate for your organization. Also, remember that every upgrade
project is different, and although similar worksheets to this one have been used in
real upgrade projects, there are always new things to consider or assumptions built
into estimate worksheets that do not apply to every project. It is likely that you will
have to make some adjustments before applying this estimation to your own
projects. For this reason, the next paragraphs explain how the assessment tool
arrives at the cost estimation it produces in the Excel workbook. Every effort has
been made to base the estimates on projects that are as close as possible to typical.
The formulas and weights in Figure 3.14 are based on experience with real upgrade
projects and accurately reflect that experience.

Figure 3.14
Effort –Total tab

The Effort – Total worksheet is divided into three sections: “Application prepara-
tion,” “Application conversion,” and “Testing and debugging.” Each section will be
examined in detail. However, please keep the following notes in mind:
● Most cells in the Effort (Hours) column are references to named cells on the
General Configuration tab or are functions of named cells from there. If you
100 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

make any changes, it is recommended that you make those changes to the Gen-
eral Configuration worksheet instead of to the Effort worksheet.
● Any cell or set of adjacent cells can be given a name and used in formulas. You
will see names used as if they were single values (for example, =NameA+NameB)
and collections of values (for example, =SUM(NameC)).
● For consistency, the worksheets and formulas are organized so that you will only
ever need to change either the General Configuration worksheet or the EWI
Configuration worksheet. The General Configuration worksheet is referenced
primarily in the Total Effort worksheet, and the EWI Configuration worksheet is
referenced mostly in the Upgrade Issues Table worksheet. However, it is okay to
change the other worksheets if you want to. A third worksheet that you will
likely have to change is the Resource Costs worksheet, which specifies how much
it costs for different types of people to work on the upgrade project. These values
change from country to country, from business to business, and even from month
to month, so you will probably have to review them.
Be careful when you make changes to the worksheets generated by the assessment
tool; when it runs again, it will create a new workbook, possibly overwriting all
your changes. Always keep a backup of the workbook file before re-running the
assessment tool. It is recommended that you only make changes to the
MainReport.xls file and keep a backup of it. You can easily change the MainReport
file to link to any DetailedReport.xls file. This saves you from having to reconfigure
the assessment tool or copy configuration information between reports.

Application Preparation
The application preparation phase is described in detail in Chapter 5, “The Visual
Basic Upgrade Process.” In the context of this discussion, the definition of applica-
tion preparation is broadened to include everything from the moment that you are
preparing the computers the upgrade will be performed on up to just before the
upgrade wizard runs for the last time to generate the initial code that will be used as
the source base for the new Visual Basic .NET application.
This does not include the time spent studying alternatives or any of the other activi-
ties that are performed before an upgrade project is approved. It is assumed that the
decision to upgrade has already been made and that the upgrade project has been
approved.
Nor does it include any “code preparation” activities that are described in Chapter 5,
such as running the Visual Basic Code Advisor to clean up the code to make it more
amenable to upgrade. These activities can help reduce overall upgrade time but
including them in these estimations would make them overly complex. We suggest
that you use the assessment tool after you do any code preparation. If your code
preparation is successful, you should see a reduction in the effort estimated by the
assessment tool before and after code preparation is complete.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 101

Most of the tasks in this phase have fixed estimations of effort and cost or have
estimations based on the number of lines of code in the application. These are
explained here:
● Development environment. This includes the setup of the upgrade wizard,
which will be used to analyze and upgrade the application. This effort is fixed
and configurable by the user of the assessment tool.
● Application resource inventory. This includes an initial review of the application
and gathering all the files and tools that are needed to compile the application in
Visual Basic 6.0. It also includes time for collecting existing information about the
applications architecture and design. This value depends on the size of the
application.
● Compilation verification. The original application is compiled to verify that all
the required files are available. This effort is fixed and configurable by the user of
the assessment tool.
● Upgrade order definition. The upgrade order is determined by the assessment
tool reports and priorities that are implied by your own strategic and technical
goals. This value also depends on the size of the application.
● Upgrade wizard report review. Preliminary test upgrade of the application to test
the system resources and detect common errors and practices that are more easily
fixed in Visual Basic 6.0. This task also depends on the size of the application.

Application Conversion
The application conversion phase includes all the tasks required to get the green code
to functional equivalence. Green code is the name for the unmodified code gener-
ated by the upgrade wizard that serves as the initial code base for the upgrade.
The tasks in this phase are:
● Upgrade wizard execution. This involves execution of the upgrade wizard to
obtain the green code. This effort depends on the size of the application.
● Issue resolution. This involves manual resolution of all the issues mentioned in
the Effort – EWIs worksheet. This sheet is described in greater detail later in this
chapter.
● Code review. After all the issues are resolved, it is necessary to integrate all the
new code, compile it, and debug it.
● Administrative tasks. This involves administrative tasks performed during this
phase, such as scheduling and resource assignment. It is calculated as a percent-
age of all the other tasks in this phase.
102 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Testing and Debugging

The last phase includes all the quality assurance tasks that must be preformed to
ensure that the application is functionally equivalent to the original application. All
the tasks in this phase are calculated as percentages of the total effort in the Applica-
tion Conversion phase. These tasks are:
● Test case creation. This task involves creating new test cases or adapting existing
test cases to be used for quality assurance and to verify functional equivalence.
● Test case execution. This includes multiple executions of the test cases during
testing as the application moves toward functional equivalence.
● Run-time error correction. This task includes bug fixes, workarounds, and other
resolutions of detected run-time errors.
● Administrative tasks. This task includes bug management, test case manage-
ment, regression testing, and other administrative tasks that are typically associ-
ated with testing and debugging.

Understanding the Estimate

As previously stated, estimating development projects is traditionally a very diffi-
cult thing to get right. The reports and estimations generated by the assessment tool
are based on extensive experience with upgrade projects and take into account as
much detail as possible from that experience. Tasks outside the three phases ex-
plained earlier are not included.
After the most important tasks are known, you must decide how much time each
task will require. The assessment tool estimates are only suggestions based on
developer experience. You should review all of the features identified in the report
and the amount of time allocated to each one. It may be necessary to modify these
estimates if they do not reflect your organization’s experience; for example, if you
have no one with experience in that area and believe more time is required or if you
have already solved the problem before and are confident it can be done more
quickly.
Also keep in mind that unforeseen issues can occur. You may be using a third-party
library that is not taken into consideration by the assessment tool, or your applica-
tion may make unconventional use of some Visual Basic 6.0 features or behaviors
that was not considered by the assessment tool.
For these reasons, you should consider the numbers generated by the assessment
tool as a rough estimate. You can get more accurate results by reviewing all the
issues identified by the assessment tool and making sure that the effort assigned to
each individual issue makes sense in your organization. Also, be certain to obtain
your developers’ approval of the estimation because they are the ones that have to
deliver in the end.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 103

Understanding the Configuration Settings

This section describes the configuration settings for the assessment tool. Each of
these settings can be found in the MainReport.xls file that is produced by the assess-
ment tool.

Config – General
The Config – General tab allows you to configure the estimated effort for specific
upgrade issues, such as correcting and verifying every 1,000 lines of code. It includes
the following columns:
● Migration Task. This column includes tasks that must be performed during the
upgrade. Some of the tasks refer to specific characteristics of the application (such
as lines of code) or types of components used by the application (such as COM
objects or ADO).
● Effort per occurrence (Hours). This column defines the time required to upgrade
an occurrence of an upgrade task, measured in hours. This value should be
configured to reflect the capabilities of the developers in your company. The
default value is usually a good average.
● Cost per hour. This column identifies the cost per hour of upgrading an occur-
rence of one of these issues. This is highly variable and depends on the skill level
of the person that will be working on each issue and the salary levels for someone
of that level.
● Resource. This column identifies the recommended resource type that should be
assigned to resolving each issue.
● Description. This column provides a description for each upgrade task.

Config – By Resources
Resource costs can be found in the Config – By Resources tab. They represent an
estimation of development resources required to resolve an upgrade issue. Figure
3.15 shows an example Config – By Resources tab.

Figure 3.15
Config – By Resources tab
104 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The Config – By Resources tab includes the following four columns:

● Resource. This column names different levels of experience and skill that may be
needed during an upgrade.
● ID. This column identifies an abbreviation for this type of resource that is used in
other tables in the report.
● Cost per hour. This column specifies the cost per hour associated with each
resource. As mentioned earlier, this is highly variable and should be modified to
reflect your own costs.
● Description. This column contains a description of each type of resource.

Config – Fixed Tasks

The Config – Fixed Tasks table introduces a set of processes to be accomplished in
any upgrade project by the resources listed on the Config – By Resource tab. Figure
3.16 shows an example of this tab.

Figure 3.16
Config – Fixed Task tab

The Config – Fixed Tasks tab includes the following three columns:
● Task. This column lists some common tasks that are a part of every upgrade
project.
● Hours. This column lists the time required to complete each task. Again, this may
need to be changed to reflect you own circumstances.
● Description. This column provides a description of each task.

Config – EWIs
The Config – EWIs tab displays information about the upgrade estimates for EWIs.
It includes the following seven columns:
● Name. This column contains the name of each error, warning, and issue.

● MSDN ID. This column contains the Microsoft Developer’s Network ID of the
EWI.
● Resource. This column identifies the recommended resource type that should be
assigned to resolving each EWI.
 Chapter 3: Assessment and Analysis 105

● Effort per occurrence (Minutes). This column defines the time required to up-
grade an occurrence of an upgrade EWI measured in minutes. This value should
be configured to reflect the capabilities of the developers in your company. The
default value is usually a good average.
● Effort per occurrence (Hours). This column is the same as the preceding one,
except the time is displayed in hours instead of minutes.
● Cost per hour. This column identifies the cost associated with the upgrade of
each issue by an average developer. This is highly variable and depends on the
skill level of the person that will be working on each issue and the salary levels
for someone of that level.
● Functionality. This column contains a more detailed description of the EWI.

Summary
A successful upgrade project depends on careful assessment and analysis of the
project to upgrade. A thorough application of these tasks ensures accurate planning
and budgeting. This chapter discussed the information you need to gather to per-
form these tasks and some of the tools available to help you gather it.

More Information
For more information about improving the performance of your applications, see the
white paper titled “Advantages of Migrating from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic
.NET” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/productinfo/advantage/default.aspx.
For more information about the Visual Basic Companion from ArtinSoft, go to the
ArtinSoft Web site:
http://www.artinsoft.com/Default.aspx.
4
Common Application Types
This chapter can help you to understand how common Visual Basic 6.0 application
types are treated before, during, and after an upgrade. The chapter explores the
dependencies between an application type and the application’s actual architecture
from an upgrade perspective. After you have made the decision to upgrade, use this
chapter to learn about the similarities and differences between Visual Basic 6.0 and
Visual Basic .NET application types, and how to achieve a smooth transition that
takes advantage of features available in the upgraded version.

Identifying and Upgrading Application Types

You can learn about your application and the process of upgrading it by comparing
it to other applications with similar requirements and architectures. By selecting an
application type, you choose a set of capabilities and characteristics that are well
suited to the problem that your application solves. Application types are character-
ized by traits such as audience, intended use, architecture, and capabilities.
In Visual Basic 6.0, there are a variety of application types to choose from. These
application types can be divided into two categories: application components and
full application executables.
The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard supports different Visual Basic 6.0 application
types, including standard executables (.exes), ActiveX components, and Internet
Information Services (IIS) applications. Depending on the original project type, the
upgrade wizard generates a .NET project whose output is a Windows-based applica-
tion (.exe) or a class library (a dynamic link library, or DLL).
To get the most out of the services and features in the .NET platform, you should
evaluate the architecture and type of your upgraded application. For example, you
can transform a highly coupled or monolithic desktop application into an applica-
tion that includes several independent components in well-defined tiers and takes
advantage of technologies provided by Visual Basic .NET. This kind of improvement
is discussed in detail in Chapter 17, “Introduction to Application Advancement.”
108 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Determining Application Type and Functional Equivalency

When you upgrade your application, your first goal is to achieve functional equiva-
lence between the legacy and upgraded versions. The equivalency between Visual
Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET application architecture and project type is shown in
the Table 4.1.
Table 4.1: Application Type Equivalency Table
Application Architecture Visual Basic 6.0 Project Type Visual Basic .NET Project Type
Desktop application Standard executable Windows-based application
Web application Internet Information ASP. NET Web application
Service (IIS) application
Distributed application Application that uses Application that uses components
distributed component object of System Runtime Remoting and
model (DCOM), Microsoft System Enterprise Services .NET
Transaction Services (MTS), Framework namespaces
or COM+ services

This chapter provides a high-level summary of the upgrade process for each applica-
tion architecture and type.

Determining Component and Project Types

Visual Basic applications are built with different components that provide the basic
functionality and services that the applications require. Some components can be used
in different application architectures; for example, an out-of-process reusable compo-
nent library can be used in a desktop application or in a distributed application.
Table 4.2 shows how component types correspond to Visual Basic project types.
Table 4.2: Components and Corresponding Project Types
Component Type Visual Basic 6.0 Project Type Visual Basic .NET Project Type
Reusable library ActiveX .exe No direct equivalent: upgrade to
(out-of-process) Windows-based application or
class library project.
Reusable library ActiveX DLL Class library
(in-process)
Visual application ActiveX control Windows control library
component
Visual application ActiveX document No direct equivalent.
component to be hosted Re-implement using .NET Frame
in an Internet application work components such as
UserControls and XML Web forms.
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 109

For a summary of how to upgrade these component types, see the “Application
Components” section later in this chapter.

Desktop and Web Applications

Desktop and Web applications are two basic frames that include all of the compo-
nents and source code that make up an application. When you upgrade a desktop or
Web application, you should consider the components and their interconnections,
the structure of each component, and the overall application architecture.
This section first explains upgrade considerations that are common to both desktop
and Web applications, and then concentrates on specific aspects of each application
type.
A desktop application can require considerable effort to upgrade to the .NET Frame-
work. One of the difficulties in upgrading an application is because Visual Basic has
been completely redesigned for the .NET Framework, and functions and controls do
not correspond exactly to their counterparts in Visual Basic 6.0.1

Architecture Considerations
As explained in Chapter 2, “Practices for Successful Upgrades,” you may need to
approach the upgrade by using one of the following two approaches:
● Vertical upgrade. This approach requires that you isolate and replace a piece of
your application through all n tiers.
● Horizontal upgrade. This approach requires that you replace an entire tier of
your application.
To assure functional equivalence independently of your chosen approach, you must
have comprehensive unit and system test suites for the entire application, as well as
for individual upgrade modules, components, or tiers. You may find it convenient to
upgrade portions of the application that you can test in the early stages of the
process. This approach allows you to have different developers or development
teams work in parallel, and it helps you to correct issues early in your project.
However, as explained in the forthcoming sections, it is not always feasible to
independently upgrade and test pieces of an application.
For more information about testing and debugging an upgraded application, see
“Testing and Debugging the Upgraded Application” in Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic
Upgrade Process,” and Chapter 21, “Testing Upgraded Applications.”
110 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Single-Tier Applications
Single-tier (or monolithic) applications are applications in which most or all of
the code for a given feature is contained in a single source code file. In Visual Basic,
this usually means that all of the functional logic is in the control event handler
subroutines. All necessary components and functionality are included in a group of
forms, making them the conceptual units for the application features. In such appli-
cations, development tends to be driven by the user interface. If new features are
needed in the application, new components are built into existing forms. For ex-
ample, when a single-tier application requires database access, then a component for
data access is plugged into the form, and all methods that need to access the data-
base use the newly integrated component.
Single-tier applications do not have separate functional layers for data access,
business logic, or the user interface. All necessary services and components are
integrated in the same development unit (usually a form). This kind of application is
highly coupled because all components are closely tied together, usually in the same
file or procedure, with many shared structures and connection points. A single-tier
application also has low cohesion, which means that the mechanisms that constitute
different conceptual entities are so closely tied together that conceptual barriers are
obscured. This makes modifying functionality difficult because making a change can
affect more than just the intended functional behavior.
When you compile an application of this type, you generate a single executable file
that contains all of the necessary information for user-defined forms and modules.
To deploy such an application, you must install the executable file and any related
third-party components on each of user computer.
The remainder of this section describes issues that you should consider when you
upgrade a single-tier application.
Although the example uses a single multiple-document interface (MDI) child form,
the concepts presented also apply to solutions composed of several forms and
modules and to Web applications that are highly coupled.
The form in this example (which could just as easily be a Web page) allows a user to
have a general overview of the telephone calls received at an IT help desk. After the
user locates a record, he or she can request more information about it. The form
contains a data-bound grid that displays records in a table with telephone call data.
The grid uses an ActiveX Data Object (ADO) data control as its data source: the data
control provides the communication with the system’s database. Because the form
displays the full list of calls, the control has been made invisible. Figure 4.1 provides
an overview of the form components and architecture.
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 111

IT Help Desk application

Telephone call search form

Visual behavior Other visual

code components

DataGrid

Business logic Data Control ADO

Database

Figure 4.1
Typical monolithic form components

The outer box represents the single tier application, which contains the telephone
calls search form. This form includes components for data access, business logic, and
visual components, represented in the diagram by the smaller boxes. The arrows in
the diagram show the dependences between components. The visual behavior code
manages the rest of components, The DataGrid control uses an ADO data control to
display the information extracted from the database. The business logic interprets
the telephone numbers if a user requests details about a call. Although the boxes
related to business logic and data access are shown as independent entities, the
corresponding code could be intermixed with the rest of the form’s code. Note also
that all of the functionality is enclosed in the telephone call search form and cannot
be used by any application modules outside this form.
Because the complete functionality of this example is encapsulated in a single form,
it must all be upgraded and potentially adjusted before the form can be compiled,
executed, and tested. For example, the business logic included in the form cannot be
upgraded and tested independently of the rest of the code unless the developer
rearchitects the original form. The monolithic structure of the application makes an
incremental upgrade and test of isolated functionality extremely difficult. The form
and all its elements must be upgraded as a single functional unit that constitutes the
entire application. In this sense, the upgrade strategy to be followed for a monolithic
application is a complete upgrade strategy.
112 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Redesigning Your Single-Tier Application

When you upgrade a single-tier application, your best strategy is to redesign the
application and separate its functionality into distinct parts. This approach provides
modularity and functional cohesion, making it easier to modify pieces of the appli-
cation, add or remove functionality, or make functionality available to other applica-
tions.
Using a vertical strategy to upgrade parts of your application to the new architecture
provides an effective test bed for the new design. The .NET Framework provides
architectural support that makes it much easier to build on an upgraded base. (Note
that using a vertical strategy also applies to two and three tier applications.)
After you use a vertical approach to upgrade part of the application, you can use
interoperability to integrate some of the managed code and the existing unmanaged
code. Be careful when you choose which portion of the application to upgrade,
because the choice may affect development costs. For example, the cost to integrate
a managed form and a group of unmanaged business classes, which can be done
through interoperability, is low compared to the costs associated with integrating
managed and unmanaged forms that need to interact. This last kind of integration
could require increases development costs because of different event models and
a user-defined communication and marshaling scheme between managed and
unmanaged forms code.
After you have integrated a subset of the application functionality, testing is neces-
sary to ensure that the new and old pieces of the application work together, share
data, and provide a seamless experience to the end user or client developer. After
successful testing, you will have a basic infrastructure, and you can continue with
the vertical upgrade of the application components.
In most cases, you should restructure an application after you have executed an
automated upgrade and achieved functional equivalence. This approach allows you
to take advantage of the improved Visual Basic .NET features. However, depending
on the features supported by the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard or other automated
upgrade tools, you may need to make some structure and component changes
before you can automatically upgrade your Visual Basic 6.0 source code. You may
need to reorganize the code and replace unsupported classes with supported ones so
that the upgrade wizard can apply all the necessary mappings and transformations.
For example, data access object (DAO) and remote data object (RDO) components
can be slightly reorganized and changed to ADO, which has better support in the
Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard and other automated upgrade tools. For more infor-
mation about upgrade wizard unsupported functionality or about data access
component upgrades, see Chapters 7 – 12.
The equivalent .NET application architecture for the upgraded application is a
Visual Basic .NET Windows-based application project whose startup object corre-
sponds to the original Visual Basic 6.0 object. (The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 113

generates a NET solution file that contains only this project.) When the wizard
upgrades a typical single-tier application, it replaces all library references with
references to the common equivalents in the .NET Framework base class library.
References to the System namespace provide basic functionality for the Form class
and XML capabilities. The Microsoft.VisualBasic assembly provides functions that
are similar to the functions available in the Visual Basic 6.0 VBA library. Each class
library that was referenced in the original application will have a corresponding
reference in the Visual Basic .NET project. ActiveX control (.ocx) components will
have an additional reference that begins with the prefix Ax and corresponds to a
Windows Forms control wrapper. These references are generated by the aximp
utility. For example, a reference to the component MSComctlLib for common
controls results in a new reference to AxMSComctlLib. This additional reference
provides support for the native members and behavior that all Windows Forms
controls support.
The upgraded application will have the same structure as the original. All of the
original relationships between application components are in the upgraded version.
The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard automatically generates interoperability wrappers
for all ActiveX components that require it. For example, in the telephone calls
example form described earlier, a wrapper is generated for the DataGrid and ADO
components. For more information about interoperability, see the “Application
Components” section later in this chapter.
It is important to note that the remaining components are upgraded to native .NET
Framework classes, and most of the source code is converted to Visual Basic .NET.
You can manually upgrade the wrapped ActiveX components to native .NET com-
ponents after applying the automatic tools. For example, you can upgrade ADO to
ADO.NET and upgrade the DataGrid control to the .NET Framework DataGrid or
to a third-party data grid. However, manual adjustments require more time and
effort to achieve.

Two-Tier Applications
A two-tier application is composed of a first tier — the user interface tier — that
contains a user interface and business logic, and a second tier — the data tier — that
contains all of the data access components. The user interacts with the interface tier,
and uses it to perform all application-specific functions. The data tier contains all
data sources and manages them so that they can provide all necessary data services
to the user interface tier.
The user interface of a Visual Basic 6.0 application can contain forms, Web pages,
or both. Additionally, a Visual Basic 6.0 application can have a front end that can be
accessed programmatically. In addition, enterprise applications can have rich forms
clients as well as thin Web clients that can be accessed remotely.
114 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 4.2 shows a two-tier application form based on the telephone list and filter
window explained in the previous section. In this example, the data access compo-
nents are no longer part of the form module. Instead, they are defined indepen-
dently, which allows for modularity and code reuse. This architecture also offers
more upgrade alternatives than the single-tier architecture. The separation of tiers
permits each tier to be upgraded and tested independently. This gives more flexibil-
ity to the upgrade plan.
A two-tier application can be upgraded horizontally or vertically. If you select a
horizontal strategy, you can update an entire tier and leave the remaining tier
unchanged. The upgraded tier can use interoperability features to work with the tier
that was not upgraded. You can then upgrade the remaining tier and integrate it into
the target application as time and budget permits. Alternatively, you can use a
vertical upgrade strategy as explained in the previous section.

Telephone call search form

Visual behavior Other visual

code components

DataGrid

Business logic Data Control

UI Tier

Data Tier
Data Access
Class

ADO

Database
Figure 4.2
Typical two-tier application architecture
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 115

When you upgrade a two-tier application, the upgrade wizard produces a Visual
Basic .NET project that contains files and references similar to those produced for a
single-tier application. The main difference is that a data access class is included in
the project files. This class is independent of the other classes and provides services
that can be used by any other class. This class contains some wrapped classes that
correspond to low-level data access classes (ADO) to provide basic services. If you
manually upgrade ADO to ADO.NET, you must also change this data access class.
However, if your application was designed in a modular way (with low coupling),
you need to make only minimal changes to the rest of the application because
internal changes in the user-defined data access class will not affect its users.

Three-Tier Applications
A three-tier application maximizes component cohesion and minimizes tier cou-
pling. This architecture uses three different tiers for the different aspects of the
application: a user interface tier, a business logic tier, and a data tier. The difference
between a three-tier and a two-tier application is the addition of a business logic tier.
The business logic tier contains application rules and algorithms; therefore, the user
interface tier is only responsible for managing the interaction between the user and
the application. The business logic tier can be segmented into additional logical tiers
to produce a multi-tier architecture. The components of the business logic tier can
also have a close interaction with the data tier. Figure 4.3 on the next page shows a
typical three-tier application.
Because of the further separation of tiers, an upgrade strategy for a three-tier appli-
cation can be even more flexible than an upgrade strategy for a two-tier application.
As with two-tier applications, a three-tier application can be upgraded in a horizon-
tal or vertical way. By using a horizontal strategy, you can upgrade all or part of a
tier and leave the other tiers unchanged. The upgraded code can use interoperability
features to access the unchanged code. Then, you can gradually upgrade the other
tiers and integrate them into the application.
Another important feature of a three-tier architecture is that it allows you to take
advantage of specialized skills that your developers may have, and have them work
in parallel. For example, one developer or development team could work on modu-
lar user interface components while other developers upgrade and adjust the com-
ponents in the business logic and data access tiers.
When you upgrade a three-tier application, the resulting application will also have
three tiers. The upgrade wizard generates ActiveX wrappers for components used in
the UI tier. It is probable that you will need to perform additional UI testing because
some of the UI components require wrappers, custom upgrades, or reimplementa-
tion. However, you can reduce the associated risks by upgrading the UI tier first and
connecting it to the other tiers by using interoperability, while you test the UI tier
early in your project. This approach allows you to upgrade, test, and integrate the
116 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

other tiers in parallel. For additional advice about which tier to upgrade first, see
Chapter 2, “Practices for Successful Upgrades.”

Telephone call search form

Visual behavior Other visual

DataGrid
code components

UI Tier

Business
Logic Tier Business logic

Data Tier
Data Access
Class

ADO

Database
Figure 4.3
Typical three-tier application architecture

Most of the effort to deploy an upgraded three-tier application is spent on setting up

the system servers. You must set up application and data servers to allow the clients
to access the application. Client setup is simpler because most of the components are
installed on the servers, and client computers use an Internet browser to access the
application.
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 117

Desktop Applications
To create a Visual Basic 6.0 desktop application, you use the standard executable
project template. By default, this template starts with an empty form that becomes
one of the primary interfaces. The Visual Basic 6.0 integrated development environ-
ment (IDE) allows you to include supplementary components and references to take
advantage of existing functionality.
A typical desktop application that uses a highly coupled architecture consists of a fat
client, possible middle-tier COM components with business logic, a data access tier,
and a connection to a data store. In this type of application, the presentation and
business logic reside on the client.
In general, a desktop application had the following characteristics:
● Intended usage. The application has many visual cues or aids and provides a
complex interaction with the user.
● Architecture. The application architecture is flexible: for example, it can be a
single tier, fully coupled application or a completely modular application with
well-defined business logic and data access tiers.
● Necessary capabilities. The application requires user interface components, basic
services, and data access functionality. Multithreading capability may be re-
quired, but synchronized process distribution is rarely needed unless the applica-
tion uses the distributed component object model (DCOM) or COM+.
The Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard automatically upgrades
desktop applications to be Visual Basic .NET Windows-based applications. The
wizard does not change the general organization of the code. Therefore, the original
application tiers remain intact. However, there are architecture-related issues that
you should consider when you upgrade a desktop application. These issues include
the following:
● Language issues. You may need to perform additional manual upgrading to
resolve language issues, such as external DLL function declarations or thread
safety. This work can include creating or changing classes so that they provide
basic API services or synchronization among objects. You can upgrade external
declarations to .NET Framework classes and new interface classes. In addition,
you may need to add references. Note that Visual Basic .NET components (in-
cluding UserControls) are not inherently thread-safe. Multiple threads are
allowed to access a component simultaneously. As a result, code that is thread
safe in Visual Basic 6.0 can be unsafe when it is upgraded to Visual Basic .NET.
This change will affect you if you are running your component in a
multithreaded environment such as Internet Explorer, Internet Information
Services, or COM+.2 In this case, you must include new synchronization mecha-
nisms to ensure thread safety.
118 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Forms issues. Dynamic data exchange (DDE) and drag-and-drop functionality

can cause upgrade issues. Neither Visual Basic .NET nor the .NET Framework
support DDE. Because Visual Basic drag-and-drop is considered an outdated
feature, the upgrade wizard does not upgrade drag-and-drop – related code.
Instead, it preserves the Visual Basic 6.0 drag-and-drop code in the upgraded
Visual Basic .NET project. The code will not compile; therefore, you must either
delete it and remove the drag-and-drop functionality or change the code to use
OLE drag and drop. For more information about these issues, see Chapter 9,
“Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features.”
● ActiveX control upgrade. The upgrade wizard supports most ActiveX compo-
nents. The upgrade of these components takes advantage of the interoperability
that can be built around the original component. However, if an application
control is not supported, you must reimplement and re-architect some applica-
tion functionality, particularly in the user interface. In applications that make
extensive use of complex third-party controls, you should perform limited
upgrade tests with a simplified user interface. This will help you to determine
how many controls are fully or partially supported.

For Visual Basic 2005:

The Visual Studio 2005 version of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard will up-
grade more ActiveX controls to .NET native controls rather than wrapped
controls. The additional supported controls (which are contained in the Micro-
soft Windows Common Controls library) include: ToolBar, StatusBar,
ProgressBar, TreeView, ListView and ImageList.

To deploy an upgraded .NET desktop application, you must do the following:

● Install the application executable and library files on the client computer.

● Use the .NET Framework Assembly Registration Utility (regasm) to register

the.NET Framework library assemblies that are shared by different applications.
● If the application contains ActiveX components, register these components on
each client computer.
● Distribute all the corresponding ActiveX wrapper assemblies.

Web Applications
In most cases, you would use the following technologies to build a Web site or Web
application with Visual Basic 6.0:
● Active Server Pages (.asp). This is a server-side scripting run-time environment
used to create interactive Web server applications. An .asp file can include HTML
sections, script commands, and COM components that execute on the Web server
and render a Web page for the client.
● Internet Information Server (IIS) projects. These are applications composed of
WebClasses that run on the Web server and respond to HTTP requests from
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 119

clients. WebClasses can handle state information for the application. For more
information about upgrading an IIS project, see Appendix C, “Introduction to
Upgrading ASP,” and Chapter 10, “Upgrading Web Applications.”
The functionally equivalent server-side technology in Visual Studio .NET is
ASP.NET. This is not simply a new version of ASP. It has been entirely redesigned
based on the .NET Framework. This section highlights the main considerations that
you should take into account when you upgrade ASP code to ASP.NET.
Figure 4.4 shows the general architecture of a Visual Basic 6.0 Web application.
A client Web browser sends a request to IIS, and IIS responds by rendering active
server pages. The ASP files access COM components that contain part of the
application’s business logic and data access layers. These components run in the
Web server computer or in an application server. The larger, background boxes
represent platform servers that provide functionality to different conceptual tiers;
for example, the Web server box includes business logic functionality and part of the
user interface functionality because it has to provide presentation elements as well
executable code in ASP files. The ASP files include application logic and presenta-
tion elements in a single module; that is why the active server pages box crosses the
barrier between the UI tier and the business logic tier.

Web Browser

Web Server
UI Tier
Active Server
Pages

Application Server
Internet
Business
Information Business Logic
Logic Tier
Services Components

Data Tier

Data Access
Class
Database

Figure 4.4
Visual Basic 6.0 Web application architecture
120 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 4.5 shows the architecture of an ASP.NET Web application. If you compare
Figure 4.4 to Figure 4.5, you can see the underlying differences between the two
technologies, and where you need to focus your upgrade efforts.

Web Browser

Web Server Web Forms

UI Tier Content

ASP.NET Application Server

Internet Run-Time
Business
Information Services
Logic Tier
Services
Web Forms Business Logic
Assembly Components

Data Tier

Data Access
Class (ADO.NET)
Database

Figure 4.5
ASP.NET Web application architecture

In a transition from ASP to ASP.NET, most of the architecture changes occur in the
components to be deployed on the Web server. The Web document model is com-
pletely changed. In ASP.NET, Web pages are built as Web forms, which have sepa-
rate files for document content and document presentation logic and behavior.
Therefore, the business logic and user interface aspects of Web pages are separate. In
this model, the Web form content box is included in the UI tier, and the Web form
executable code (Web form assembly) is included in the business logic tier. The
ASP.NET run-time component provides additional services, including Web security,
caching, and other performance features.
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 121

Coexistence
ASP and ASP.NET can coexist on the same Web server; however, they are executed
as different, non-communicating processes.
A Web application within a site can contain both ASP.NET pages and ASP pages.
This offers some advantages if you need to move a large, functionally disjointed and
rapidly changing site to ASP.NET one piece at a time. You can upgrade different
sections of the application that do not depend on each other to ASP.NET, and they
can coexist with the rest of the application. If you are transitioning to ASP.NET as a
long-term strategy, you should use this opportunity to make as many architectural
and design improvements as you can. For more information about upgrading to
ASP, see “Migrating to ASP.NET: Key Considerations” on MSDN.
Because the same Web server can access both ASP and ASP.NET pages, you do not
need to upgrade your existing ASP pages to ASP.NET – compatible pages. However,
there are many advantages to doing so. Some of the biggest advantages include the
following:
● Increased performance. Independent tests have shown that ASP.NET applica-
tions can handle two to three times the requests per second as classic ASP appli-
cations. For more details about performance improvements, see Chapter 1,
“Introduction.”
● Increased stability. The ASP.NET runtime closely monitors and manages pro-
cesses. If a process malfunctions (for example, if it leaks or deadlocks), ASP.NET
can create a new process to replace it. This helps to keep your application avail-
able to handle requests.
● Increased developer productivity. Features such as server controls and event
handling in ASP.NET can help you to build applications more rapidly and with
fewer lines of code. It is also easier to separate code from HTML content.
For more information about converting to ASP.NET, see “Converting ASP to
ASP.NET” on MSDN.

The ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant

Microsoft provides a free tool for automatically converting ASP pages to ASP.NET.
The tool does not automatically convert all of the ASP features, but it can simplify an
upgrade project by automating some of the steps. To download the migration
assistant, see “ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant” in the Microsoft ASP.NET
Developer Center on MSDN.
If you are upgrading an enterprise application that uses ASP, you may need to use
two different upgrade assistants. If the application has a business logic tier, user-
defined classes in the data access tier, and additional components that run on an
application server, you should use the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard. After you
122 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

successfully upgrade these foundation components, you can convert the ASP code
by using the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant.
For a detailed discussion of the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant, see Appendix
C, “Introduction to Upgrading ASP.”

Porting the ASP Application to ASP.NET

When you upgrade an ASP application to ASP.NET, you must decide how much
time you want to spend incorporating the features of ASP.NET into the existing ASP
application. You can approach this work in one of two ways:
● You can run the migration assistant on the ASP pages, and then apply manual
changes.
● You can re-architect the application and use many of the features of .NET, includ-
ing ASP.NET Web controls, ADO.NET, and the .NET Framework classes.
Although the latter option will make your ASP.NET pages more readable, maintain-
able, and feature-rich, it will also require more time and effort to complete the
upgrade.

Key Considerations
When you upgrade existing ASP pages to ASP.NET pages, you should also be aware
of the following:
● Core API changes. The core ASP APIs have a few intrinsic objects (Request,
Response, Server, and so on) and their associated methods. With the exception of
a few simple changes, these APIs continue to function correctly under ASP.NET.
● Structural changes. Structural changes are those that affect the layout and coding
style of ASP pages. You need to be aware of several of these to ensure that your
code will work in ASP.NET.
● Visual Basic language changes. There are some changes between VB Script and
Visual Basic .NET script that you should prepare for before you upgrade your
application.
● COM-related changes. COM has not been changed at all. However, you need to
understand how COM objects behave when you use them with ASP.NET.
● Application configuration changes. In ASP, all Web application configuration
information is stored in the system registry and the IIS metabase, while in
ASP.NET each applications has it own Web.config file.
● State management issues. If your application uses the Session or Application
intrinsic object to store state information, you can continue to use these in
ASP.NET without any problems. As an added benefit, ASP.NET provides addi-
tional options for your state storage location.
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 123

● Base class libraries. The base class libraries (BCL) provide a set of fundamental
building blocks that you can use in any application you develop, whether your
application is an ASP.NET application, a Windows Forms application, or a Web
service. You can significantly improve your application by using the BCL.
For information about each of these concerns, see Appendix C, “Introduction to
Upgrading ASP” and “Migrating to ASP.NET: Key Considerations” on MSDN.
The deployment of an upgraded Web application requires the installation of a client
and one or more server computers. All necessary client-side ActiveX components
must be installed on the client. The server must be set up with the complete set of
server controls, component libraries, and data providers.

Application Components
Microsoft developed the component object model (COM) to allow interaction
between applications and to provide a platform for code reuse.
You can create the following types of COM components with Visual Basic 6.0:
● ActiveX code libraries. You can compile these components as COM executable
programs or as DLLs. These libraries include classes that you use by creating
instances in the client application. In Visual Basic 6.0, the project templates you
use to create these COM components are referred to as ActiveX executables and
ActiveX DLLs.
● ActiveX controls. These controls are standard interface elements that allow you
to rapidly assemble reusable forms and dialog boxes.
● ActiveX documents. ActiveX documents are COM components that must be
hosted and activated within a document container. This technology permits
generic shell applications, such as Internet Explorer, to host different types of
documents.
This section provides general information that you can use when you upgrade any
type of supported application component.

Native DLLs and Assemblies

In Visual Basic 6.0, application components are compiled as DLLs that contain
executable code to be used by client applications. These libraries are deployed as
files that have .dll or .exe file name extensions and require the library information to
be registered in the system registry before client applications can access the library
elements.
124 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

An assembly is the primary building block of a .NET Framework – based applica-

tion. It is a component library that is built, versioned, and deployed as a single
implementation unit. Every assembly contains a manifest that describes that assem-
bly. The manifest contains library metadata that maintains the following information:
● The assembly name, version, culture, and digital signature (if the assembly is to
be shared across applications).
● The names of the files that the assembly is built with.

● The names of resources used in the assembly, including information about which
resources are exported from the assembly.
● Compile-time dependencies on other assemblies.

● Permissions required for the assembly.

The .NET common language runtime (CLR) uses this information to resolve refer-
ences, enforce version binding policy, and validate the integrity of loaded assem-
blies. By using the assembly manifest, the CLR eliminates the need to register .NET
components in the system registry before a client application can use them, and
therefore simplifies application deployment and reduces versioning problems. Most
end users and developers are familiar with versioning and deployment issues that
can occur in component-based systems. Many of these issues are related to the
registry entries that are necessary to activate a COM class. The use of assemblies in
the .NET Framework solves a high percentage of these deployment problems.
Assemblies facilitate zero-impact application installation, and they simplify
uninstalling and replicating applications.

Versioning Problems
Currently two versioning problems occur with Win32 applications:
● Versioning rules cannot be expressed for pieces of an application and enforced by
the operating system. The current approach relies on backward compatibility,
which is often difficult to guarantee.
● There is no way to maintain consistency between sets of components that were
built together and the set that is present at run time.
These versioning problems combine to create DLL conflicts, where installing one
application can inadvertently break an existing application because a certain soft-
ware component or DLL was installed that was not fully backward compatible with
a previous version. After this problem occurs, there is no support in the system for
diagnosing and fixing the problem.
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 125

The Assembly Solution

To solve versioning problems, as well as other problems that lead to DLL conflicts,
the .NET CLR provides assemblies as a means to achieve the following goals:
● Enable developers to specify version rules between different software
components.
● Provide the infrastructure to enforce versioning rules.

● Provide the infrastructure to allow multiple versions of a component to be run

simultaneously (this is called side-by-side execution).

Interoperability Between .NET and COM

When you upgrade application components from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic
.NET, you should take into consideration the interoperability capabilities of the
.NET CLR. For example, you can upgrade a third-party component through differ-
ent mechanisms, including interoperability wrappers, upgrading to .NET Frame-
work components, and upgrading to third-party components designed for Visual
Basic .NET. You should select the appropriate option for your application by consid-
ering the effort required, the expected results, the available resources, your future
application development plans, and other factors.
Interoperability wrappers allow you to access COM components from a .NET
programming language. (COM clients cannot access .NET assemblies directly.) A
Visual Basic 6.0 application can access a combination of converted components and
wrapped components. For example, you can create interoperability wrappers for
your COM components test them in Visual Basic .NET. If the wrapped component
works as expected, it can be accessed through the wrapper or you can upgrade it to
.NET.

To create a COM wrapper
1. Use the Regsvr32 tool (Regsvr32.exe) to register the original COM component on
the target computer.
2. Use the Type Library Importer utility (Tlbimp.exe) to create an interoperability
wrapper.
3. If the component is an ActiveX control, generate a Windows Forms ActiveX
control importer by using the Windows ActiveX Control Importer utility
(Aximp.exe).
For more information about creating COM wrappers and for example code, see
Chapter 14, “Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET.”
Figure 4.6 on the next page shows how interoperability is set up and how a .NET
client uses it.
126 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Common Language Runtime

COM Type Tlbimp.exe Metadata in

Library an Assembly

.NET Interop
Marshaling Service

Method
Calls
COM Object RCW .NET Client

Figure 4.6
Accessing a COM component through interoperability

In Figure 4.6, the Type Library Importer utility (Tlbimp.exe) analyzes the COM
library, and converts the type definitions to equivalent definitions in an assembly
that contains metadata which corresponds to the original COM library. The CLR.
creates a runtime callable wrapper (RCW) for each COM object. The main function
of the RCW is to marshal the calls between the .NET client and the COM object. This
marshaling includes the conversion of data types so that the two technologies can
communicate. The .NET client can access the COM library by using the RCW as an
intermediary.
The interoperability wrapper created is a .NET assembly that wraps the COM
component. The assembly must be registered in the global assembly cache if it will
be shared by different applications. There are several reasons why you might want
to put an assembly in the global assembly cache:
● The global assembly cache provides a central location for shared assemblies. If
an assembly will be used by multiple applications, it should be put in the global
assembly cache.
● The global assembly cache can improve file security. Administrators often
protect the WINNT directory by using an access control list (ACL) to control
write and execute access. Because the global assembly cache is installed in the
WINNT directory, it inherits that directory’s ACL.
● The global assembly cache allows side-by-side versioning. The global assembly
cache can maintain multiple copies of assemblies with the same name, but differ-
ent version information.
● The global assembly cache is the primary CLR search location. The common
language runtime checks the global assembly cache for an assembly that matches
the assembly request before probing or using the code base information in a
configuration file.
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 127

For more information about wrappers, see “Customizing Standard Wrappers” in the
.NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN.
Despite the advantages, you should share assemblies by installing them in the global
assembly cache only when necessary. As a general guideline, keep assembly depen-
dencies private and place assemblies in the application directory unless sharing an
assembly is explicitly required. In addition, you do not have to install assemblies in
the global assembly cache to make them accessible to COM Interop or unmanaged
code.
Note that there are situations where you should not install an assembly into the
global assembly cache. For example, if you place one of the assemblies in an applica-
tion in the global assembly cache, you can no longer replicate or install the applica-
tion by using XCOPY installation. In this case, you must place all of the application’s
assemblies into the global assembly cache. For more information about working
with assemblies, see “Working with Assemblies and the Global Assembly Cache” in
the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN.
There are two ways to install an assembly in the global assembly cache:
● Use Microsoft Windows Installer 2.0. This is the recommended and the most
common way to add assemblies to the global assembly cache.
● Use the Global Assembly Cache tool (Gacutil.exe). This approach is recom-
mended for development purposes. However, you should not use this approach
to add production assemblies to the global assembly cache.

Reusable Libraries
Visual Basic 6.0 components can run in any one of three places:
● In the same address space as the client (in-process).

● On the same computer (out-of-process).

● On a remote computer (out-of-process).

An in-process component can be implemented as a DLL or as an ActiveX control.

Each client application that uses the component starts a new instance of the compo-
nent.
Out-of-process components are implemented as executable files and run in their
own process space on a local or remote computer. Communication between the
client and an out-of-process component requires that parameters and return values
be marshaled across process boundaries. A single instance of an out-of-process
component can service many clients, share global data, and provide insulation
between client applications. This kind of component can be implemented by means
of DCOM or COM+. For information about upgrading this type of component, see
the “Distributed Applications” section later in this chapter.
128 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The rest of this section explains how to upgrade of ActiveX code components. These
components correspond to the Visual Basic 6.0 ActiveX DLL project template.
In most cases, code components have no user interface. Instead, they consist of
libraries of classes that allow client applications to instantiate objects based on those
classes. In earlier documentation, code components were referred to as OLE Auto-
mation servers.
The equivalent .NET project for an ActiveX DLL is a .NET class library. The Visual
Basic Upgrade Wizard automatically upgrades most of the code inside the original
ActiveX DLL project and generates the corresponding Visual Basic .NET project
type. After an automated upgrade, you will have language issues that you must
correct manually. For an explanation on unsupported language features, see Chap-
ters 7 – 11.
Visual Basic .NET class libraries contain reusable classes or components that can be
shared with other projects. This project type is considered to be windowless and will
not contain a Windows Form class; this restriction may be an obstacle for you if you
used the Visual Basic 6.0 code component library to provide standard libraries of
modal and modeless dialogs. However, the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard upgrades
form objects and compiles them inside the component. If it is necessary to allow
other applications to use these form classes, you must change the corresponding
access level from Friend to Public.
To further improve your application, you should move all visual classes to another
component. This will separate the presentation and business tiers that exist in a
single component and produce a more modular architecture.

ActiveX Controls
An ActiveX control is a COM component with user interface elements. ActiveX
controls were previously known as OLE controls or OCX controls. These controls
can be used in the same way as any of the standard built-in controls, and provide an
extension to the Visual Basic 6.0 toolbox. ActiveX controls created in Visual Basic can
be used in different container applications, including Visual Basic applications,
Microsoft Office documents, and Web pages accessed through a Web browser like
Microsoft Internet Explorer.
An application can provide ActiveX controls with other Visual Basic 6.0 components,
or it can access and use third-party ActiveX controls. If the ActiveX controls are
components in your application, you can use the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard to
upgrade the source code for the control. If the ActiveX control source code is not
available, you can replace the control with other upgraded components or you can
use interoperability to access the control, as described previously in this chapter. The
remainder of this section explains how to upgrade user-defined ActiveX controls.
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 129

In Visual Basic 6.0, an ActiveX control is always composed of a UserControl object

and any controls (known as constituent controls) that are placed on it. The equivalent
.NET component for an ActiveX control is a .NET UserControl. When you use the
Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard to upgrade an ActiveX control, a class library project is
created inside the target solution. The project contains a UserControl module that
encloses a class declaration which is equivalent to the original Visual Basic 6.0
UserControl. The new class inherits from System.Windows.Forms.UserControl,
which in turn inherits from ContainerControl and contains all of the standard
positioning and mnemonic-handling code that is necessary in a base for creating
new controls.
The wizard automatically upgrades aspects of the Visual Basic 6.0 UserControls to
.NET UserControls, as follows:
● Constituent visual elements. The wizard updates basic elements of the
UserControl and all corresponding design time properties.
● Internal logic. The wizard updates code that controls the component behavior
and the interaction with clients.
● Event handlers. The wizard converts event handler declarations included in
component clients in accordance with the new .NET UserControl events. Note
that only those component clients upgraded during the same upgrade process as
the original UserControl are automatically updated to accommodate changes
caused by the upgrade of the UserControl. If other user applications use a com-
piled version of the ActiveX control, their access will be upgraded as access to a
wrapped ActiveX control. You can improve this last upgrade by including all
necessary components in the same upgrade project so that the wizard can process
them at the same time.
The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard does not support Visual Basic 6.0 project groups. If
ActiveX controls are included in a Visual Basic 6.0 project group, you should use the
following strategy to upgrade the project package:
1. Obtain a list of the dependencies between the projects that compose the applica-
tion.
2. Determine which projects do not depend on other projects, and upgrade them as
individual components.
3. For each project that has a dependency on another project, replicate all needed
objects into the dependent project. This will allow the dependent project to
process all of the transformations that occurred in other project objects. Upgrade
the dependent projects.
4. When all projects are upgraded, eliminate redundant objects and set the proper
dependencies between projects. These should be the same as in the original
project group.
130 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

When you upgrade a user-defined ActiveX control to Visual Basic .NET, you can
include it in the control toolbox, just as you would any pre-defined control. User-
defined ActiveX controls appear in the User Control Tab of the toolbox, while the
predefined controls appear in the General tab of the toolbox. You can place in-
stances of the upgraded control on .NET Windows Forms, and you can set the
control’s design time properties by using the .NET form editor.
You can use property pages to define a custom interface for setting properties of an
ActiveX control; this is an extension of the Properties window. However, the Visual
Basic Upgrade Wizard does not support this feature, and you must reimplement the
property page user interface, synchronize the property values and the state of the
control, and associate the control properties and dialog box fields. For more infor-
mation, see Chapter 9, “Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features.”

ActiveX Controls Embedded in Web Pages

You can insert ActiveX controls in Web pages by using the <Object> HTML tag. This
tag receives a ClassId parameter that corresponds to the ActiveX component identi-
fier. The identifier is required so that the component can be registered on the client
computer and instantiated and displayed correctly by the Web browser.
You can achieve functional equivalence for an upgraded Web application by leaving
embedded controls inside Object tags. If the original ASP application included
server-side components, you can wrap these components by using the
interoperability feature.
Although you can access embedded controls programmatically, you may discover
that the controls affect the quality of the application you are upgrading, as follows:
● You must use additional languages — such as VBScript, JScript®, JavaScript, and
DHTML — to achieve dynamic behavior.
● Your need more steps to deploy the application, and additional files need to be
downloaded.
● The component will have fewer resources — such as application servers and
database resources — available to it.
ASP.NET provides a different model for Web development, which includes control
types that are specifically designed to be used in a Web environment. These control
types include:
● HTML server controls. These are HTML elements exposed to the server so you
can program them. HTML server controls expose an object model that maps very
closely to the HTML elements that they render.
● Web server controls. These are controls with more built-in features than HTML
server controls. Web server controls include form-type controls, such as buttons
and text boxes, and special-purpose controls, such as a calendar. Web server
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 131

controls are more abstract than HTML server controls in that their object model
does not necessarily reflect HTML syntax.
● Validation controls. These are controls that incorporate logic to allow you to test
a user’s input. You can attach these controls to an input control to test what the
user enters for that input control. Validation controls are provided to allow you to
check for a required field, to test against a specific value or pattern of characters,
to verify that a value lies within a range, and so on.
● User controls. These are controls that you create as Web Forms pages. You can
insert Web Forms user controls in other Web Forms pages, which is an easy way
to create menus, toolbars, and other reusable elements.
These control types provide reimplementation alternatives for ActiveX controls
embedded in Web pages. Depending on the functionality of the original ActiveX
control, you may find it convenient and appropriate to implement it as a Web
control. For example, if an application has an ActiveX control that communicates
with different servers to obtain and process data, it is generally more efficient to
create a new Web server control that executes the communication and heavy pro-
cessing on the server and renders visual elements to the Web client.
The ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant tool treats ActiveX controls embedded in
Web pages as HTML tags and keeps them in the target ASP.NET files. Therefore,
these elements of the Web page are not automatically transformed. You must manu-
ally complete any further upgrades.
You should wait until after you complete the initial (automatic) upgrade before you
re-implement any components. After you reach functional equivalence, you can
complete any re-implement as part of the upgraded application advancement. For
more information about this process, see Chapter 17, “Introduction to Application
Advancement” or “Introduction to ASP.NET Server Controls” on MSDN.

ActiveX Documents
ActiveX documents are COM components that must be hosted and activated within
a document container. They provide the application functionality; they also provide
the ability to persist and distribute copies of the data intrinsic to the application.
These components can be used on HTML pages or as alternatives to HTML pages,
and they can be deployed so that users can navigate transparently between ActiveX
documents and other pages in the application or Web site.
The .NET Framework does not have a component type equivalent to ActiveX docu-
ments. Therefore, you must redesign and/or re-implement ActiveX documents by
using a .NET Framework – based component.
The following list presents important ActiveX document features that you should
consider when you upgrade to Visual Basic .NET:3
132 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Automatic downloading of components over the Internet. You can create a link
to the ActiveX document so that the browser can find and download all compo-
nents that are needed to run the component.
● Hyperlinking of objects. In a hyperlink-aware container, you can use the proper-
ties and methods of the Visual Basic Hyperlink object to jump to an URL or
navigate through the history list.
● Interaction with the container window. You can use ActiveX documents to
access additional pieces of the container window; for example, the component
menus can be merged with the browser menus.
● Storing of data. When you deploy an ActiveX document in Internet Explorer, you
can store data through the PropertyBag object.
You can use the upgrade wizard to partially upgrade ActiveX documents if you
move the ActiveX document source code to another module type that the upgrade
wizard supports. For example, you can copy the source code and the controls
contained in the ActiveX document into a new Visual Basic 6.0 UserControl. A
considerable portion of the UserControl source code will be automatically up-
graded; however, all unsupported features in the original ActiveX document source
code will not be upgraded and must be re-implemented.
You can re-implement ActiveX document components by using Visual Basic .NET
UserControls or XML Web forms, which can be hosted in different types of contain-
ers. You will lose some of the original functionality unless you redesign and imple-
ment it in the new platform. You can implement most of this functionality by using
the services provided by the .NET Framework, such as serialization interfaces and
the ability to run at the server or at the client depending on your chosen design.

Distributed Applications
A distributed application is one in which some of the application components are
executed on remote computers and there is interaction between local and remote
components. To have an effective interaction between these components, you must
use numerous basic services, such as communication protocols, security, and re-
source locator services. A distributed application offers important advantages for
the enterprise environment, including improved scalability, reliability and failure
tolerance.
The following sections describe some of the things you should consider when you
upgrade components of distributed applications.

DCOM Applications
The distributed component object model (DCOM) extends the component object
model (COM) to support communication between objects on different computers on
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 133

a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or even the Internet. With
DCOM, your application can be distributed to any location that makes sense to your
users and to the application.
DCOM is an extension of COM; therefore, you can use your existing COM-based
applications, components, tools, and knowledge when you move to DCOM. DCOM
handles low-level details of network protocols.
Remoting is considered to be the .NET equivalent of DCOM. It is a framework
designed to simplify communication between objects. Remoting supports communi-
cation between objects that exist in different application domains and have different
contexts, regardless of whether or not the objects are on the same computer or even
the same application domain.
The remoting framework is built into the common language runtime and can be
used to build sophisticated distributed applications. Some of the features provided
by .NET remoting are:4
● Proxy objects. .NET remoting creates a proxy object when a client activates a
remote object. The proxy object acts as a representative of the remote object. All
calls made to the proxy are forwarded to the correct remote object instance.
● Object passing. The remoting framework provides mechanisms for passing
objects between applications. These mechanisms handle the marshaling details.
● Activation models. .NET remoting provides more than one way to activate
remote objects.
● Stateless and stateful objects. .NET remoting provides many ways to achieve
state management and to manage stateless objects.
● Channels and serialization. .NET remoting provides a transport mechanism
called .NET channel services to transport messages between applications and
application domains. .NET provides serialization (it can transport objects across
byte streams) and uses formatters to encode and decode these byte streams.
● Lease-based lifetime. .NET remoting allows the application to control the length
of time that a client can remain connected to a remote object by using a lease.
When the lease expires, the object is automatically disconnected. .NET remoting
also provides methods to extend a lease when needed.
● Hosting objects in IIS. .NET remoting objects can be hosted in any .NET-based
executable or managed service, but they can also be hosted in IIS. This allows
remoting objects to be exposed as Web services.

You can upgrade a Visual Basic 6.0 application that uses distributed component
technologies to Visual Basic .NET in two different ways:
● By using new COM classes

● By using .NET remoting

134 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The following sections describe the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.

Using COM to Upgrade a Distributed Application

For the first option, you must create additional COM classes to serve as proxies
that communicate with the DCOM infrastructure. Managed code can access these
new classes by using COM interoperability. This alternative has the following
advantages:
● It provides an easy and fast upgrade implementation. The new COM wrapper
classes only need to provide a communication link between the DCOM infra-
structure and Visual Basic .NET.
● It provides upgrade path flexibility. Because this solution does not need exten-
sive resources, you can use multiple stages to implement it if your application is
complex.
● It allows early testing of component interaction. You can schedule early testing
of these components in parallel with other upgrade tasks.
This is a mixed solution, where managed code interacts with unmanaged compo-
nents and operating system services. The main disadvantages of this approach are:
● Additional communication requirements. The new intermediary classes and
interoperability wrappers consume more communication and processing re-
sources.
● Adoption of new technologies is limited. Because of the dependency on legacy
technologies, adoption of new features and services offered by the .NET Frame-
work are limited.
● Reduced maintainability. The new classes increase the complexity of the
application.

Using .NET Remoting to Upgrade a Distributed Application

Another upgrade option is reimplement the application and use .NET remoting
services. You can upgrade the application logic by using the Visual Basic Upgrade
Wizard. You will then need to use .NET remoting services to re-implement the code
that uses DCOM. To enable remoting, the distributed objects must derive from the
MarshalByRefObject class. Note that this is a built-in feature of COM+ classes,
which inherit from ServicedComponent, which in turn inherits from the
MarshalByRefObject class.

MTS and COM+ Applications

After you create and deploy a business logic COM component in a single computer
environment, you may need to separate the component from its original run-time
environment and place it in a different administrative and execution platform. In
this way, you can achieve a multi-tier architecture for your application.
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 135

There are several reasons why you may need to perform for this type of separation,
including scalability, manageability, accountability, and performance. Microsoft
provides two main technologies to create this type of architecture: Microsoft Trans-
action Server (MTS) and COM+.
MTS provides transaction services, which facilitate the transition from single-user to
multi-user architectures and provide application infrastructure and administrative
support for building scalable and robust enterprise applications. Although transac-
tion management is an integral part of many applications, MTS also provides useful
services for applications that do not use transactions at all.
Components that encapsulate application logic can run under the control of MTS
and are invoked by presentation services from a variety of clients, including:5
● Traditional applications that were developed in Visual Basic or other languages
that support COM.
● Web browsers.

● Active Server Pages scripts that run within IIS.

You can use Visual Basic 6.0 with MTS to build n-tier applications. To do this, you
develop COM DLL components that run on middle-tiered servers under the control
of MTS. When clients call these COM DLLs, Windows automatically routes the
requests to MTS.
Other services provided by MTS that are relevant to upgrade efforts include:
● Component transactions.

● Object brokering.

● Resource pooling.

● Just-in-time activation.

● Administration.

Upgrade Strategy
One upgrade strategy that you can use is to provide proxy COM classes that can be
accessed through interoperability, as explained in the “DCOM Applications” section
earlier in this chapter. However, this approach may not be adequate in all situations,
and you may need to re-implement MTS and COM+ services.
The .NET Framework contains classes that offer similar functionality or provide an
interface to mechanisms used by COM+. These classes are included in the
System.EnterpriseServices namespace, which provides an infrastructure for enter-
prise applications that allows .NET objects to access COM+ services. These classes
make .NET Framework objects useful for enterprise applications.
The core services employed by MTS and COM+ applications are encapsulated in the
COM+ services type library (COMSVCS.DLL).
136 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Note: Most of the upgrade effort for components discussed in this section will be automatically
performed by the Visual Studio 2005 version of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard.6

General Considerations for COM+ Visual Basic 6.0 Projects

You should understand the information in this section so that you can correctly
prepare and set up the .NET application that will be the target of a COM+
application.
The System.EnterpriseServices namespace contains all of the classes necessary to
interact with COM+. To enable COM+, you must include a reference to this
namespace in the target Visual Basic .NET project.
You need to use the Strong Name tool (Sn.exe, which is included with the .NET
Framework) to generate a key file, and then add this file and an assembly attributes
file that includes the AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the project file. Give the project
file the same name as the original Visual Basic 6.0 project, and store it in the upgrade
output folder.
You should include documentation or utilities to help users register assemblies with
.NET Services Installation Tool (Regsvcs.exe) so they can deploy the upgraded
components. You can use the registration helper API
(System.EnterpriseServices.RegistrationHelper.InstallAssembly) for this purpose.
Table 4.3 shows the components and services that provide the core MTS and COM+
functionality and their corresponding equivalents in the .NET Framework. For
detailed information about upgrading each component, see Chapter 15, “Upgrading
MTS and COM+ Applications.”

Note: Each .NET component or namespace shown in the table should be prefixed with
System.EnterpriseServices; for example, the full name for CompensatingResourceManager is
System.EnterpriseServices.CompensatingResourceManager.

Table 4.3: MTS and COM+ Components .NET Equivalents

COM+ Component/Service .NET Equivalent
Compensating resource Components in the CompensatingResourceManager
manager namespace
Object pooling ServicedComponent
Application security SharedPropertyManager, SharedPropertyGroup, SharedProperty
Object constructor strings ServicedComponent
Transactions The functionality can be achieved with the class
ServicedComponent and an appropriate mapping for the
MTSTransactionMode property, as specified with a
TransactionOption enumeration value.
 Chapter 4: Common Application Types 137

Unsupported Functionality
The COM+ services type library is used with Visual Basic and other languages
capable of building COM applications. Some members included in this library
cannot be used in Visual Basic 6.0 because they were specifically created for use with
Visual C++. An example of such a class is the CServiceConfig class. These classes
may have .NET Framework mappings, but they are unsupported by Visual Basic 6.0.
Similarly, Visual Basic 6.0 supports members that do not have semantic equivalents
in the .NET Framework. These unsupported components include functionality in the
following areas: security, context management, events management, resource loca-
tor, service configuration, and log management.
For more information about COM+ upgrades and unsupported functionality, see
Chapter 15, “Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications.”

Summary
Understanding the possible application types that you may need to upgrade will
help you to better understand how each type should be upgraded. Each type has
features that are easy to upgrade and features that are hard to upgrade. Being aware
of potential problem areas before you begin can lessen the impact those problem
areas will have on your upgrade process.
With an understanding of the different categories of applications, you can now begin
learning the general upgrade processes and practices that are applicable to all
upgrade projects. The next chapter will give you the details you need to understand
the Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET upgrade process.

More Information
For more information about upgrading to ASP see “Migrating to ASP.NET: Key
Considerations” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html
/aspnetmigrissues.asp.
For a free tool to automatically convert ASP pages to ASP.NET, see “ASP to ASP.NET
Migration Assistant” in the Microsoft ASP.NET Developer Center on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/migration/aspmig/aspmigasst/default.aspx.
For more information about wrappers, see “Customizing Standard Wrappers” in the
.NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html
/cpconcustomizingstandardwrappers.asp.
138 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For more information about working with assemblies, see “Working with Assem-
blies and the Global Assembly Cache” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html
/cpconworkingwithassembliesglobalassemblycache.asp.
For more information about ASP.NET server controls, see “Introduction to ASP.NET
Server Controls” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vbconintroductiontowebformscontrols.asp.

Footnotes
1. Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET e-Book. Chapter 3: Upgrading options \
Selecting projects to upgrade
2. Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET e-Book. Chapter 11: Resolving issues with
language \ Making Your Code Thread-Safe
3. Desktop Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, MCSD Training Kit.
4. Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET e-Book. Chapter 21: Upgrading Distributed
Applications \ Remoting
5. Web Applications with Microsoft Visual InterDev 6.0, MCSD Training Kit.
6. Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Whidbey version specification, COM+ Services Type Library Migration
5
The Visual Basic Upgrade Process
This chapter provides an in-depth explanation of the technical aspects of the Micro-
soft Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET upgrade process. It explains each step of
the process, from initial preparation to final deployment of the application. It also
describes how to use the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard to automate much of the
upgrade. It also discusses tasks you will have to manually perform and provides
general recommendations to achieve a successful upgrade.

Procedure Overview
The steps involved in an upgrade project can be divided in the following groups:
1. Application preparation
2. Application upgrade
3. Application testing and debugging
These task groups require specialized skills and experience. The tasks included in
each group can be executed with a certain level of parallelism, depending on the
availability and specialization of resources needed. The task groups do not define a
linear order of execution; there may be groups of tasks that are simultaneously
executed for different parts of the application.
The upgrade procedure, including inputs and outputs where applicable, is summa-
rized here:
1. Application preparation. This includes:
a. Development environment preparation.
Input: Software development installers, third party component installers
Output: A fully configured application development environment that corre-
sponds to the application to be upgraded
b. Upgrade tool preparation.
140 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Input: Upgrade wizard installer, installers for the analysis tools

Output: A fully configured system where the original application can run
c. Obtaining the application resource inventory.
Input: Available information about the specifications and design of the origi-
nal application
Output: Catalog of documentation useful for upgrade purposes
d. Compilation verification.
Input: The original Visual Basic 6.0 application in a correctly configured
system
Output: System where the original application can be compiled, debugged,
and executed
e. Project upgrade order definition.
Input: Original source code
Output: An analysis of the application component dependencies based on
analysis tools that can be used to plan the upgrade order of the different
components
f. Reviewing the upgrade wizard report.
Input: Upgrade wizard report for a partial test upgrade of the original
application.
Output: Detection of computing resource problems and estimation of upgrade
effort.
2. Application upgrade. This includes:
a. Execution of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard.
Input: Original Visual Basic 6.0 source code and upgrade system
Output: Initial upgraded application code base in Visual Basic .NET; this code
base will likely contain upgrade issues that will later need to be addressed
b. Verifying the progress of the upgrade.
This is a control step that verifies the correct execution of the upgrade wizard.
c. Upgrade wizard execution error correction.
This is a corrective step that can be applied when the upgrade wizard execu-
tion experiences problems.
d. Completing the upgrade with manual changes.
Input: Initial upgraded application code base in Visual Basic .NET
Output: An upgraded Visual Basic .NET application that can be compiled
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 141

3. Testing and debugging the upgraded application. This includes:

a. Original test cases execution.
Input: An upgraded Visual Basic .NET application that can be compiled
Output: List of broken test cases and run-time bugs detected in the application
b. Fixing run-time errors.
Input: An upgraded Visual Basic .NET application that can be compiled
Output: An upgraded Visual Basic .NET application that can be correctly run
The remainder of this chapter details each of these steps.

Application Preparation
The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard is a tool that can automatically perform complex
tasks and help ease the upgrade process. The results obtained with this tool are
affected by the preparation applied to the original source code and how much of this
application is amenable for automated upgrade to Visual Basic .NET. This section
provides guidelines for the preparation of your application and the processing
environment to maximize the work done by this tool and have a successful upgrade.
Appropriate preparation of your application will save a considerable amount of
work in different areas, including management, development, and testing. Prepara-
tion for upgrade processes is especially important because it involves many aspects
over a long period of time. Errors in the initial stages of the process can easily
propagate and consume an extended amount of work. Additionally, a difficulty
discovered after the automated upgrade may require a part of the application to be
upgraded again, possibly producing delays in the other stages of the upgrade.
It is recommended that you begin by first preparing the upgrade development
environment. It is likely that the existing development environment is already
properly set up for building the original source code, so this preparation is relatively
inexpensive. Even when problems are identified, it is typically a matter of reinstall-
ing missing components, and correcting these types of errors should not be problem-
atic. Investing the time to correctly prepare the development environment and
correcting issues like missing components before you begin will save considerable
time and effort later in the upgrade process.
After the upgrade development environment is prepared, work can be concentrated
on preparing the source code itself. This includes examining the source code, verify-
ing the compilation, and identifying common upgrade issues.
As with any complex procedure, it is beneficial to document all the important steps
in an upgrade procedure log, including the products of each upgrade step, compo-
nent dependency relationships, and upgrade order. This document will provide you
142 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

with a clear view of the process, allowing you to plan and measure the effort re-
quired for the future steps of the upgrade process. It will also be useful as a base for
future upgrade projects. Figure 5.1 illustrates a sample upgrade procedure log.

Figure 5.1
Sample upgrade procedure log

The preparation steps are detailed in the following sections.

Development Environment Preparation

Careful preparation of your development environment before beginning an upgrade
project will help to ensure success. It is recommended that you execute the upgrade
process on a computer with the same development environment that was used to
create the original application. This will facilitate the analysis of the original applica-
tion and will allow for the execution of the initial preparation tests.
Typically, computers used for application development have physical resources that
are extremely useful, if not essential, for the execution of the upgrade wizard.
There are two main environment aspect types that affect the upgrade process. The
first aspect type, system resources, affects the speed of the upgrade process. The
second environment aspect type, external dependencies, affects the normal execu-
tion and termination of the upgrade wizard. It will produce exceptions whenever
necessary components are not present on the computer where the upgrade process is
executed.
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 143

System Resources
The upgrade wizard loads all global declarations of the application into memory
and keeps them there throughout the upgrade process; this is necessary to resolve
the types of members that are accessed from other modules. When a file is being
upgraded, it is loaded into memory, and all necessary transformations are applied to
it. Upon completion, the result is written to disk and the information about the
module’s local declarations is deleted from the upgrade wizard data structures.
The upgrade wizard is not an I/O intensive application; however, it makes demand-
ing usage of memory and processor resources for the storage of language structures
and the execution of transformation rules. A Visual Basic 6.0 application with 20,000
lines of code will have a peak memory usage between 160 MB to 200 MB. The
amount of memory available for the upgrade process will dramatically affect its
speed. The minimum memory size recommended for a computer on which the
upgrade wizard will be applied is 512 MB. The amount of memory should grow
according to the size and complexity of the application. Visual Basic 6.0 applications
with more than 100,000 lines of code will require a minimum of 1 GB of memory to
be upgraded. If the size of the application is millions of lines of code, a computer
with 2 to 3 GB of memory should be used. It may also be convenient to separate the
application to upgrade it in more manageable pieces.
With respect to the CPU recommendation, an Intel Pentium 4 class processor or
equivalent can process an average size application in a range of hours, assuming the
system has enough RAM.
The system’s hard drive should have enough free space to store at least three times
the size of the original application. This is necessary to generate all temporary files
and the final result of the upgrade.

External Dependencies
Typical Visual Basic 6.0 applications use third-party components. Some applications
explicitly reference external DLLs through the project settings while others dynami-
cally reference and create objects based on the components currently installed.
The upgrade of these applications requires special attention to be put on the installa-
tion and availability of these external components. All third-party components
referenced by the application to be upgraded must be installed and available. If a
component that is explicitly referenced in the project is not available in the system,
the command-line version of the upgrade tool, Visual Basic Upgrade Tool, will
display the following message and stop the execution:
Exception occurred: Could not load referenced component:
NameOfTheComponent.ocx (8.0.0)
You need to install this component before you upgrade the project.
144 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

It is recommended you install Visual Basic 6.0, with all referenced components,
and ensure the application compiles and runs before upgrading.
Similarly, if the application is upgraded through the use of the wizard version of the
upgrade tool (available in Visual Studio .NET), the upgrade wizard will display the
following message and stop the execution:
Upgrade failed: Exception occurred: Could not load referenced component:
NameOfTheComponent.ocx (2.0.0)
You need to install this component before you upgrade the project.
It is recommended you install Visual Basic 6.0, with all referenced components,
and ensure the application compiles and runs before upgrading.
Additionally, the following information will be shown as part of the project upgrade
log.
<Issue
Type = "Global Error"
Number = "4002"
>Could not load referenced component: NameOfTheComponent.ocx (2.0.0) You
need to install this component before you upgrade the project.It is recommended
you install VB6.0, with all referenced components, and ensure the application
compiles and runs before upgrading.</Issue>

When installing trial versions of third-party components, some of them will display
a license information dialog box each time the component is instantiated. This dialog
box will suspend the execution of the host application, such as the upgrade wizard.
If trial versions are installed for some of the components, it is recommended that
you pay attention to the messages displayed by the upgrade wizard until the pre-
processing phase starts so you can respond to all dialog boxes that are displayed by
trial version components. After the preprocessing phase starts, the upgrade wizard
can be left unattended and will continue the upgrade until the upgraded code base
is obtained.
As part of the application preparation, it is also important to make limited tests on
the upgrade of third-party components that have a complex user interface. Reduced
size applications can be written to instantiate and access the core functionality of
these components. After these applications are written, the upgrade wizard can be
used; then the code it produces can be evaluated. Special attention should be dedi-
cated to design and run time visualization and behavior of the upgraded compo-
nents. In this preliminary component test phase, the interaction between the
component, the interoperability wrapper, and Visual Basic .NET components will
be verified. For more information about interoperability, see Chapter 14, “Interop
Between Visual Basic 6 and Visual Basic .NET.” It may be useful to identify and
isolate problematic elements that will negatively affect the automated upgrade of
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 145

the full application. Most of the reasons for these problems are non-standard inter-
faces or implementations of some components. If one of these components produces
run-time errors during the execution of the upgrade wizard, one possible solution is
to remove the component and upgrade the rest of the application. The functionality
provided by this component can then be implemented again in Visual Basic .NET.

Upgrade Wizard Preparation

Preparation for an upgrade process involves the following three areas that consider
different aspects of the original application:
● Preparation of the upgrade wizard and external aspects of the application. This
area includes the setup of all necessary tools for development and upgrade. For
more information, see the “Development Environment Preparation” and “Third-
Party Components” sections earlier in this chapter.
● Evaluation of the application. In this area of preparation, the application is
evaluated to assess its composition and the possible difficulties that may arise
when the upgrade process has been applied. The effort and cost estimation will
be generated before the actual upgrade. This aspect of preparation is assisted by
various tools, including the Visual Basic 6.0 Assessment Tool. For more informa-
tion about assessment and effort estimations, see Chapter 3, “Assessment and
Analysis.”
● Adjustment of the original application. In this area of preparation, adjustments
are made to the original application to facilitate the upgrade process. These
changes can be made to increase the automatic work done by the upgrade wizard
and to reduce the manual completion tasks that are necessary after the automatic
process. These changes are based on the initial assessment and general advice
that can be obtained from different sources such as documentation and advisor
tools. For more information about application adjustment, see the “Visual Basic
6.0 Assessment Tool” and “Removing Unused Components” sections later in this
chapter.
The preparation of internal aspects of the application is essential because it will
directly affect the quality of the obtained product and the amount of manual effort
required after the automated upgrade. Software tools for the preparation of internal
aspects of the application have proven to be extremely useful to assess the size and
complexity of the application to be upgraded and to assist the developer in the
changes that need to be made. The union of these data provides the foundation for
accurate upgrade effort estimations.
The tools that will be discussed in this section provide different types of information
that can be used for code assessment, effort estimations, and the adjustment of the
original code. These tools extract the application information directly from the
source code by parsing the different application modules. Each has a different
146 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

analysis focus and provides complementary views of the application and the process
of upgrading it. The tools are listed here:
● The Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool generates an extensive inventory
of the application; it pays special attention to the features that are difficult to
upgrade.
● The Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor recognizes features in the original application
that can be modified to have a smoother transition to Visual Basic .NET.
Although the tools for upgrade preparation make an exhaustive review of the code,
the time required to complete the process is a fraction of the full upgrade process.
This is mainly because the tools analyze the code fragments and identify certain
patterns, but the tools do not apply transformations. These preparation tools are
provided as a way to quickly estimate and improve the results that will be obtained
after the upgrade process is applied.

Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool

The Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool analyzes Visual Basic 6.0 source code
and generates extensive information about an application. For more information
about the types of information gathered by the tool, see Chapter 3, “Assessment and
Analysis.”
The tool can analyze multiple project files at the same time. This allows a user to
select them individually, by groups, or by searching all .vbp files in a directory and
its subdirectories. The tool has a weights file that can be used to assign a complexity
value to each upgrade issue and generate customizable effort estimation data.
The assessment tool generates different types of reports with application statistics
and upgrade issues that can be used to estimate the upgrade effort. Most, but not all,
of the issues that require manual adjustments are identified. Among the statistics
generated, there are data related to control usage, accesses to class members, and
library occurrences.
An additional source of information that is useful for estimation tasks is the Up-
grade Issues table. This report contains data regarding the usage of functionality
that has proven to be difficult to upgrade. Each issue contained in the table has an
associated complexity level that is a measure of the upgrade difficulty and the
manual work required. Some of the issues that can be detected and included in this
table are COM+ functionality, Visual Basic 6.0 performance features for games, and
ActiveX documents.
For more information about the assessment tool, see Chapter 3, “Assessment and
Analysis.”
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 147

Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor

The Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor is a Visual Basic 6.0 add-in that can be used to
review the source code of an application. This tool helps the developer to ensure that
the application meets predetermined coding standards. The coding standards are
based on best practices developed by Microsoft to produce robust and easy-to-
maintain code.
The issues identified by this tool are also an alert sign to the developer that is up-
grading an application to Visual Basic .NET. These issues can be corrected in the
original source code to have a smoother transition. The code advisor tool will not
find every upgrade issue, but it is designed to help locate the most common issues
and speed up the upgrade process. The issues detected by this tool can be extended
using regular expressions.
The following list shows a sample of the predetermined rules that are detected by
this tool:
● Late binding of variant object. An object is late-bound when it is assigned to a
variable declared to be of type Object. Objects of this type can hold references to
any object. When the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard upgrades a variable whose
type is Object, it cannot identify the specific type of the variable, and none of the
accesses to the corresponding class members are upgraded. This problem can be
fixed by using specific types in the declaration of all variables. This is enforced
using the directive Option Strict On. The Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor detects
undeclared variables and suggests the developer use Option Strict On.
● Missing option explicit. Leaving this option undeclared allows the developer to
use undeclared variables in the source code. Undeclared variables default to type
Variant, which can hold a value of any type. Such variables result in the same
upgrade problems as mentioned in the preceding bullet: the upgrade wizard
cannot determine the correct property to use when your code uses the default
property of an object declared as Variant.
● Soft binding of Form or Control. Variables declared as Form or Control can
cause problems when upgrading. In Visual Basic 6.0, these generic classes can
be used with properties and methods that are defined for particular forms and
controls. Form and Control variables are supported in Visual Basic .NET, but
accessing properties that are specific to a particular type of form or control is not
supported.
● Soft binding using ActiveForm and ActiveControl. This usage pattern has the
same upgrade problems as stated in the preceding bullet.
● String functions that return Variant. Visual Basic 6.0 provides a group of string
functions that have two versions, one that returns a Variant, and another that
returns a String (for example, Left and Left$). Variants can contain null values;
assigning a null value to a variable that expects a string may cause a run-time
148 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

error that is difficult to debug. In Visual Basic .NET, only the String version of
these functions is supported.
● OLE control not upgraded. There is no equivalent for the OLE Container control
in Visual Basic .NET. When you attempt to upgrade a form that contains an OLE
Container control, any code for the OLE Container control will not be upgraded.
Instead, the control is replaced by a Label control to highlight the fact that the
OLE Container cannot be automatically upgraded.
● No Line control in Visual Basic .NET. The Line control has no direct equivalent
in Visual Basic .NET. When you attempt to upgrade a form that contains a hori-
zontal or vertical Line control, it will be replaced by a Label control. Non-vertical
and non-horizontal lines are not upgraded at all and must be manually replaced
using graphics function calls in Visual Basic .NET.
● Property/Method/Event not upgraded. The referenced Visual Basic 6.0 property,
method, or event has no direct equivalent in Visual Basic .NET. When the applica-
tion is upgraded, the corresponding line of code will be copied unmodified to the
target code. This will cause a compilation error in Visual Basic .NET.
For more information about the Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor, see “Visual Basic 6.0
Code Advisor” in the Microsoft Visual Basic Developer Center on MSDN.

Removing Unused Components

During the lifetime of the original application, it is likely to be modified several
times, potentially changing the dependences between the different components. It is
also possible that some part of a component’s code is no longer used by the rest of
the application.
For clarity and manageability, components or code fragments that are no longer
used in the application should be removed. From the upgrade point of view, it is
also important to remove unnecessary application elements before starting the
process. This reduces the upgrade issues that will be generated after the automated
upgrade and also decreases the quantity of code that needs to be upgraded.
The assessment tool can be used to identify unused components. The file depen-
dence graph reports the relationships between application files. Files that are never
used can be identified by reviewing this report. Third-party components and exter-
nal DLL function references should also be examined to identify additional unused
elements that can be removed.

Obtaining the Application Resource Inventory

The upgrade of an application from one language to another involves many tasks
with different levels of complexity and requirements. The transition from a pro-
gramming language and a development environment to another language that is
hosted in a different environment is an important part of the upgrade, but there are
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 149

additional tasks that have to be done to take full advantage of the new resources and
continue improving the application along its new life cycle in the new platform.
The initial source code inventory made with the assessment tool is essential for the
upgrade effort estimation. When upgrading earlier versions of applications, it is also
important to have an inventory of resources such as documentation, design dia-
grams, test cases, and specifications. These resources are helpful in the final stages of
the upgrade procedure. The original test cases are the basis for testing the upgraded
application. It is important to evaluation design diagrams and similar documenta-
tion to make decisions about the target architecture. This information also helps you
to have a high level view of the application and identify parts or functionality that
require special attention during the upgrade. Database and general design docu-
mentation can also be useful when adjusting the upgraded application. For example,
Variant variables that are used to access database fields can be re-declared with
more specific types using field data type information.

Compilation Verification
The upgrade wizard requires source code to be syntactically correct. This can be
verified by compiling the original application before the execution of the upgrade
wizard. All compilation errors produced in the original application must be cor-
rected to provide an appropriate input to the upgrade wizard. The compilation of
the original application is also useful to verify that all the components and user-
defined source code referenced by the application are available in the system. In the
case of project groups, it is important to confirm that the entire group and individual
projects can be correctly compiled. The upgrade of projects groups is explained in
detail in the next section.
When you try to open a project that references an unavailable component, the
following error message appears:
Errors during load. Refer to ‘C:\ReferenceSample\Form1.log’ for details
You can find the cause of this error message by opening the specified file. A sample
error line might look like the following:
Line 13: Class MSComctlLib.TreeView of control TreeView1 was not a loaded
control class.
To fix this compilation error and allow the upgrade wizard to upgrade this applica-
tion, it is necessary to install the component indicated in the error description. In
this example, it would be necessary to install the MSComctlLib.TreeView compo-
nent.
It is also recommended that you perform a test run of the original application on the
computer where the upgrade will take place. This test run verifies that all compo-
nents are available and that the application is producing the expected results. It is
important to take into consideration that all the run-time errors that exist in the
150 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

original application are likely to remain in the target application. Knowing the errors
contained in the original application provides a basis for testing and improving the
target application. For more information, see the “Testing and Debugging the
Upgraded Application” section later in this chapter.

Project Upgrade Order Definition

The upgrade order of the files contained in a Visual Basic 6.0 application is deter-
mined by the file order specified in the corresponding application project file. This
order also determines which result files are written first in the target application
directory. This information can be useful when testing and isolating problems in the
upgrade of a specific application. A Visual Basic 6.0 application can be composed of
different projects that are independently accessed and managed. The projects can
also be organized in a project group file. For information about upgrading an appli-
cation built using a project group file, see the “Project Group Upgrade” section later
in this chapter.
A project can contain source code files that correspond to the different tiers of the
application. These tiers can also be distributed in different projects. For upgrade
purposes, it is important to clearly understand the correspondence between the
application tiers and the project elements that compose it. The project and compo-
nent upgrade order is determined by the association between components and
application tiers and the component dependencies. Another factor to be considered
when establishing the processing order is the chosen upgrade strategy. A vertical or
horizontal upgrade strategy can be selected based on the criteria explained in
Chapter 1, “Introduction,” and Chapter 4, “Common Application Types.”
The initial approach recommended for the upgrade of an application is to process
the core application components first. These components provide services and
functionality to other elements of the application. An alternative approach is to leave
these basic components for the final stages of the upgrade. The other components
can access them using interoperability techniques to test intermediate upgrade
results.

Determine All Dependencies

When one application component uses another component, the first component is
said to be dependant on the second. There are different types of usage that require
different ways to identify such dependencies. Usage can appear in the form of access
to a class member, invocation of a method, declaration of a variable with a particular
type or the inclusion of an embedded control. Dependencies also exist at the project
level and can be established through project references. The dependency relationship
is transitive, which means that if a component A is dependant on a component B and
B is dependant on a component C, then A is also dependant on C. The terminology
for this is that B is directly dependant on C and A is indirectly dependant on C,
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 151

because there is an immediate dependency between B and C and an intermediate

dependency between A and C.
As previously mentioned, dependencies can be identified based on how one compo-
nent references or accesses another. Dependencies can be easily identified for an
application with few components. However, as the number of components and their
interactions increase, obtaining a complete view of the component dependencies
becomes more difficult. In most cases, considering the dependencies at the project
level will be sufficient for a successful upgrade; however, if there are complex and
difficult-to-upgrade components inside the projects, dependency considerations
should also be applied to them.
The knowledge about the dependencies between components and projects is essen-
tial for the upgrade engineer. This information will be used in conjunction with
other key considerations such as strategic priorities, business value, and available
resources to focus the upgrade efforts and maximize the results obtained.
The assessment tool generates a file dependency graph that is a useful tool to iden-
tify components that have no dependencies. Figure 5.2 illustrates this report.

Figure 5.2
A sample file dependency graph

This report can be used to identify independent components. In this example, the
first project included in the report, Project1.vbp, includes three files: AVICAP.bas,
MemCap.bas, and Watchman.frm. These files have different dependency relation-
ships identified in the report. The files Watchman.frm and AVICAP.bas are included
152 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

in the folder labeled MemCap.bas, which means that MemCap.bas depends on the
other files. Independent user-defined files depend only on third-party components
or system components, such as user32.dll. In this example report, AVICAP.bas is an
independent component because it does not depend on other user-defined files.
The first decision to make regarding component upgrade is whether the indepen-
dent components are going to be upgraded to Visual Basic .NET or are they going to
be accessed through interoperability. This decision should be based on a cost-benefit
analysis, as discussed in Chapter 2, “Practices for Successful Upgrades.” If the
components are not difficult to upgrade and they can benefit from the new .NET
features to produce a better target architecture, the components should be upgraded.
However, if the component is complex, or the benefit of upgrade is not justified by
the cost, it may be best to leave the component in Visual Basic 6.0 and use it in the
new application through interoperability techniques.
After the independent components are processed, you must treat the components
that are directly dependant on the components just upgraded in the same way. This
procedure needs to be repeated for each level of dependant components until the
entire application is processed. This method is a high-level view of the application
upgrade processing order; it can be further refined considering aspects such as the
testing phase and process efficiency and risks: these are discussed later in this
chapter.
If dependency relationships are followed in a systematic way, testing the application
in a progressive way, that is, with an increasing quantity of upgraded components,
will be facilitated. Different testing milestones can be defined in the upgrade plan
according to the dependency graph.
There is an additional consideration that needs to be taken into account when
defining the upgrade plan and component upgrade order: striking a balance be-
tween the pieces of the application that are upgraded and the testing that is applied
to the different components.
One possible strategy is to upgrade a group of the application components and
perform unit testing of the corresponding application functionality at the end of the
upgrade. After the entire application is upgraded, system testing can begin. One
advantage of this approach is that there is a greater degree of parallelism; several
components can be upgraded simultaneously with almost no coordination. The
main disadvantage is the difficulty in isolating problems during the testing phase.
This strategy is recommended for the upgrade of applications with low or mid
complexity. Upgrade complexity is determined by the language features and the size
of the application to be upgraded. For more information, see Chapter 3, “Assess-
ment and Analysis.”
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 153

Another possible strategy is to upgrade the components by strictly following the

order of the dependency graph; this implies testing the application functionality in
an incremental fashion after each component is upgraded. One of the advantages of
this strategy is that problems can be easily isolated. However, an important disad-
vantage is that additional planning and coordination will be necessary during the
project execution. Furthermore, less parallelism is possible in this approach. This
strategy is recommended for the upgrade of applications with high complexity.
As stated in the introductory text of the “Application Preparation” section earlier in
this chapter, it is important to document all important decisions in an upgrade
project log. This document should include the project upgrade order and the infor-
mation that was used to determine it.

Reviewing the Upgrade Wizard Report

As part of the preparation stage, it is important to perform a partial test upgrade of
the application to determine or detect each of the following:
● Upgrade process speed. The time consumed by the upgrade of a part of the
application can provide an idea of the time required to upgrade the entire appli-
cation. This information is useful for the upgrade procedure planning.
● System resources. The available system resources, especially the amount of
system memory, can be evaluated using a part of the application. The consump-
tion of system resources is affected by the application complexity; if system
resources show signs of excessive usage, such as extreme memory swapping
(referred to as thrashing), the resources should be increased.
● Setup problems. Common setup problems, such as unavailable third-party
components or out-of-date source code, can be detected in a partial test upgrade.
● Other common errors. Source code issues can be identified and corrected before
the full upgrade of the application.
The upgrade wizard report generated during the test upgrade can be examined to
get an idea of the amount of manual work that will be necessary after the automated
process. It will provide a vision to plan for the upgrade and prepare the necessary
resources. This report can also be filtered and analyzed as described in Chapter 3,
“Assessment and Analysis.”
The upgrade wizard produces a report that contains errors, warnings, and issues
that are found during the project upgrade. When a project is upgraded, the upgrade
wizard upgrades most of the code to Visual Basic .NET, but some elements cannot be
automatically transformed. These language elements will require manual modifica-
tions after the automated process has finished. The following code example shows
one of the most common scenarios that will produce a warning when upgraded
using the upgrade wizard.
154 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Sub SetObjLabel(obj As Variant)

obj.Caption = "Initial text"
End Sub
Private Sub Form_Load()
SetObjLabel Label1
End Sub

In this code example, one of the Form’s controls is sent to a subroutine that sets
some initial values. When applied, the upgrade wizard produces the following code.
Sub SetObjLabel(ByRef obj As Object)
'UPGRADE_WARNING: Couldn't resolve default property of object obj.Caption.
obj.Caption = "Initial text"
End Sub
Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
SetObjLabel(Label1)
End Sub

As this shows, much of the code is automatically upgraded to Visual Basic .NET.
However, the line in bold font represents upgrade issues identified by the upgrade
wizard. The comment indicates what the issue is, and the code line is code that
cannot be automatically upgraded by the upgrade wizard. The code is copied
unchanged from the original code base to the upgraded code.
The problem results from late binding of the variable object to a Label object. As
stated earlier in the chapter, late binding cannot be resolved by the upgrade wizard;
it cannot determine the specific object type that is being accessed when the Caption
property is referenced. As a result, it cannot find an equivalent expression for that
property. If this code is built and executed, a run-time exception will be generated.
In most cases, the solution for this problem is to use a more specific data type for the
affected variable and replace the accessed members with the equivalent .NET mem-
bers. This is demonstrated in the following Visual Basic .NET code example.
Sub SetObjLabel(ByRef obj as System.Windows.Forms.Label)
obj.Text = "Initial text"
End Sub

Note that the UPGRADE_ISSUE comment can be removed after the correction is
made.
The subroutine SetObjLabel has a specific purpose that has been accidentally
changed with the correction to the code. In the original application, SetObjLabel
can receive any kind of control that has a Caption property. In the new version, the
subroutine can only receive Label controls. This is an important consideration that
can easily be overlooked. An alternative correction that will maintain the behavior of
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 155

the original code is to change the type of the parameter to

System.Windows.Forms.Control, which has a Text property and is the ancestor of
all .NET controls. This will restore the possibility of accepting any control, as shown
here.
Sub SetObjLabel(ByRef obj as System.Windows.Forms.Control)
obj.Text = "Initial text"
End Sub

Note: The ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion has an advanced mechanism for
automatic type deduction of undeclared variables. This mechanism performs a static analysis
of the source code based on the usage pattern of most of the Visual Basic 6.0 language
elements and the information they provide regarding the most probable data type of the
involved symbols. The relationships between symbols are also analyzed to obtain a precise
conclusion about the data type of variables, parameters, or other language elements that are
late bound. Using the upgrade wizard companion, the previous code example would have been
automatically upgraded to the code example shown here.

Sub SetObjLabel(ByRef obj as System.Windows.Forms.Label)

obj.Text = "Initial text"
End Sub

Depending on the additional invocations of SetObjLabel, the object parameter would have been
declared as System.Windows.Forms.Control or other control type.
For more information about the upgrade wizard companion and additional upgrade services, go
to the ArtinSoft Web site.

The following list presents the most common upgrade issues and how they can be
solved after the automated upgrade has taken place:
● Property <object>.<property> was not upgraded. This warning is generated
when a property cannot be automatically upgraded. To correct this problem, it is
necessary to use a workaround that replaces the original functionality. It may
require the reimplementation of certain application functionality.
● <objecttype> object <object> was not upgraded. This occurs when objects of
unsupported classes are declared and used. Additional development work may
be necessary to fix this problem. For more information, see Chapters 7 through
10.
● Use of Null/IsNull detected Null is not supported in Visual Basic .NET. Null is
upgraded to System.DBNull.Value and IsNull is changed to IsDBNull. This
value and function do not have the same behavior as in Visual Basic 6.0. Also,
Null propagation is no longer supported in Visual Basic .NET. The application
logic needs to be reviewed to change the usage of Null.
156 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● <functionname> has a new behavior. Some functions have different behaviors in

Visual Basic .NET. This requires a detailed review of the code to ensure that the
application logic has not been altered.
● <object> event <variable>.<event> was not upgraded. Some events cannot be
upgraded to Visual Basic .NET. The corresponding methods must be called if
necessary.
● Could not resolve default property of object ‘<objectname>’. This is one of the
most common issues you will encounter. It occurs whenever a late-bound vari-
able is set to a value. This is the warning discussed in the previous code example.
● Could not load referenced component <reference>. This message is related to
the setup of the application that is being upgraded. It will be included whenever
a reference, such as an ActiveX control or class library, cannot be found. To
correct this problem, verify that all necessary components are installed on the
computer. This issue can be avoided by installing Visual Basic 6.0, with all refer-
enced components, and ensuring the application compiles and runs before
beginning the upgrade.

For a description of errors, warnings, and issues, see the left pane of “Visual Basic
6.0 Upgrading Reference” on MSDN.

For Visual Basic 2005:

The upgrade wizard included in Visual Studio 2005 has significant differences
from the previous version. These differences include additional support for
more Visual Basic 6.0 features and new upgrade messages among others. The
changes in the upgrade wizard result in fewer errors, warnings and issues
(EWIs) (since more features are now supported) and reorganization of the
distribution of effort required to address identified EWIs.

Application Upgrade
The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard is the primary tool for application upgrade. This
section describes the execution options that are available and how to get the most
out of the wizard.
The automated application upgrade is the middle stage in the complete upgrade
process. Before the upgrade, it is necessary to prepare and set up all necessary
components. Usually, some manual adjustments are necessary after the automated
upgrade to reach a compileable application with functional equivalence. The en-
hancement of the target application can begin after that.
There are different versions of the upgrade wizard that include different features to
further automate the upgrade result. Most of the upgrade features discussed in this
book apply to the Visual Studio .NET (also known as Visual Studio .NET 2003)
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 157

version of the upgrade wizard. The version of the upgrade wizard included in
Visual Studio 2005 has improved performance and reliability, as well as additional
upgrade capabilities, including support for additional ActiveX controls and im-
proved support for the upgrade of COM+ functionality. The ArtinSoft Visual Basic
Upgrade Wizard Companion as additional upgrade mechanisms that support
context aware upgrade of enumerations, code improvement capabilities, automatic
type deduction for Variant and Object variables, and other advancements. For more
information about this upgrade tool and additional upgrade tools and services, go to
the ArtinSoft Web site.
This section focuses on the Visual Studio .NET upgrade wizard, but when it is
applicable, the features of other versions of the upgrade wizard will be highlighted.
For more detailed information about the upgrade wizard and the automated up-
grade process, see Chapter 6, “Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard.”

Execution of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard

The upgrade wizard can be used in two ways: it can be used as either a command
line tool or as a wizard available through the Visual Studio .NET IDE. The wizard
version is automatically invoked whenever you attempt to open a Visual Basic 6.0
project file in Visual Studio .NET. Both of these approaches are discussed in this
section.
When performing an upgrade, it is recommended that you install Visual Basic 6.0
and Visual Basic .NET on the computer on which you are conducting the upgrade;
this allows you to test the original and target application and installs basic compo-
nents that are required by the upgrade wizard.
To facilitate the discussion, a sample Visual Basic 6.0 project will be used as an
example for the step of applying the upgrade wizard. The sample project is named
SumApp. When the application runs, the result of the addition of the two input
fields is displayed in a box after the user clicks the command button. The application
verifies that the user has entered appropriate numeric values in the boxes before it
executes the addition.

Accessing the Upgrade Wizard from Visual Studio .NET

This section documents upgrading the sample application using the upgrade wizard
in the Visual Studio .NET IDE. The following steps must be executed to upgrade the
project:
1. Open Visual Studio .NET.
2. On the File menu, click Open, and then click Project. This displays the Open
Project dialog box. Navigate to the location of the Visual Basic 6.0 project file, and
then click the desired project file. For our example, navigate to the location in
which you saved the SumApp project, click SumApp.vbp, and then click Open.
158 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

3. Read the welcome page, and then click Next.

4. On the Choose a project type page, the appropriate option is selected by default.
Click Next.

Note: This page sets the options for the upgrade. There are two available choices to select
the type of application that will be generated for the target project. EXE projects upgrade to
projects that produce an executable file, and DLL/custom control projects upgrade to
projects that produce DLLs. For standard EXE and DLL projects, the upgrade type is
determined automatically. For other types, such as EXE server projects that can act like a
hybrid of an EXE and a DLL, these projects can be upgraded to either Visual Basic .NET EXE
or DLL projects. For this example, the sample application is a standard EXE, so the EXE
option is automatically selected, and the DLL/custom projects upgrade option is unavail-
able.

5. On the Specify a Location for Your New Project page, the wizard suggests the
target directory to be called projectname.NET, where projectname is your original
project’s name. In our example, the suggested name is SumApp.NET. Click Next.

Note: If the destination directory already exists and contains files, a warning is displayed
that indicates that the output directory is not empty. The wizard will ask you to choose
another directory. If he directory does not already exist, a Warning displays that asks for
confirmation to create the directory. Click Yes to create the directory or No to specify a
different target directory. For our example, the SumApp.NET folder should not yet exist, so
click Yes to create the target directory and proceed to the next page of the wizard.

6. The Ready to Upgrade page of the wizard informs you that it is ready to perform
the upgrade. Click Next to start the upgrade.
The next page of the wizard displays information about the upgrade process status.
A Status box shows the task the upgrade wizard is currently executing and a
progress bar indicates an approximation of the time left for the task. The upgrade
can take anywhere from a minute (for a small project such as the sample application)
to several hours (for a project with hundreds of forms and classes). When the pro-
cessing is complete, the new upgraded project opens in Visual Studio .NET. Figure
5.3 illustrates a sample.
The upgraded project has a form module, Form1, that corresponds to the Visual
Basic 6.0 form module in the original project. In Solution Explorer (in the top right
corner of the IDE illustrated Figure 5.3), double-click Form1.vb to open the up-
graded form. The new form should appear similar to the original. Figure 5.4 illus-
trates this.
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 159

Figure 5.3
The sample application after applying the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard

Figure 5.4
The upgraded form
160 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

To run the upgraded application, press F5. The first time an upgraded project is built
or run, you will be prompted to save the solution file. The .NET solution corre-
sponds to the root of the tree displayed in Solution Explorer. A solution file is similar
to a group file in Visual Basic 6.0. The upgraded project is contained in this solution
file. Accept the suggested name for the solution, and then press Enter to save it. The
project is then automatically built and executed. Form1 is displayed and waits for
user input. Figure 5.5 illustrates the result obtained for sample input data.

Figure 5.5
Execution of the upgraded application

Accessing the Upgrade Tool from the Command Line

The automated upgrade tool can also be applied from the command-line using the
VBUpgrade.exe upgrade program. This program uses the same upgrade engine as
the upgrade wizard accessed in Visual Studio .NET. Assuming the default installa-
tion directory is used, this program can be found in the following path:
drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET version\Vb7\VBUpgrade\
In this path, drive indicates the drive letter on which the installation resides and
version indicates the Visual Studio .NET version. For example, this guide was written
for the Visual Studio .NET 2003 IDE, so the full path would be the following:
drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vb7\VBUpgrade\
If you installed the upgrade tool to a location other than the default directory, or if
you are otherwise unsure about where the program is located, you can use Windows
Explorer to locate it. The remaining text for this example assumes you have the
directory of this utility in your command search path.
The command-line upgrade tool produces the same results as the upgrade wizard.
To upgrade a project, the project file name and the destination directory need to be
indicated as arguments to the command. If the destination directory does not exist,
the upgrade tool automatically creates it. For example, the following statement
upgrades our sample project, stored in C:\SumApp\SumApp.vbp to the
C:\SumApp\SumApp.NET directory.
vbupgrade c:\SumApp\SumApp.vbp /Out c:\SumApp\SumApp.NET
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 161

Note that you should replace the directory names with the appropriate locations.
The command-line version of the upgrade tool does not have wizard pages. Further-
more, this tool does not delete any files in the destination directory. If the destina-
tion directory already exists and contains files, the command-line tool stops running
and returns an error.
It is recommended to use the command-line tool when the available memory on the
upgrade system is limited. Using this tool saves the system resources needed by
Visual Studio .NET when the upgrade tool runs. Depending on the system configu-
ration, Visual Studio .NET consumes approximately 15 MB of memory.

Command Line Options

The command-line version of the upgrade tool has many options that you can
specify when performing an upgrade. You can obtain a complete list of the available
options for this tool by entering the following command at the command prompt:
vbupgrade /?
This command displays a welcome message followed by the available option
switches and their meanings.
Microsoft (R) Visual Basic.NET Upgrade Tool Version 7.00.9238.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 2000-2001.
Portions copyright ArtinSoft S.A.
All rights reserved.
Usage: VBUpgrade <filename> [/Out <directory>] [/NoLog • /LogFile <filename>] [/
Verbose] [/GenerateInterfaces]
/? Display this message
/Out Target directory (default is ".\OutDir")
/Verbose Outputs status and results
/NoLog Don't write a log file
/LogFile Log file name (default is
"<ProjectFileName>.log")
/GenerateInterfaces Generates interfaces for public classes

The tool has a verbose mode that allows a user to identify exactly what the tool is
currently doing. This is useful as a way to determine the upgrade progress of large
applications. If you use this tool while upgrading the sample application, the tool
returns the following.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vb7\VBUpgrade>vbupgrade
C:\SumApp.vbp /Verbose
Microsoft (R) Visual Basic.NET Upgrade Tool Version 7.00.9238.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 2000-2001.
Portions copyright ArtinSoft S.A.
All rights reserved.

Initializing...
Parsing Form1.frm...
162 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Loading User Type Library Form1

Pre-processing Form1...
Upgrading Form1...
Upgrading Form1.Form1
Upgrading Form1.Command1
Upgrading Form1.Text2
Upgrading Form1.Text1
Upgrading Form1.Label1
Upgrading Form1.Command1_Click
Writing Form1.vb...
Writing Form1.resx...
Writing project file Project1.vbproj...
Writing project file Project1.vbproj.user...
Writing project file _UpgradeReport.htm...
Writing AssemblyInfo.vb...
Writing project file Project1.vbproj...
Writing project file Project1.vbproj.user...
Writing project file _UpgradeReport.htm...

Note that the preceding example assumes the default installation location for Visual
Studio .NET. In this sample output, the user can see the different stages that are
involved in the upgrade of a Visual Basic 6.0 project. It is important to note that
some of the output lines may take some time to appear, sometimes several minutes,
while the tool is executing. The state of the upgrade process can be checked using
the Windows Task Manager, as discussed in the next section.

Project Group Upgrade

With Visual Basic 6.0, developers can group different projects into a single project
group file. When a group file is compiled, all projects specified in the group are
compiled together. Furthermore, the debugger can navigate through the code in all
projects. This functionality is useful when there are project dependencies in the
application. The upgrade wizard does not support project groups, primarily because
of the size of the context information that must be simultaneously managed for all
the projects.
In Visual Basic .NET, the equivalent for a project group is a solution. A solution can
contain projects written in different languages with references between them. The
projects are compiled and debugged together just as in a Visual Basic 6.0 project
group.
Testing an upgraded application with moderate complexity to high complexity
requires at least the same effort as testing the original application. The testing of
some of the application functionality can be performed in parallel with the upgrade
of other components. These parallel tasks require coordination and the definition of
a project upgrade order accordingly. For more information, see the “Testing and
Debugging the Upgraded Application” section later in this chapter.
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 163

Depending on the strategy used for intermediate result testing, the following project
upgrade orders might be followed:
● First upgrade the projects that have no dependencies. If the core functionality is
upgraded first, testing can be done at different levels, starting from the core
components and including more functionality in each iteration. This approach
provides isolation of problems and can be used for upgrade projects with high
complexity and that do not require early demonstrations of upgraded functional-
ity.
● First upgrade the projects on which no other projects depend. The components at
the top of the dependency hierarchy can be upgraded first and if necessary the
application functionality can be tested using interoperability for the remaining
components. This approach can produce early demonstrations of upgraded
functionality, but it may require additional effort for the creation of
interoperability wrappers.
A mixed approach can also be used to obtain a combination of benefits.
The following example shows how to upgrade a project group using the first ap-
proach explained. The sample project group has two projects; one of them generates
a DLL that contains a class used to perform addition operations. The second project
is a front-end program that displays a form that asks the user for input and uses the
services provided by the DLL. When the project group is compiled and the gener-
ated program is executed, a form displays that asks the user for numerical values to
be added. If an incorrect value is entered, an error is raised in the DLL and the form
displays the error description. The sample application can be found on the compan-
ion CD.
To upgrade this project group when the priority is placed on the core components,
the following steps must be performed:
1. Open the Group1.vbg file group in Visual Basic 6.0.
2. Using the upgrade wizard, upgrade all projects that have no dependencies. Each
project must be processed individually, as follows:
a. In Visual Basic 6.0, observe the references associated with Project1. In the
projects window, select Project1. By default, this is at the upper-right corner of
the IDE. In the Project menu select References. The References - Project1.vbp
dialog box displays.
b. The References – Project1.vbp dialog box shows that Project1 depends on
Utilities. The Utilities project has no further dependencies, so it should be
upgraded first. For large applications, this kind of dependency analysis can be
done with the Assessment Tool File dependency graph, as explained in the
“Determine All Dependencies” section earlier in this chapter. Upgrade the
Utilities project using the upgrade wizard, as explained in the “Accessing the
Upgrade Wizard from Visual Studio .NET” section.
164 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

3. After Visual Basic .NET is opened, the dependant project can be upgraded and
added to the solution. On the File menu, point to Add Project, and then click
Existing Project. This opens the Add Existing Project dialog box. Click
Project1.vbp, and then click Open to start the upgrade. Accept the default up-
grade options, as described in the “Accessing the Upgrade Wizard from Visual
Studio .NET” section.
4. Replace the newly upgraded project references with the corresponding .NET
project. To do so, apply the following steps:
a. In Solution Explorer, open the Project1 project folder. Open the References
folder. Right-click Utilities, and then click Remove. This removes the reference
to the old version of Utilities.
b. To add a new reference to the new Visual Basic .NET version of the Utilities
project, right-click the References folder, and then click Add Reference. The
Add Reference dialog box displays. To view the available projects, click the
Projects tab. To add the reference, double-click Utilities, and then click OK.

Note: Now that the reference to the original Visual Basic 6.0 version of Utilities has been
replaced by the newly upgraded version, there may be differences in its interfaces and data
types. These differences will produce compilation or run-time errors in the places where
this component is accessed. When Project1 was upgraded in step 3, the upgrade wizard
considered the reference to the original version of Utilities and it was treated as an external
third-party component. An interoperability wrapper was generated and no transformations
were applied to the member declarations. Because of this, the usages of this component
inside Project1 will remain the same. The differences can arise when the Utilities library is
upgraded. The upgrade wizard will transform some of its interface declarations and there-
fore the places where the component is used must be updated. These changes include
event parameters and upgraded data types.

5. Review the accesses to Utilities inside Project1, and updated them if necessary.
For our example, the Utilities interface has not changed during the upgrade and
there are no modifications needed in Project1. However, with more complex
interfaces and data types, additional work will likely be necessary to make the
application compile.
6. The solution is now ready to be compiled, run, and tested. Set Project1 as the
startup project by right-clicking it in Solution Explorer, and then clicking Set as
StartUp Project.
7. Now that these two projects are upgraded, you can apply the corresponding
tests. After this subset of the full application functionality is tested and corrected,
a new level of functionality can be upgraded and tested on a stable base. For our
current example, there are no further projects in the group to upgrade, so the
process is complete.
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 165

Alternatively, this project can be upgraded with initial emphasis on those projects
that no other projects in the group are dependent on. To apply this strategy, the
following steps must be performed:
1. Open Visual Studio .NET.
2. Upgrade one of the projects that no other projects in the group depend on. For
this sample project group, no project depends on Project1, so it will be upgraded
first. Follow the procedure in the “Accessing the Upgrade Wizard from Visual
Studio .NET” section.
3. Next, upgrade a project that provides services to the project upgraded in step 1.
For this example, the only project that is used by Project1 is Utilities. In Visual
Basic .NET, click Add Project on the File menu, and then click Existing Project.
This opens the Add Existing Project dialog box. Click Utilities, and then click
Open. Accept the default upgrade options.
4. Project1 still references the Visual Basic 6.0 version of Utilities. This reference
must be deleted and replaced with a reference to the upgraded Visual Basic .NET
version of this project. To remove the reference, expand the Project1 references
node and remove the reference to Utilities by right-clicking it and then clicking
Remove.
5. Add a reference to the new Utilities project: Right-click Project1 References, and
then click Add Reference. In the Add Reference dialog box, click the Projects
tab, double-click Utilities, and then click OK.
6. See step 5 in the previous procedure for additional considerations when replacing
the Utilities reference from the Visual Basic 6.0 version of the component to the
Visual Basic .NET version. The same issues are possible despite a change in the
order of component upgrade.
7. The solution is ready to be compiled, run, and tested. Note that after step 2,
Project1 may be tested using the non-upgraded version of Utilities through
interoperability.

Although the example used to illustrate these two procedures was relatively small,
keep in mind that either of these upgrade approaches can be applied to project
groups composed of many projects. The approach you choose to apply should be
based on careful analysis of the components and their dependencies. A project group
containing many components with no dependencies will likely benefit from the
application of the first upgrade approach presented. Alternatively, a project group
with many components that have no other components dependent on them may
benefit from the second approach.
166 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Verifying the Progress of the Upgrade

When the upgrade tool is executed from the command line, two processes are
launched:
● VBUpgrade.exe. This is the front end of the tool for the command line mode.

● VBUD.exe. This is the upgrade engine.

The same upgrade engine is launched when the upgrade wizard is accessed in
Visual Studio .NET, but in this case, the only process that will be launched is
VBUD.exe.
The Windows Task Manager displays the two upgrade processes launched by the
command-line version of the upgrade tool.
The upgrade wizard for the 2003 version of Visual Studio .NET processes source
code files one by one and stores each result as a temporary file. After all files are
processed in that way, the final Visual Basic .NET source code is written to the
output directory. This is the final result delivered to the user. If there was a problem
during the upgrade of a file and the upgrade tool has to terminate execution, any
previous temporary results will be lost and no final Visual Basic .NET results will be
obtained. To avoid this situation, the Visual Basic 2005 version of the upgrade
wizard and the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion from ArtinSoft produce
the final upgrade results on a file-by-file basis. After a file is processed, the final
source code is written and the target project and solution files are updated. This
allows the user to use the results, even if a fatal error occurred during the upgrade of
another file.

Fixing Problems with the Upgrade Wizard Execution

This section includes some common problems that may arise when running the
upgrade wizard. In general, the upgrade process can be left unattended after all the
required information is provided. However, large applications may take several
hours; while it is upgrading, different situations that require user attention may
arise. The following list presents the most common issues that might occur:
● Memory swapping. When the computer that is used for the upgrade of an
application does not have sufficient memory resources for the processing of a
large application, the operating system tries to provide additional memory to the
upgrade process by swapping memory to disk. The swapping back and forth
between memory and disk may consume more processing power than the other
tasks. In this situation, the system is said to be in a “thrashing” state. In this state,
the upgrade process can take a significant amount of additional time to finish.
When this occurs, it is recommended that you stop the automated upgrade,
increase the system memory, and begin the automated upgrade again. Figure 5.16
illustrates a system that is upgrading a huge application and is in a thrashing
state. Notice that all the processor time is consumed by the kernel and almost all
the memory is used.
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 167

Figure 5.6
The Windows Task Manager Performance display in a typical “thrashing” scenario
● Incorrect references. When an application has more than one project to be up-
graded, you may choose to upgrade one project at a time. You can make some
source code reorganization according to upgrade priority or other factors. If a
reference to a user project or a third-party component is accidentally changed to
another reference during this reorganization, the upgrade wizard will not be able
to obtain all the necessary information about members and data types. This will
generate warnings about default property extraction in all places where members
of these components are used, because none of these members will be automati-
cally upgraded by the upgrade wizard. If this happens, the corresponding refer-
ence and accesses to the elements contained in it will have to be reviewed.
● Trial version of third-party components. The upgrade wizard loads all third-
party components referenced in the project. Some trial version components
display a license dialog box and wait for user input whenever the components is
instantiated. This will cause the upgrade process to stop until the dialog box is
closed. You should pay attention to these dialog boxes to allow the upgrade
process to continue.
● Upgrade wizard exceptions. It is an unusual scenario, but when a file is being
processed by the upgrade wizard, it may be possible for the tool to encounter a
fatal problem. For example, third-party components with a nonstandard interface
or other conditions will produce an exception. In this case, the upgrade tool will
terminate execution. The first step to solve this problem is to isolate the file and
168 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

source code that is producing the exception. After this is done, the source code
can be commented. After the problematic code is removed, the upgrade process
can be started again. You may want to report these types of exceptions to
newsgroups so that other developers can avoid them. Some suggested
newsgroups are microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vb.upgrade and
microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.visualbasic.migration.

Being aware of and planning ahead for known exceptions can help you to have a
smoother upgrade.

Completing the Upgrade with Manual Changes

After the upgrade wizard is applied to a Visual Basic 6.0 project resulting in Visual
Basic .NET code, it is often be necessary to make adjustments to the upgraded code
to make it run in the new environment. This section discusses some of the changes
you may need to make.

Reaching a Buildable State

The first step in this process is to make the application compile in Visual Studio
.NET. Before the application is compiled, you should review the project references to
ensure all necessary references are present and correct. In Solution Explorer, open
the References folder in the corresponding project and verify that all references are
correctly included. If there is a warning icon next to a reference, the most probable
reason is that there was a problem generating an interoperability wrapper or includ-
ing it in the project. The reference must be removed and then manually added again
to remove the warning state.
After the project references are verified, you can attempt to build the new version of
the application. On the Build menu, click Build Solution.
The Visual Studio .NET IDE allows developers to identify and navigate through all
the compilation errors that were found. Moreover, the Task List shows all problems
that were detected; you can double-click on any one of the lines to go to the specific
line of code that caused the problem. The problems can be fixed using the informa-
tion provided in the Task List item and applying the techniques shown in Chapters 7
through 11.
After the application compiles successfully, the design time visualization of the
application forms and controls can be verified. Design-time code can be checked by
opening each form and verifying that all controls are correctly displayed. If a control
is not visible, verify the corresponding reference and look for unsupported features.
After the general verification is complete, the testing and debugging phase can begin.
The following section presents some of the most common issues generated during
the automated portion of the upgrade. These issues will be reported by the upgrade
wizard and will produce compilation errors in Visual Basic .NET.
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 169

Common Compilation Errors

This section presents some of the most common compilation errors caused by
unsupported features of Visual Basic 6.0. The upgrade wizard will not upgrade these
issues because there is no equivalent functionality in Visual Basic .NET or there is
implicit information in the original source code that is explicitly required. For each
issue, code examples in original Visual Basic 6.0 and the auto-generated Visual Basic
.NET are provided, in addition to a discussion about the modifications needed to
correct the problem. The objective of this section is to illustrate the general proce-
dure and techniques necessary to correct problems that can arise after an application
has been upgraded to Visual Basic .NET. For information about specific unsupported
features, see Chapter 8, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language
Features.”
By far, the most common upgrade problem reported by the upgrade wizard in
typical Visual Basic 6.0 applications is the default property extraction problem
caused by lack of information about the data type of a variable. Depending on the
usage of the variable, this problem can cause compilation or run-time errors. For
example, the following comment will be generated by the upgrade wizard when this
problem arises:
'UPGRADE_WARNING: Couldn't resolve default property of object MyObj.MyProperty.

To correct this problem, apply the techniques presented in the “Reviewing the
Upgrade Wizard Report” section earlier in this chapter.
The following sections present additional upgrade issues that are detected by the
upgrade wizard and require user intervention to be corrected.
Problems with As Any Parameter Type
When external DLL functions are accessed in Visual Basic 6.0, it is often necessary to
include As Any parameters in the corresponding function parameter declaration.
This data type is no longer supported in Visual Basic .NET. The problem caused by
this change is demonstrated through the following example Visual Basic 6.0 code.
Private Declare Function SystemParametersInfo Lib "user32" _
Alias "SystemParametersInfoA" (ByVal uAction As Integer, ByVal uParam As _
Integer, ByRef lpvParam As Any, ByVal fuWinIni As Integer) As Integer

Private Function GetKeyBoardDelay() As Integer

Const SPI_GETKEYBOARDDELAY As Integer = 22
Dim delayVal As Integer
Call SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETKEYBOARDDELAY, 0, delayVal, 0)
GetKeyBoardDelay = delayVal
End Function
170 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Running the upgrade wizard results in the following.

'UPGRADE_ISSUE: Declaring a parameter 'As Any' is not supported.
Private Declare Function SystemParametersInfo Lib "user32" _
Alias "SystemParametersInfoA"(ByVal uAction As Short, ByVal uParam As Short, _
ByRef lpvParam As Any, ByVal fuWinIni As Short) As Short

Private Function GetKeyBoardDelay() As Short

Const SPI_GETKEYBOARDDELAY As Short = 22
Dim delayVal As Short
Call SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETKEYBOARDDELAY, 0, delayVal, 0)
GetKeyBoardDelay = delayVal
End Function

The latter code will produce a compilation error in Visual Basic .NET caused by the
usage of an unknown As Any data type. To correct this problem, it is necessary to
investigate the specification of the external function SystemParametersInfo. This
function gets the value of system parameters based on the uAction parameter and
stores the result in the lpvParam parameter. The lpvParam parameter data type
must be changed to a specific data type according to the usage of the function in the
source code. In this case, the system parameter to be obtained is the keyboard auto-
repeat delay, and the expected result is a short type. To fix this problem, change the
As Any data type to As Short.
For more information about correcting this error, see Chapter 13, “Working with the
Windows API.”
Changes to Properties of Commonly Used Objects
The following source code compiles and runs perfectly in Visual Basic 6.0; however,
when it is upgraded to Visual Basic .NET, a compilation error result because of an
unsupported property, as shown here.
' List1 is a list box that is embedded in the current Form
List1.AddItem "Hello"
List1.ListIndex = List1.NewIndex

After the upgrade wizard is applied to the code, the following code results.
' List1 is a list box that is embedded in the current Form
List1.Items.Add("Hello")
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: list box property List1.NewIndex was not upgraded.
List1.SelectedIndex = List1.NewIndex
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 171

This code results in a compilation error in Visual Basic .NET because the NewIndex
property is used to retrieve the index of the item most recently added to a ListBox
control. However, the value of NewIndex cannot always be determined in the
upgraded code. This error can be corrected by saving the return value of the Add
method, which is the index of the newly added item. This is demonstrated in the
following code example, with changes highlighted in bold.
' List1 is a ListBox that is embedded in the current Form
Dim NewIndex As Integer
NewIndex = List1.Items.Add("Hello")
List1.SelectedIndex = NewIndex

Discontinued Support for GoSub

The GoSub directive available in Visual Basic 6.0 can be used to branch a program’s
execution to a subroutine or label. The following code example demonstrates the use
of On…GoSub in Visual Basic 6.0.
Function Decide(v As Integer) As String
On v GoSub case1, case2, case3
case1:
Decide = "case1"
Exit Function
case2:
Decide = "case2"
Exit Function
case3:
Decide = "case3"
Exit Function
End Function

Applying the upgrade wizard to this code results in the following.

Function Decide(ByRef v As Short) As String
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: On...Gosub statement is not supported.
On v GoSub case1, case2, case3
case1:
Decide = "case1"
Exit Function
case2:
Decide = "case2"
Exit Function
case3:
Decide = "case3"
Exit Function
End Function
172 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The On … GoSub construct is no longer supported in Visual Basic .NET. The up-
graded code produced by the upgrade wizard causes a compilation error. However,
the code can corrected by removing the problematic construct, as demonstrated
here.
Function Decide(ByRef v As Short) As String
If v = 1 Then
Decide = "case1"
ElseIf v = 2 Then
Decide = "case2"
ElseIf v = 3 Then
Decide = "case3"
End If
End Function

Changes in Multiple Document Interface Form (MDI) ActiveForm

In Visual Basic 6.0, an MDIForm can refer to its active child form using the
ActiveForm property. Controls in this form can be accessed as properties. In Visual
Basic .NET, ActiveForm is a generic type that has no controls.
The following sample source code works fine in Visual Basic 6.0.
' It is assumed that MDIForm1 has a child form called Form1. Form1 is currently
' displayed and has a Label control called Label1.
Dim controlStr As String
controlStr = MDIForm1.ActiveForm.Label1.Caption

When the upgrade wizard is applied, the following output is produced.

Dim controlStr As String
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Control Label1 could not be resolved because it was within the
' generic namespace ActiveMDIChild.
controlStr = MDIForm1.DefInstance.ActiveMDIChild.Label1.Caption

As noted in the UPGRADE_ISSUE comment, the Label1 control can no longer be

resolved in the upgraded code because of the change in ActiveForm. To correct this
problem, it is necessary to make an explicit type cast with the corresponding Form
class and manually upgrade the accessed control member. This is demonstrated in
the following code example.
Dim controlStr As String
controlStr = CType(MDIForm1.DefInstance.ActiveMdiChild, Form1).Label1.Text

The issues presented in this section have shown the most common manual changes
you will have to apply to code produced by the upgrade wizard. However, this is
not a comprehensive list. For information about other upgrade issues and the
manual corrections you will have to apply to fix them, see Chapters 7 through 13.
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 173

Testing and Debugging the Upgraded Application

The objective of the testing and debugging phase is to identify and correct problems
that appear when running the application. This section explores testing and debug-
ging of your upgraded application.

Upgrade Report Issues

The following types of issues might be included in the upgrade report and will need
to be addressed:
● Upgrade issues. These indicate unsupported class members or language ele-
ments. For each item identified, the functionality needs to be reviewed, and some
of the affected expressions will require manual upgrade to similar .NET elements.
Each upgrade should be tested in a limited scenario.
● Upgrade ToDos. These identify points in the source code that require user inter-
vention. The instructions included in these items should be followed. Testing of
the resultant code verifies that corrections were properly applied.
● Upgrade warnings. These items identify source code that will compile but may
generate a run-time error. This code needs to be thoroughly tested to identify if
and how run-time errors occur. Additional changes to prevent the occurrence of
the run-time errors may be necessary.
● Design errors. These problems arise when unsupported design-time properties
are used. Members whose behaviors have changed are also included here. The
functionality that these members provide can be redesigned or changed by
similar .NET elements. The code needs to be tested to determine whether the
behavior differences have affected the core application functionality.
● Global warnings. Global issues such as the lack of deterministic object lifetime
because of garbage collection are included here. Most of these warnings are
caused by setup issues that can be easily fixed and tested. Other warnings require
more work to be fixed, such as manual upgrade in the case of source code lines
that are not recognized by the upgrade wizard.
● Upgrade notes. These are generated when the source code has been significantly
altered or the resultant code has some behavior differences from the original
Visual Basic 6.0 version. The code needs to be tested to determine whether the
behavior differences have affected the core application functionality.
Unit and system testing should be performed for all the upgraded application
functionality. During this phase, the original application specifications and test cases
are essential. It may also be necessary to adjust or add test cases for the Visual Basic
.NET version of the application.
When upgrading large applications, it may be necessary to test some parts of the
application while other parts are still being upgraded. In this situation, the following
174 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

points regarding the integration between the upgrade and testing tasks should be
taken into consideration:
● Because of component or project upgrade order issues, there may be components
that require testing but depend on components that have not yet been upgraded.
The original components can be accessed through interoperability to allow the
advancement of the testing tasks for those components that have been upgraded.
Using this approach allows work to be continued in parallel, and less coordina-
tion is required between the upgrade and testing phases because test
interoperability wrappers can be independently generated as needed. The main
disadvantages are that problems can be difficult to isolate in the integrated
application and extra work is required to create the interoperability wrappers
that will not be necessary in the final product.
● Testing can be performed in the order established by the component dependency
graph. In each test iteration, a level of the application functionality will be veri-
fied. When a component is tested, all the components it depends on are also
tested, so it is necessary for all such components to have their upgrade com-
pleted. The most basic components should be upgraded first to allow the testing
of the more complex components. The advantages of this approach are that the
work is done in a progressive way and it is easy to isolate and correct all detected
problems. The main disadvantages are that more planning and coordination is
required and the degree of parallelism is diminished.
A hybrid testing strategy can also be applied. Basic components can be upgraded
and tested as indicated in the second strategy while some application functionality
can be upgraded using the first strategy. This would allow you to have early up-
grade results that can be demonstrated to end users, while the deep core upgrade is
still in progress. In the end, both workflows converge in one intermediate point
where the basic components are upgraded and can provide all necessary services to
the components in the higher levels of functionality. The main disadvantage of this
hybrid approach is the difficulty in identifying fragments of the application func-
tionality that are appropriate for the each upgrade strategy and that do not require
redundant work.

Fixing Run-Time Errors

After an application is upgraded, the most difficult errors to detect are those that can
only be identified at run time. A high percentage of potential run-time errors are
detected by the upgrade wizard. However, there may be problems that will be
detected only after the upgraded application runs and is thoroughly tested. The
original application test cases and design documentation is particularly important to
identify such errors.
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 175

The remainder of this section presents some common upgrade issues that are de-
tected by the upgrade wizard and that produce run-time errors. These issues will
need to be manually corrected.

Changes to User-Defined Types

User-defined types can be defined in Visual Basic 6.0 using the Type keyword. All
the members included in a Type block are automatically initialized by the Visual
Basic 6.0 runtime. The following code example illustrates creating a user-defined
type.
Const LF_FACESIZE = 32
Private Type MyLogFont
fHeight As Integer
fWidth As Integer
FaceName(LF_FACESIZE) As Byte
End Type

Sub TestFont()
Dim a As Byte
Dim f As MyLogFont
a = f.FaceName(1)
End Sub

Notice how the FaceName field is declared and initialized with a fixed size.
The equivalent construct in Visual Basic .NET is the Structure. Unlike the Type
construct, the members of a Structure need to be explicitly initialized using the
Initialize method. When the upgrade wizard is applied to the preceding code, it
translates the type to a structure and includes the Initialize method for you. The
following code shows the result produced by the upgrade wizard.
Const LF_FACESIZE As Short = 32
Private Structure MyLogFont
Dim fHeight As Short
Dim fWidth As Short
<VBFixedArray(LF_FACESIZE)> Dim FaceName() As Byte
' UPGRADE_TODO: "Initialize" must be called to initialize instances of this
' structure.
Public Sub Initialize()
ReDim FaceName(LF_FACESIZE)
End Sub
End Structure

Sub TestFont()
Dim a As Byte
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Arrays in structure f may need to be
' initialized before they can be used.
Dim f As MyLogFont
a = f.FaceName(1)
End Sub
176 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

This upgraded code will compile without problems. However, when the application
is executed and TestFont is invoked, a run-time error will occur because the Initial-
ize method has not been invoked and the array members of the structure have not
been initialized. To correct this problem, you can apply the following modification to
TestFont to invoke the Initialize method.
Sub TestFont()
Dim a As Byte
Dim f As MyLogFont
f.Initialize()
a = f.FaceName(1)
End Sub

After the Initialize method is invoked, the array members of the type are initialized
and the run-time error no longer occurs.

Changes to Null and IsNull

Null and IsNull have different behaviors in Visual Basic .NET than in Visual Basic
6.0. The upgrade wizard detects the usage of Null and IsNull. Null is upgraded to
the closest value available in Visual Basic .NET, which is System.DBNull.Value.
However, Visual Basic .NET does not support propagating the Null value. This will
result in behavior differences that produce run-time errors. This is illustrated in the
following code example.
Sub TestNull()
dbVal = Null
res = 5 * dbVal
If IsNull(res) Then
' Perform some action
End If
End Sub

Note that dbVal is usually obtained by accessing a database through a query. To

simplify this example, the Null value is directly assigned to this variable.
When this code is upgraded using the upgrade wizard, the following result is
obtained.
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: IsNull function is not supported.
Sub TestNull()
Dim res As Object
Dim dbVal As Object
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Use of Null/IsNull() detected.
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of
' object dbVal.
dbVal = System.DBNull.Value
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of
' object dbVal.
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 177

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of

' object res.
res = 5 * dbVal
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Use of Null/IsNull() detected.
If IsDbNull(res) Then
' Perform some action
End If
End Sub

Note the number of UPGRADE_WARNING comments inserted into the code. This
code will compile without problems, but it will result in run-time errors when
executed.
To correct this problem, it is necessary to manually adjust the Null value propaga-
tion and adjust the conditions that rely on the null checking functions. The necessary
corrections are shown in bold the following code example.
Sub TestNull()
Dim res As Object
Dim dbVal As Object
dbVal = System.DBNull.Value
If Not IsDBNull(dbVal) Then
res = 5 * dbVal
End If
If IsDBNull(dbVal) Or IsDBNull(res) Then
' Perform some action
End If
End Sub

Changes to Array Indexing

In Visual Basic 6.0, it is possible to create arrays whose lower index bound is a value
other than 0. In Visual Basic .NET, all arrays must have a lower index bound of 0.
The upgrade wizard ensures all arrays have a lower bound of 0. However, if the
source code relies on the calculated size of arrays, the behavior of the array code in
the upgraded version will likely have different behavior than the original code. The
following code example illustrates this situation.
Function GetArraySize(a As Variant) As Long
Size = UBound(a) - LBound(a) + 1
GetArraySize = Size
End Function
Sub testArraySize()
Dim a(5 To 10)
If GetArraySize(a) > 7 Then
' Perform some action
End If
End Sub
178 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

After the code is upgraded with the upgrade wizard, the following result is
obtained.
Function GetArraySize(ByRef a As Object) As Integer
Dim aSize As Object
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of
' object size.
aSize = UBound(a) - LBound(a) + 1
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of
' object size.
GetArraySize = aSize
End Function
Sub testArraySize()
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Lower bound of array was changed from 5 to 0.
Dim a(10) As Object
Dim res As Integer
If GetArraySize(a) > 7 Then
' Perform some action
End If
End Sub

In the original version of the code, the statements in the If block will not be executed
because the size of the array is only 6. However, after the automated upgrade, the
resulting array in the upgraded code has a lager size of 11, which will trigger the
execution of the If block. This will most likely be an undesired behavior.
Fixing this specific problem requires a detailed review of the original and upgraded
code to conserve the original array size without affecting the application behavior.
In this example, the upgraded array should have 6 elements, indexed from 0 to 5. All
the code that depends on the array size will be corrected with that change. Code that
depends on the specific position of elements will require review because the index
range has changed. The following code example demonstrates this adjustment to
array bounds.
Function GetArraySize(ByRef a As Object) As Integer
Dim aSize As Object
aSize = UBound(a) - LBound(a) + 1
GetArraySize = aSize
End Function
Sub testArraySize()
Dim a(5) As Object
Dim res As Integer
If GetArraySize(a) > 7 Then
'Perform some action
End If
End Sub

For more strategies that you can apply to deal with changes in array bounds, see
Chapter 8, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features.”
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 179

Changes to the Activate Event

It is not uncommon to include code to recalculate or refresh the state of a Form in
the Visual Basic 6.0 Activate event. In Visual Basic 6.0, this event is raised only when
switching between forms in the application. In Visual Basic .NET, the equivalent
Activated event is raised in these situations, but it is also raised when switching
from other applications. This will produce run-time differences between the two
versions. The following Visual Basic 6.0 source code illustrates the situation.
Private Sub Form_Activate()
' Refreshing code
End Sub

After upgrading the code with the upgrade wizard, the following code is produced.
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Form event Form1.Activate has a new behavior.
Private Sub Form1_Activated(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Activated
' Refreshing code
End Sub

The problem is that the Activated event is raised more frequently than the Visual
Basic Activate event. Activated is raised whenever the focus is switched from other
applications. This results in different behavior than the original code.
To correct this difference, it will be necessary to differentiate activations coming
from other applications and activations coming from other forms in the same appli-
cation. This can be done by using a global variable that stores the last application
form that was activated. This variable can be implemented as a Public Shared
member in a new application class. When the focus is changed to another applica-
tion and then returns to the same form, the global variable will still have the same
value. The Activated event code can be skipped based on that value. The following
code example demonstrates this solution.
Friend Class MyAppGlobals
Public Shared AppActiveForm = ""
End Class

Private Sub Form1_Activated(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Activated
If Not MyAppGlobals.AppActiveForm = MyBase.Name Then
' Refreshing code
MyAppGlobals.AppActiveForm = MyBase.Name
End If
End Sub
180 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Changes to ComboBox Control Events

This example shows another situation in which behavior differences exist between
the original and the upgraded version of an application. These differences may
produce run-time errors.
In Visual Basic 6.0, the ComboBox control has a Change event that is raised when
the user writes text into the control. In Visual Basic .NET, the corresponding event,
TextChanged, is raised in the same situation. However, this event is also raised
when the corresponding form is initialized, before it is even displayed. This may
cause errors at run time because the TextChanged event will be raised form loads
and the ComboBox has not yet been initialized.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 code example demonstrates this problem.
Dim myClass1 As Class1

Private Sub Combo1_Change()

myClass1.hello
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load()

Set myClass1 = New Class1
End Sub

The auto-upgraded code is shown here.

Dim myClass1 As Class1

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Event Combo1.TextChanged may raise when form is

' initialized.
' UPGRADE_WARNING: ComboBox event Combo1.Change was upgraded to
' Combo1.TextChanged which has a new behavior.
Private Sub Combo1_TextChanged(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles Combo1.TextChanged
myClass1.hello()
End Sub

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
myClass1 = New Class1
End Sub

Now the Combo1_TextChanged event handler method will be executed whenever

the corresponding form is initialized. This will produce a run-time error because
myClass1 is not yet initialized; this happens in the Form1_Load event handler. The
solution to this problem requires the creation of a new attribute in the corresponding
Form class. This attribute will indicate whether the form is being initialized. This
attribute must be set at the beginning and at the end of the InitializeComponent
 Chapter 5: The Visual Basic Upgrade Process 181

method. The following code extract, which should be contained in the Form1 class,
demonstrates the correction.
Friend Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form

Private initializing As Boolean

Dim myClass1 As Class1

<System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> Private Sub InitializeComponent()

initializing = True
' The original code included in InitializeComponent must be copied
' here
initializing = False
End Sub

Private Sub Combo1_TextChanged(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles Combo1.TextChanged
If Not initializing Then
myClass1.hello()
End If
End Sub

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
myClass1 = New Class1
End Sub
End Class

Summary
A successful and efficient upgrade is best achieved by applying proven upgrade
procedures. Careful pre-upgrade preparation will save both time and effort during
later stages of the upgrade process. Understanding common upgrade issues and
identifying such potential issues before you begin can make solving them smoother.
Finally, taking advantage of tools that help automate as much of the upgrade as
possible can save time and effort. This chapter has demonstrated the steps of an
upgrade strategy that can be applied to ensure your applications are upgraded
successfully in the most efficient way possible.

More Information
For more information about the Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor, see “Visual Basic 6.0
Code Advisor” in the Microsoft Visual Basic Developer Center on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/downloads/codeadvisor/default.aspx.
182 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For more information about the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion, upgrade
tool, and additional upgrade services, go to the ArtinSoft Web site:
http://www.artinsoft.com/.
For a description of errors, warnings, and issues, see the left pane of “Visual Basic
6.0 Upgrading Reference” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vboriVisualBasic60CompatibilityReference.asp.
6
Understanding the Visual Basic
Upgrade Wizard
The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard is an automated source code upgrade tool that
upgrades a project written in Visual Basic 6.0 to a series of files written in Visual
Basic .NET. It gives you the ability to keep older applications in use and to take full
advantage of the .NET Framework.
The upgrade tool works very much like a software developer who upgrades an
application manually: It takes into account the different aspects of software creation
and transformation, including program organization, statements, expressions,
symbols, data types, literal values and variables. Using this data, the upgrade
wizard can generate Visual Basic .NET source code that conserves the algorithms
and general style of the original source code. The upgraded code can then be under-
stood and improved by the human developer.

Using the Upgrade Tool

Before discussing the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, it is important to first look at
the Visual Basic Upgrade Tool. The upgrade tool upgrades Visual Basic 6.0 projects
to Visual Basic .NET. The upgrade tool creates a new project, copies each file from
the original project into the new project, and modifies the files as necessary. Finally,
it generates a report detailing what was done and what you need to do to finish the
upgrade.
The upgrade tool is available in two forms: the upgrade wizard that is integrated
into the Visual Studio .NET development environment and a command-line tool that
is available with the .NET Framework. To invoke the upgrade wizard, you open a
Visual Basic 6.0 project file (.vbp) in Visual Studio .NET. Doing so will automatically
184 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

start the upgrade wizard and it will take you through the upgrade process step-by-
step. When Visual Studio .NET is not available, or if you prefer working from the
command-line, you can invoke the command-line version of the upgrade tool.
For complete details about how to run both the wizard version and command-line
version of the upgrade tool, see “Execution of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard” in
Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process.”

Note: The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard is the version of the tool that is typically used in
upgrade projects. Throughout this chapter, the term upgrade wizard is used to refer to the
upgrade tool. However, the content of this chapter applies equally to both the upgrade wizard
and the command-line version of the tool.

Tasks Performed by the Upgrade Wizard

When you use the upgrade wizard on a Visual Basic 6.0 project, the upgrade wizard
creates a new .NET project that contains all of the upgraded files from the original
Visual Basic 6.0 project. Table 6.1 shows Visual Basic 6.0 projects with their .NET
equivalents, or alternatives if there are not any .NET equivalents:
Table 6.1: Visual Basic .NET Project Equivalents for Visual Basic 6.0 Project Types
Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET
Standard EXE Windows Application
ActiveX DLL Class Library
ActiveX EXE Class Library
ActiveX Control Windows Control Library
ActiveX Document No direct equivalent. Visual Basic .NET can interoperate with
ActiveX Documents.
DHTML Application No direct equivalent. Use ASP.NET Web Application.
IIS Application (WebClass) No direct equivalent. Use ASP.NET Web Application.

Note: For more information about the ASP.NET Web application, see Chapter 4, “Common
Application Types”, Chapter 20, “Common Technology Scenario Advancements,” and Appendix
C, “Introduction to Upgrading ASP.”

Code Modification
When the upgrade wizard upgrades your project, it modifies the code in the follow-
ing ways.
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 185

● Language changes. The upgrade wizard upgrades Visual Basic 6.0 code to use
the new keywords and language structures introduced in Visual Basic .NET.
Readability, logic structure, and code ownership are preserved, and supporting
run-time functions are added to achieve functionality.
● Core functions. References to Visual Basic 6.0 core functions are upgraded to
equivalent classes and methods in the .NET Framework, when possible. When
there are no equivalent .NET functions, or the upgrade wizard cannot determine
the function to use, the wizard adds a note to the code file so you can fix it
manually.
● Forms. Visual Basic 6.0 forms and controls are upgraded to .NET Windows Form
Controls equivalents. For more information about Windows Form Controls, see
“Forms” in the “Visual Basic 6.0 Objects” section later in this chapter.
● Web classes. Visual Basic 6.0 Web classes are upgraded to .NET Web Forms. For
more information about .NET Web Forms, see “Web Classes” in the “Visual Basic
6.0 Language Elements” section later in this chapter.
● Data. Data and connection objects are upgraded to Visual Basic .NET runtime
callable wrappers (RCW) corresponding to data and connection objects. Upgrad-
ing these components to ADO.NET requires additional work.
● User controls. Visual Basic 6.0 ActiveX user control components are upgraded to
.NET user controls. For more information about .NET user controls, see “User
Controls” in the “Visual Basic 6.0 Objects” section later in this chapter.
Redundant features, such as DDE, and features that rely on the Visual Basic 6.0
runtime, such as ScaleMode, are not upgraded but are reported as warnings and
errors.

Reference Checking
When the upgrade wizard upgrades a project to Visual Basic .NET, it inspects
the code for references to other files in the project, and to any external libraries,
components, COM objects, and files. When the upgrade wizard renames project
files — usually by changing file name extensions to conform to Visual Basic .NET
conventions — it automatically updates any references to changed files with the
new file names and locations. The upgrade wizard also automatically upgrades
any resource files and binary resources for use with the Visual Basic .NET project.
The upgrade wizard instantiates any external components referenced in project files
to obtain information about them so it can generate type casts, identify member
mappings, and otherwise improve the quality of the upgraded code. For the up-
grade wizard to successfully do this, any external components referenced by files in
your project must be correctly installed on the computer that you will use to per-
form the upgrade.
186 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion

An enhanced version of the upgrade wizard named the ArtinSoft Visual Basic
Upgrade Wizard Companion can also parse database schema definition files to
obtain additional information about field data types and produce improved Visual
Basic .NET code. This and other enhancements can help you further shorten your
upgrade process by automating more of it. The ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade
Wizard Companion is sold and supported by ArtinSoft. Its price is determined by
the size of the application source code. For more information, go to the ArtinSoft
Web site.

The Upgrade Report

When the upgrade wizard upgrades your project, it generates an upgrade report.
You can use this report to help you make the manual changes that your project
requires. Figure 6.1 shows an example of the upgrade report.

Figure 6.1
A sample upgrade report

The upgrade report contains information about the upgrade process, as well as a list
of issues uncovered during the upgrade that you need to address before your project
can be compiled. The upgrade report is in HTML format; you can view it within the
Visual Studio .NET development environment by double-clicking the
_UpgradeReport.htm file in Solution Explorer, or you can view it in an external Web
browser by choosing Browse With from the File menu.
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 187

The top portion of the report contains a list of global issues followed by a listing for
each file that was upgraded. By expanding the section for each file, you can view a
detailed list of issues that will need to be addressed. Each issue includes information
about the severity of the issue, the location of the code that must be fixed, and a
description of the issue. The last portion of the report contains general information
about the upgrade, including the settings that were used during the upgrade and the
location of the new project files.
In addition to the report, the upgrade wizard inserts comments into your upgraded
code alerting you to statements that will need to be changed. These comments are
displayed as TO DO tasks in the new Visual Studio .NET Task List window, so you
can easily see what changes are required. Double-clicking a task in the task list will
immediately take you to the relevant line of code. Each task and item in the upgrade
report is associated with an online Help topic that gives further information on why
the code needs to be changed, and guidance on what you need to do to resolve the
issue.

Supported Elements
This section details how the upgrade wizard upgrades Visual Basic 6.0 language
structures, native libraries, forms, and ActiveX objects to Visual Basic .NET.

Visual Basic 6.0 Language Elements

The upgrade wizard upgrades different Visual Basic 6.0 elements to Visual Basic
.NET, as discussed in the next sections.

Declarations
The upgrade wizard automatically upgrades variable declarations to their
equivalent.NET Framework types, following the Visual Basic .NET structure and
taking into account the Visual Basic 6.0 declaration guidelines.
For example, in this Visual Basic 6.0 code, a and b are implicitly declared with the
Variant data type, and c is declared explicitly as a 16-bit integer.
Dim a, b, c As Integer

In Visual Basic .NET, variables must be declared explicitly, and there is no Variant
data type. The upgrade wizard changes the code to declare a and b using the object
data type, which is the .NET Framework’s closest equivalent to Variant, and de-
clares c as short, which is what Visual Basic .NET calls its 16-bit integer data type.
Dim a, b As Object
Dim c As Short
188 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Routines
Parameters can be passed to a procedure or function in one of two ways: by refer-
ence (ByRef) or by value (ByVal). When a parameter is passed to a subprocedure by
reference, changes made to the parameter’s value affect the actual variable or object
passed by the calling procedure. When a parameter is passed by value, the
subprocedure uses a copy of the original variable or object, and any changes the
subprocedure makes to it do not affect the original.
By default, Visual Basic 6.0 uses the ByRef method when the parameter’s data type
is an intrinsic one such as Integer, Long, Boolean, String, and so on. When a param-
eter uses a non-intrinsic data type, Visual Basic 6.0 passes it by value by default.
By comparison, Visual Basic .NET passes all parameters by value unless otherwise
specified. If a parameter keyword is specified in the signature a Visual Basic 6.0
routine, the upgrade wizard will generate the Visual Basic .NET routine accordingly.
If ByVal or ByRef are not specified for a parameter in a Visual Basic 6.0 routine, the
upgrade wizard will specify ByRef for the parameter.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 code uses both explicit and implicit methods to pass
parameters.
Public Sub ByValTestSub(ByVal p1 As String)
p1 = "Hello World"
End Sub

Public Function TestFunc(p1 As Integer, p2 As Integer) As Integer

TestFunc = p1 + p2
End Function

The upgrade wizard explicitly passes the parameters by reference to the TestFunc
function, so it will operate the same way in Visual Basic .NET as it did in Visual
Basic 6.0.
Public Sub ByValTestSub(ByVal p1 As String)
p1 = "Hello World"
End Sub

Public Function TestFunc(ByRef p1 As Short, ByRef p2 As Short) As Short

TestFunc = p1 + p2
End Function

When a parameter is declared as Optional in Visual Basic 6.0, you do not have to
specify a default value for the parameter. For example, this Visual Basic 6.0 subrou-
tine can take an optional String parameter, p1.
Public Sub OpTestSub(Optional p1 As String)
End Sub
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 189

In Visual Basic .NET, you must specify a default value when declaring an optional
parameter. The subroutine uses the default value for the variable when the calling
procedure does not supply the parameter. The upgrade wizard automatically adds
default values for all optional parameters that do not already have them.
Public Sub OpTestSub(Optional ByRef p1 As String = "")
End Sub

For numeric data types, the upgrade wizard uses a default value of 0. For strings, it
uses an empty string (“”). For objects, it uses Nothing as a default value.

Properties
In Visual Basic 6.0, properties are defined using the Property Get, Property Let, and
Property Set statements. Visual Basic .NET replaces these statements with a new
property declaration syntax that uses Get and Set accessors to provide access to the
property.
This Visual Basic 6.0 code uses Property Get, Property Let, and Property Set state-
ments to expose a property named Text.
Private mText As String
Private mObj As Object

'Text properties
Public Property Get Text() As String
Text = mText
End Property
Public Property Let Text(ByVal Value As String)
mText = Value
End Property

'Object properties
Public Property Get Obj() as Object
Obj = mObj
End Property
Public Property Set Obj(ByVal Value As Object)
Set mObj = Value
End Property

The upgrade wizard combines these statements into a single property declaration
for each property. In this particular example, two new property declarations are
created, as shown here.
Private mText As String
Private mObj As Object

Public Property Text() As String

Get
Return mText
190 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

End Get
Set(ByVal Value As String)
mText = Value
End Set
End Property

Public Property Obj() As Object

Get
Obj = mObj
End Get
Set(ByVal Value As Object)
mObj = Value
End Set
End Property

In Visual Basic 6.0, you can create a read-only property by omitting the Property Let
and Property Set statements. For example, to make the Text and Obj properties in
the preceding example read-only, you can remove the Property Set and Property Let
code, as shown here.
Private mText As String
Private mObj As Object
Private mText_w As String
Private mObj_w As Object

Public Property Get Text() As String

Text = mText
End Property

Public Property Get Obj() As Object

Set Obj = mObj
End Property

Public Property Set TextW(value As String)

mText_w = value
End Property

Public Property Set ObjW(value As Object)

Set mObj_w = value
End Property

In Visual Basic .NET, read-only properties are declared using the ReadOnly modi-
fier. When you upgrade a Visual Basic 6.0 read-only property to Visual Basic .NET,
the upgrade wizard will add the ReadOnly modifier to the property declaration. An
analogous declaration is made for write-only properties, where the upgrade wizard
uses a WriteOnly modifier. The resulting code for this example is shown here.
Private mText As String
Private mObj As Object
Private mText_w As String
Private mObj_w As Object
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 191

Public ReadOnly Property Text() As String

Get
Return mText
End Get
End Property
Public ReadOnly Property Obj() As Object
Get
Obj = mObj
End Get
End Property
Public WriteOnly Property TextW() As String
Set(ByVal Value As String)
mText_w = Value
End Set
End Property
Public WriteOnly Property ObjW() As Object
Set(ByVal Value As Object)
mObj_w = Value
End Set
End Property

Event Handlers
Events in Visual Basic .NET are built on top of delegates, so they are handled very
differently from events in Visual Basic 6.0.
The upgrade wizard automatically handles the details surrounding events by
generating signatures for the methods according to the rules of the .NET Frame-
work, and by adding the necessary Visual Basic keywords to comply with the Visual
Basic .NET events infrastructure.
For example, consider a Visual Basic 6.0 class, Class1 that defines an OnChange
event with a Text property as follows.
Private mText As String

Public Event OnChange(ByVal Text As String)

Private Sub Change(ByVal Text As String)

RaiseEvent OnChange(Text)
End Sub

Public Property Get Text() As String

Text = mText
End Property

Public Property Let Text(ByVal Value As String)

mText = Value
Call Change(Value)
End Property
192 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

A Visual Basic 6.0 client application consumes the event. The application contains a
TextBox control and a Button control, and creates a Class1 object called Instance.
The application contains a form load event (Form_Load), a button click event
(Command1_Click), and a Class1 change event (Instance_OnChange). When the
button is clicked, the text property of the Class1 is modified, that in turn raises the
Instance_OnChange event.
Public WithEvents Instance As Class1

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Instance.Text = Text1.Text
End Sub
Private Sub Form_Load()
Set Instance = New Class1
End Sub
Private Sub Instance_OnChange(ByVal Text As String)
Call MsgBox("Changed to: " + Text)
End Sub

When Class1 is upgraded to Visual Basic .NET with the upgrade wizard, it produces
the following code.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
Friend Class Class1
Private mText As String
Public Event OnChange(ByVal Text As String)

Private Sub Change(ByVal Text As String)

RaiseEvent OnChange(Text)
End Sub

Public Property Text() As String

Get
Return mText
End Get
Set(ByVal Value As String)
mText = Value
Call Change(Value)
End Set
End Property
End Class
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 193

The upgrade wizard upgrades the client as follows.

Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
Friend Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
#Region "Windows Form Designer generated code "
…
Public WithEvents Text1 As System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
Public WithEvents Command1 As System.Windows.Forms.Button
…
#End Region
#Region "Upgrade Support "
…
#End Region

Public WithEvents Instance As Class1

Private Sub Command1_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles Command1.Click
Instance.Text = Text1.Text
End Sub

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Instance = New Class1
End Sub

' UPGRADE_NOTE: Text was upgraded to Text_Renamed. …

Private Sub Instance_OnChange(ByVal Text_Renamed As String) Handles _
Instance.OnChange
Call MsgBox("Changed to: " & Text_Renamed)
End Sub
End Class

In both cases, the upgrade wizard has upgraded the Visual Basic 6.0 code to Visual
Basic .NET, and no additional modifications are required.
An important change related to events is in parameter passing. In Visual Basic 6.0,
the event subroutine contains the name and type of each parameter. In Visual Basic
.NET, the parameters are bundled up in an EventArgs object and a reference to this
object is passed to the event handling subroutine. Also, the event subroutine will
receive a reference to the object that initiated the event.
To illustrate the difference in parameter passing for event handling subroutines,
consider a Visual Basic 6.0 form that contains a ListBox control named List1. If List1
is set up with the check box style, you can have an event handler deal with a
checked item. This is shown in the following code example.
Private Sub List1_ItemCheck(Item As Integer)
MsgBox "You checked item: " & Item
End Sub
194 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The upgrade wizard can be applied to the code. This results in an upgraded version
of the code with the new event handler format. The following code example shows
the results.
' UPGRADE_WARNING: ListBox event List1.ItemCheck has a new behavior.
Private Sub List1_ItemCheck(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.Windows.Forms.ItemCheckEventArgs) _
Handles List1.ItemCheck
MsgBox("You checked item " & eventArgs.Index)
End Sub

Notice how the item that is checked is passed directly as a parameter in the original
code. In contrast, it is passed as a member of the ItemCheckEventArgs object
eventArgs in the upgraded version. Note, too, that the original version required
only the selected item as a parameter, where the upgraded version requires the event
arguments object, as well as a reference to the object that initiated the event.

Control Structures
Some of the Visual Basic .NET control structures are slightly different from the
control structures in Visual Basic 6.0. For example, the Wend keyword, that ends
While loops in Visual Basic 6.0, is replaced by End While in Visual Basic .NET. The
upgrade wizard automatically upgrades Visual Basic 6.0 flow statements and pre-
serves their functionality.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 code demonstrates the If…Then, For…Next, and
While…Wend control structures.

Dim i As Integer
Dim bol As Boolean
Dim value As Integer

bol = True

If bol = True Then

i = 0
Else
i = -1
End If
For i = 0 To 10
value = value + i
Next i

i = 0
While i < 10
i = i + 1
Wend
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 195

The upgrade wizard upgrades the control structures to Visual Basic .NET as follows.
Dim i As Short
Dim bol As Boolean
Dim value As Short
bol = True

If bol = True Then

i = 0
Else
i = -1
End If

For i = 0 To 10
value = value + i
Next i

i = 0
While i < 10
i = i + 1
End While

Modules and Classes

Modules and classes are fully supported by the upgrade wizard. In Visual Studio
6.0, module and class files have distinct file name extensions (.bas for modules, .cls
for classes), and are organized in specific folders within the Project folder.
In Visual Basic .NET, modules and class files both have the same file name exten-
sion, .vb, and are distinguished from one another by the structure within each file.
The upgrade wizard automatically handles file name upgrades. For each element,
the upgrade wizard will compose a name based on a specific structure. The follow-
ing code example shows how the upgrade wizard handles a name upgrade for a
module.
Module MODULENAME
End Module

The following is for classes.

Friend Class Class1
End Class

Interfaces
In Visual Basic 6.0, common classes can be treated as interfaces. Consider the follow-
ing Visual Basic 6.0 class, Class1.
196 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Class1:
Public Sub Test()
MsgBox "Hello from class 1"
End Sub

Class2 uses the implements keyword to implement Class1.

Class2:
Implements Class1
Public Sub Class1_Test()
MsgBox "Hello from class 2"
End Sub

Public Sub Test()

Dim c As Class1
Set c = New Class1
c.Test
End Sub

When the upgrade wizard upgrades Class1 to Visual Basic .NET, it also creates an
interface with a similar name as shown here.
Interface _Class1
Sub Test()
End Interface
Friend Class Class1
Implements _Class1
Public Sub Test() Implements _Class1.Test
MsgBox("Hello from class 1")
End Sub
End Class

The upgrade wizard generates both a class and an interface to replicate the behavior
of Visual Basic 6.0. In this case, an object can be used both as an interface and as a
regular class. Class2 that implements Class1 and uses it as a regular class is up-
graded as follows.
Friend Class Class2
Implements _Class1
Public Sub Class1_Test() Implements _Class1.Test
MsgBox("Hello from class 2")
End Sub
Public Sub Test()
Dim c As _Class1
c = New Class1
c.Test()
End Sub
End Class
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 197

Web Classes
In Visual Basic 6.0, WebClass projects (also known as IIS application projects) are
used to create Web applications based on Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. In
Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET Web application projects are used to create Web applica-
tions based on the newer ASP.NET technology.
Visual Basic 6.0 WebClass projects can be upgraded to ASP.NET Web Application
projects using the upgrade wizard. The process for upgrading WebClass projects is
essentially the same as for any other project type; however, there are some related
issues that you should consider.
There are two prerequisites for upgrading a WebClass project:
● Internet Information Services (IIS) must be installed and running on the upgrade
computer.
● You must have administrative privileges that allow you to install applications.

When upgrading WebClass projects with the upgrade wizard, the following sce-
narios take place:
● When a WebClass project is upgraded, the upgrade wizard will use a new project
name by default, projectname.NET, where projectname is the name of the Visual
Basic 6.0 project. This name is then used when naming the virtual directory.
This virtual directory will also be configured as an application in IIS; and the
application-friendly name will be the project name.
● If the virtual directory name already exists on the http://localhost server (which
is typical if you repeat the application of the upgrade wizard on the same project
in order to resolve upgrade issues), the upgrade wizard will append a number to
the names of the virtual directory and the project to ensure uniqueness.
● When a Visual Basic 6.0 WebClass project is upgraded to Visual Basic.NET, the
.asp file for the project is upgraded to an .aspx file. However, any references to
the .asp file within an HTML template file are not automatically changed to .aspx
references. This is because a template file might contain references to other .asp
files that were not part of the WebClass project.
● The upgrade wizard only copies HTML template files to the new project direc-
tory. Any other .html files or image files are not copied to the new directory.
● When the upgrade wizard adds HTML files to a Visual Basic .NET project, it adds
them as content files by default. When a WebClass project is upgraded, HTML
files are added as embedded resources. If you add HTML files to the project after
it is upgraded, you must set their Build Action property to Embedded Resource
to make them visible to the application.
● The scope of Function and Sub procedures in your Visual Basic 6.0 code (for
example, ProcessTags or Respond) will be changed from Private to Public to
allow the WebClass Compatibility runtime to execute them.
198 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Declarations will be added to your project for the WebClass and for each of the
WebItems and Templates in the WebClass project.
● A Page_Load event procedure will be added to the project, creating a WebClass
object as well as WebItem object for each of the WebItems and Templates associ-
ated with the Visual Basic 6.0 WebClass project.
● In the Page_Load event procedure, you will see a call to the WebClass Compat-
ibility runtime, WebClass.ProcessEvents. This allows the runtime to render the
WebItem specified in the request URL. This code is the only new code added to
your upgraded project, and is only added to emulate the underlying behavior of
the Visual Basic 6.0 WebClass runtime.

Note: There are a number of behavioral differences for properties, methods, and events
between ASP and ASP.NET objects. For more information on behavioral differences, see Chapter
4, “Common Application Types,” and Appendix C, “Introduction to Upgrading ASP.”

Late Binding
Both Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET support late-bound objects. This is the
practice of declaring a variable as the Object data type and assigning it to an in-
stance of a class at run time. However, during the upgrade process, late-bound
objects can introduce problems when default properties are resolved, or in cases
where the underlying object model has changed and properties, methods, and
events need to be upgraded.
For example, consider a Visual Basic 6.0 form called Form1 with a label called
Label1. The following Visual Basic 6.0 code example sets the caption of the label to
“SomeText”.
Dim o As Object
Set o = Me.Label1
o.Caption = "SomeText"

In Visual Basic .NET, which uses the .NET Framework’s Windows Forms classes, the
Caption property of a label control is now called Text. When the upgrade wizard
upgrades your code to Visual Basic .NET, it upgrades the Caption property to Text
on all of your Label objects. However, because late-bound objects are type-less, the
upgrade wizard cannot detect how you intend to use them, or if any properties
should be translated. In such cases, you will need to change the code yourself after it
is upgraded.
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 199

There are two ways to correctly upgrade late-bound objects:

● You can rewrite the original Visual Basic 6.0 code using early-bound objects, so
that the upgrade wizard will upgrade it automatically, as shown here.
Dim o As Label
Set o = Me.Label1
o.Caption = "SomeText"

As a rule, you should declare variables using the appropriate object type instead
of the general Object data type whenever possible.
● You can modify the Visual Basic .NET code obtained after the upgrade process to
eliminate unnecessary late-bound variables and manually upgrade the affected
class members, as shown here.
Dim o As System.Windows.Forms.Label
Set o = Me.Label1
o.Text = "SomeText"

Note: You can use the ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion as an alternative
solution to the late-bound variable problem. The ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Com-
panion Type Inference feature deduces the most appropriate data types for variables, param-
eters, and returns values, and avoids using generic data types such as Object. When the
companion tool encounters an Object variable, it declares the variable using the appropriate
type so that you do not have to make manual modifications. For more information about the
ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion, go to the ArtinSoft Web site.

Type Casts
The upgrade wizard upgrades type casting statements using the appropriate type
restrictions. For example, this Visual Basic 6.0 code converts a 16-bit integer to a
string, and then back to an integer.
Dim i As Integer
Dim s As String

i = 1
s = CStr(i)
i = CInt(s)
200 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The Visual Basic 6.0 Integer data type corresponds to the Visual Basic .NET Short
data type. The upgrade wizard uses the appropriate casting statement when it
creates the Visual Basic .NET code, as shown here.
Dim i As Short
Dim s As String

i = 1
s = CStr(i)
i = CShort(s)

Enums
Enumerations, or enums, are a special type of value type. An enum has a name and
a set of fields that define values for a primitive data type.
The upgrade wizard automatically upgrades enumerated types and their references
to the format used by Visual Basic .NET. For example, the following Visual Basic
.NET code declares and uses an enumerated type.
Public Enum MyEnum
FirstValue
SecondValue
ThirdValue
End Enum
Public Sub TestEnum()
Dim e As MyEnum
e = SecondValue
End Sub

The upgrade wizard automatically modifies the code for Visual Basic .NET as
follows.
Public Enum MyEnum
FirstValue
SecondValue
ThirdValue
End Enum

Public Sub TestEnum()

Dim e As MyEnum
e = MyEnum.SecondValue
End Sub
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 201

User-Defined Types
In Visual Basic 6.0, you can use user-defined types (UDTs) to create groups of data
items of different types. In Visual Basic .NET, UDTs are called structures. A structure
associates one or more members with each other and with the structure itself. When
you declare a structure, it becomes a composite data type, and you can declare
variables of that type.
UDTs and the Upgrade Wizard
The upgrade wizard automatically upgrades UDTs to Visual Basic .NET structures.
For example, the following Visual Basic 6.0 code defines and uses a UDT.
Private Type MyType
x As Integer
y As Integer
name As String
End Type
Public Sub TestUDT()
Dim udt As MyType
udt.name = "Joe"
udt.x = 5
udt.y = 10
End Sub

The Visual Basic .NET code produced by the upgrade wizard uses the Structure
keyword to redefine the UDT as a structure.
Private Structure MyType
Dim x As Short
Dim y As Short
Dim name As String
End Structure
Public Sub TestUDT()
Dim udt As MyType
udt.name = "Joe"
udt.x = 5
udt.y = 10
End Sub
202 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Upgrading UDTs with Fixed-Length Fields

The previous example shows a UDT that contains native data type fields. The size of
these fields is determined by the programming language and the way it is compiled.
The fact that there are equivalent .NET data types for each of the original fields
allows the automatic upgrade to be performed; this is not always the case.
It is typical to have UDTs that contain fixed-length fields that are composed of basic
data elements, such as arrays or fixed-length strings. This type of UDT is commonly
used when accessing legacy flat files, as discussed in Chapter 11, “Upgrading String
and File Operations,” in the section, “Accessing Fixed-Length Records Using UDTs.”
The following example shows a Visual Basic 6.0 UDT that contains fixed-length
fields.
Type employee
name As String * 15
last_name As String * 20
department As String * 6
phone_ext(3) As Long
salary As Integer
End Type

The upgrade wizard upgrades the code as follows.

Structure employee
<VBFixedString(15),System.Runtime.InteropServices.MarshalAs( _
System.Runtime.InteropServices.UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, _
SizeConst:=15)> Public name As String

<VBFixedString(20),System.Runtime.InteropServices.MarshalAs( _
System.Runtime.InteropServices.UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, _
SizeConst:=20)> Public last_name As String

<VBFixedString(6),System.Runtime.InteropServices.MarshalAs( _
System.Runtime.InteropServices.UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, _
SizeConst:=6)> Public department As String

<VBFixedArray(3)> Dim phone_ext() As Integer

Dim salary As Short

' UPGRADE_TODO: "Initialize" must be called to initialize instances of

' this structure. Click for more:
' 'ms-help://MS.VSCC.2003/commoner/redir/redirect.htm?keyword="vbup1026"'
Public Sub Initialize()
ReDim phone_ext(3)
End Sub
End Structure

The fields whose data type is a fixed-length string cannot be directly declared in the
Visual Basic .NET structure because fixed-length strings are not a native type in
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 203

Visual Basic .NET and cannot be included in structures. One possible solution that
can be used in variable declarations is to use the VB6.FixedLengthString compat-
ibility class, but because it is an object it also cannot be included in structures.
To solve the problem for structures, a programmer can indicate that a field in a
structure must be treated as a fixed-length element for file I/O purposes. This
functionality corresponds to the .NET marshaling capabilities and is specified using
the VBFixedString or VBFixedArray attributes; the argument passed to these
attributes represents the size of the field. In this manner, an equivalent Visual Basic
.NET structure can be obtained. The preceding Visual Basic .NET code example
demonstrates the use of this marshaling attribute.

Note: The technique shown here is applicable only when dealing with fixed-length strings and
arrays in file I/O scenarios. In interop situations, you will have to use the MarshalAs attribute
to properly deal with fixed-length fields. For more information about the MarshalAs attribute,
see Chapter 14, “Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET.”

Visual Basic 6.0 Native Libraries (VB, VBA, VBRUN)

The Visual Basic 6.0 native libraries — which provide much of the language’s core
functionality — have been replaced by the .NET Framework itself. The .NET Frame-
work provides the .NET languages with core functionality through the System
namespace and other namespaces. The upgrade wizard automatically replaces calls
to the Visual Basic 6.0 native libraries with calls to the equivalent .NET Framework
objects and classes.
For example, the following Visual Basic 6.0 code uses functions from the VB, VBA,
and VBRUN libraries, as indicated.
Public Sub TestLibraries()
Dim s As String ' Library: VBA
s = CStr("2005") ' Library: VBA

Dim c As ColorConstants ' Library: VBRUN

c = vbBlue ' Library: VBRUN

MsgBox App.EXEName ' Library: VB

End Sub

The Visual Basic .NET code covered by the upgrade wizard instead uses objects and
methods from the .NET Framework.
Public Sub TestLibraries()
Dim s As String ' Library: VBA
s = CStr("2005") ' Library: VBA

Dim c As System.Drawing.Color ' Library: VBRUN

204 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

c = System.Drawing.Color.Blue ' Library: VBRUN

MsgBox(VB6.GetExeName()) ' Library: VB

End Sub

Visual Basic 6.0 Objects

This section explains how the upgrade wizard upgrades forms and visual compo-
nents. It also summarizes the similarities and differences between Visual Basic 6.0
graphical controls and their .NET equivalents.

Forms
The upgrade wizard upgrades Visual Basic 6.0 forms (files with the file name exten-
sion .frm) to Windows Forms, the .NET Framework’s form development system,
which uses classes in the System.Windows.Forms.Form namespace:
Friend Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
…
End Class

Upgraded form files are saved with the file name extension .vb, like other Visual
Basic .NET code files. Each Visual Basic 6.0 form’s properties, methods, and events
(PME) is upgraded to an equivalent System.Windows.Forms.Form PMEs. For
example, this Visual Basic 6.0 code changes two visual properties of the current form
when a button is clicked.
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Me.Caption = "My Form"
Me.BackColor = ColorConstants.vbBlue
End Sub

The upgrade wizard automatically upgrades the code and modifies the default
visual appearance of the form to the Visual Basic .NET default.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
Friend Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
#Region "Windows Form Designer generated code "
…
' Required by the Windows Form Designer
Private components As System.ComponentModel.IContainer
Public WithEvents Command1 As System.Windows.Forms.Button

' NOTE: The following procedure is required by the Windows Form Designer
' It can be modified using the Windows Form Designer.
' Do not modify it using the code editor.
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 205

<System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> Private Sub InitializeComponent()

Me.components = New System.ComponentModel.Container()
Me.Command1 = New System.Windows.Forms.Button
Me.Text = "Form1"
Me.ClientSize = New System.Drawing.Size(548, 295)
Me.Location = New System.Drawing.Point(4, 20)
Me.StartPosition = _
System.Windows.Forms.FormStartPosition.WindowsDefaultLocation
Me.Font = New System.Drawing.Font("Arial", 8!, _
System.Drawing.FontStyle.Regular, System.Drawing.GraphicsUnit.Point, _
CType(0, Byte))
Me.AutoScaleBaseSize = New System.Drawing.Size(5, 13)
Me.BackColor = System.Drawing.SystemColors.Control
Me.FormBorderStyle = System.Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.Sizable
Me.ControlBox = True
Me.Enabled = True
Me.KeyPreview = False
Me.MaximizeBox = True
Me.MinimizeBox = True
Me.Cursor = System.Windows.Forms.Cursors.Default
Me.RightToLeft = System.Windows.Forms.RightToLeft.No
Me.ShowInTaskbar = True
Me.HelpButton = False
Me.WindowState = System.Windows.Forms.FormWindowState.Normal
Me.Name = "Form1"
…
End Sub
#End Region
#Region "Upgrade Support "
…
#End Region

Private Sub Command1_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles Command1.Click
Me.Text = "My Form"
Me.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Blue
End Sub
End Class

For Visual Basic 2005:

The upgrade wizard in Visual Studio 2005 supports additional properties, meth-
ods, and events with respect to the previous version. This additional support is
based in part on the new features available in Visual Basic 2005; for example, the
BackgroundImageLayout property allows for a more precise upgrade of the
Visual Basic 6.0 Form.Picture property, which was originally upgraded to
Form.BackgroundImage and produced a different behavior message.
206 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Resources
Visual Basic 6.0 supports resource files that have the file name extension .res.
Each Visual Basic 6.0 project can have one resource file.
Resource files in Visual Basic .NET have the file name extension .resx. They consist
of XML entries that specify objects and strings inside XML tags.
When you use the upgrade wizard to upgrade a Visual Basic 6.0 project that has an
associated resource file, the wizard automatically upgrades the Visual Basic 6.0 .res
file to a Visual Basic .NET .resx file.

Form Resources
Visual Basic 6.0 form binary files (files with the file name extension .frx) contain
necessary resources for the main program form, such as images and icons.
In Visual Basic .NET, binary resources are encoded into .resx files. Forms can retrieve
resources automatically from associated resource files.
The upgrade wizard upgrades .frx files to .resx files associated with a Form class.

Source Code Reorganization

In Visual Basic 6.0, every form (including MDIForms) has a pre-declared Form ID, or
instance variable, with the same name as the Form class. Declaring a Form ID is
similar to using Visual Basic 6.0’s New keyword: if a line of code references a form
and its value is Nothing, a new instance of the form is automatically created.
' Create an instance if it has not already been done, and show it.
Form1.Show
Form1.BackColor = vbBlue
…
set Form1 = Nothing
' Shows a new instance.
Form1.Show

The upgrade wizard simulates Visual Basic 6.0’s behavior for forms and MDIForms
by creating a public property called DefInstance. For the previous Visual Basic 6.0
code example, the upgrade wizard produces the following Visual Basic .NET code.
' Create an instance if it has not already been done, and show it.
Form1.DefInstance.Show
Form1.DefInstance.BackColor = vbBlue
…
Form1.DefInstance = Nothing
' Shows a new instance.
Form1.DefInstance.Show
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 207

For Visual Basic 2005:

Visual Basic 2005 supports the use of the Form class name as a pre-declared
instance. This change is supported by the Visual Studio 2005 version of the
upgrade wizard to produce the following result used in the previous Visual
Basic 6.0 code example:
' Create an instance if it has not already been done, and show it.
Form1.Show
Form1.BackColor = vbBlue
…
Form1 = Nothing
' Shows a new instance.
Form1.Show

In addition, the upgrade wizard automatically adds the following code to each Form
and MDIForm in the project to support the creation of a new instance of a Form.
#Region " Upgrade Support "
Private Shared m_vb6FormDefInstance As Form1
Private Shared m_InitializingDefInstance As Boolean
Public Shared Property DefInstance As Form1
Get
If m_vb6FormDefInstance Is Nothing OrElse m_vb6FormDefInstance.IsDisposed
_
Then
m_InitializingDefInstance = True
m_vb6FormDefInstance = New Form1
m_InitializingDefInstance = False
End If
DefInstance = m_vb6FormDefInstance
End Get
Set
m_vb6FormDefInstance = Value
End Set
End Property
#End Region

Note: The “Form1” type should be replaced with the form class names.

The following is the Visual Basic .NET code required to instantiate a SDI form.
Public Sub New()
MyBase.New

If m_vb6FormDefInstance Is Nothing Then

If m_InitializingDefInstance Then
m_vb6FormDefInstance = Me
Else
208 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Try
' For the start-up form, the first instance created is the
' default instance
If System.Reflection.Assembly. _
GetExecutingAssembly.EntryPoint.DeclaringType _
Is Me.GetType Then
m_vb6FormDefInstance = Me
End If
Catch
End Try
End If
End If

' This call is required by the Windows Form Designer.

InitializeComponent

' If this is an MDI child, code to set the MDIParent comes here.
' If this is an MDI child, and the MDIForm in the project has
' AuthoShowChildren=True, code comes here to automatically show the form.
End Sub

If the Form is an MDI Form, the code in Sub New is slightly different.
Public Sub New()
MyBase.New
If m_vb6FormDefInstance Is Nothing Then
' Allow only a single instance of this MDI form to be created.
m_vb6FormDefInstance = Me
End If

' This call is required by the Windows Form Designer.

InitializeComponent
MDIForm_Initialize_Renamed() * this call only if required
End Sub

The upgrade wizard also moves all visual components and forms initializations to
the InitializeComponent method. For example, in a Visual Basic 6.0 form the form’s
caption is stored in the .frm file.
Begin VB.Form Form1
Caption = "Form1"

The upgrade wizard moves this code to the InitializeComponent method.

Friend Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
#Region "Windows Form Designer generated code "
…
<System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> Private Sub InitializeComponent()
…
Me.Text = "Form1"
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 209

…
End Sub
#End Region
…
End Class

For Visual Basic 2005:

Windows Forms will support Partial Types; where user code is stored in one
file and InItializeComponents and any non-user code will be stored in another
file. This allows for splitting the Forms file format into two separate files. The
upgrade wizard will upgrade Forms to use partial types. For more information
about partial types, see “What’s New with the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard in
Visual Basic 2005" on MSDN.

Measurement Unit Conversion

In Visual Basic 6.0, the ScaleMode property can be used to change the coordinate
system for a form or PictureBox control from the default scale of twips. Visual Basic
.NET does not support multiple coordinate systems; all measurements must be
expressed in pixels. When you upgrade a project to Visual Basic .NET, the upgrade
wizard automatically converts the design-time coordinates of visual components
from twips to pixels. Code that sets the ScaleMode property at run time will cause a
compilation error and must be manually modified.

Note: The upgrade wizard assumes that the design-time setting of the ScaleMode property is
Twip; if this is not the case, the upgrade will be incorrect and must be fixed.

The upgrade wizard also uses upgraded methods in the

Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6 namespace to upgrade run-time modifi-
cations of a control’s position. For example, this Visual Basic 6.0 method changes the
Height property of a button.
Public Sub x()
Me.Command1.Height = 5
End Sub

The upgrade wizard upgrades this code to Visual Basic .NET as follows.
Public Sub x()
Me.Command2.Height = VB6.TwipsToPixelsY(5)
End Sub

As with its upgrade of design-time coordinates, the upgrade wizard assumes that
the design-time setting of the ScaleMode property is Twip. If it is not, you will need
to manually fix the method.
210 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Visual Basic 6.0 Native Controls

The .NET Framework provides equivalents for most of the Visual Basic 6.0 standard
user interface controls; however, some Visual Basic 6.0 controls have no .NET
equivalents, and others have been renamed. Table 6.2 lists the standard controls
from the Visual Basic 6.0 Toolbox with their equivalents in the .NET Framework.
Table 6.2: Visual Basic 6.0 Standard Controls and Their .NET Framework Equivalents
Visual Basic 6.0 Standard Controls Upgrade Wizard Output
PictureBox System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox. Note that if the
PictureBox control is used as a container for other
controls, the upgrade wizard upgrades it to
System.Windows.Forms.Panel.
Label System.Windows.Forms.Label
TextBox System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
Frame System.Windows.Forms.GroupBox
CommandButton System.Windows.Forms.Button
CheckBox System.Windows.Forms.CheckBox
OptionButton System.Windows.Forms.RadioButton
ListBox System.Windows.Forms.ListBox
ComboBox System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox
HScrollBar System.Windows.Forms.HScrollBar
VscrollBar System.Windows.Forms.VScrollBar
Timer System.Windows.Forms.Timer
DriveListBox Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6.DriveListBox
DirListBox Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6.DirListBox
FileListBox Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6.FileListBox
Shape Not applicable. You use a class in the .NET Common
Language Runtime (CLR) to draw shapes.
Line Not applicable. You use a class in the .NET CLR to
draw a line.
Image System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox
Data Not applicable. Visual Basic .NET handles data
binding differently from Visual Basic 6.0.
OLE Not applicable.
ImageList System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 211

The upgrade wizard upgrades any Shape, Line, Data, and OLE controls in your
forms to System.Windows.Forms.Label controls, and sets each label’s BackColor
property to Red.
The upgrade wizard automatically upgrades the functionality of supported visual
components to Visual Basic .NET. For example, consider a Visual Basic 6.0 project
that contains a CommandButton with a click event, a Label, a TextBox and a
ComboBox. When the button is clicked, the other controls are modified as follows.
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Me.Text1.Text = "Hello World"
Me.Combo1.AddItem ("Item 1")
Me.Label1.Caption = "Good bye"
End Sub

The upgrade wizard upgrades the component to Visual Basic .NET, and changes the
methods used to modify the controls accordingly.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
Friend Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
#Region "Windows Form Designer generated code "
…
Public WithEvents Combo1 As System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox
Public WithEvents Command1 As System.Windows.Forms.Button
Public WithEvents Text1 As System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
Public WithEvents Label1 As System.Windows.Forms.Label
…
#End Region
#Region "Upgrade Support "
…
#End Region

Private Sub Command1_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles Command1.Click
Me.Text1.Text = "Hello World"
Me.Combo1.Items.Add(("Item 1"))
Me.Label1.Text = "Good bye"
End Sub
End Class

Control Arrays
A control array is a group of controls that share the same name, type, and event
procedures. Elements of the same control array have their own property settings.
The upgrade wizard relays on functions and objects in the
Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6 namespace to upgrade control arrays.
212 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Note: Classes in the Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility namespace and its child

namespaces are provided for use by the Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET upgrade tools.
In most cases, these classes duplicate functionality that can be achieved using other parts of
the .NET Framework. They are only necessary in cases where the Visual Basic 6.0 code model
differs significantly from the .NET implementation.

Table 6.3 lists the control arrays in the Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6

namespace, which are used to upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 control arrays.
Table 6.3: Control Arrays Available in the Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6 Namespace
Object Description
BaseControlArray Parent class for Visual Basic 6.0 control array emulation.
BaseOcxArray Parent class for emulated arrays of ActiveX controls.
ButtonArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of CommandButton controls.
CheckBoxArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of CheckBox controls.
CheckedListBoxArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of ListBox controls with the
Style property set to Checked.
ComboBoxArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of ComboBox controls.
DirListBoxArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of DirListBox controls.
DriveListBoxArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of DriveListBox controls.
FileListBoxArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of FileListBox controls.
GroupBoxArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of Frame controls.
HScrollBarArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of HScrollBar controls.
LabelArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of Label controls.
ListBoxArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of ListBox controls.
MenuItemArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of Menu controls.
PanelArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of PictureBox controls that
contain child controls.
PictureBoxArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of PictureBox controls.
RadioButtonArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of OptionButton controls.
TabControlArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of TabStrip controls.
TextBoxArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of TextBox controls.
TimerArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of Timer controls.
VscrollBarArray Emulates a Visual Basic 6.0 control array of VScrollBar controls.
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 213

Data Environments
Visual Basic 6.0 data environment modules have the file name extension .dsr. They
contain information used to create ADO connections and commands to access data.
Data environments, their connections, and commands are upgraded to Visual Basic
.NET using classes in the
Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6.BaseDataEnvironment,
ADODB.Connection and ADODB.Command namespaces, respectively. The up-
grade wizard converts Active Designer (.dsr) files to .vb files. Each .vb file contains a
class that inherits from
Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6.BaseDataEnvironment.
For more information about data access, see “Upgrading Data Environment” in
Chapter 12, “Upgrading Data Access.”

ActiveX
This section describes how the upgrade wizard upgrades Visual Basic 6.0 applica-
tions that use ActiveX components and controls to Visual Basic .NET.

Upgrading ActiveX Components

When the upgrade wizard encounters ActiveX components in a Visual Basic 6.0
application, it creates two types of wrappers around each component:
● A runtime callable wrapper (RCW). The .NET Framework’s Type Library Im-
porter (Tlbimp.exe) creates an RCW for the ActiveX component and all depen-
dent assemblies.
● A Windows Forms wrapper (WFW). A WFW “merges” the ActiveX component’s
native properties, methods, and events with those of
System.Windows.Forms.AxHost. This is a class that inherits from
System.Windows.Forms.Control and exposes ActiveX controls to the .NET
Framework as fully functional Windows Forms controls.
The upgrade wizard adds these wrappers to the project as DLLs. For example, if you
add the ActiveX: Microsoft Calendar Control (MSCAL.OCX) to a Visual Basic 6.0
project and use the upgrade wizard to upgrade the project to Visual Basic .NET, the
upgrade wizard will create two files: AxInterop.MSACAL.dll (the WFW) and
Interop.MSACAL.dll (the RCW).
The upgrade wizard also automatically upgrades references to the ActiveX compo-
nent and its properties, methods, and events, and adds any design-time
initializations of the component’s properties to the InitializeComponent method.
214 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

This Visual Basic .NET code example represents the output of the upgrade wizard
after upgrading a Visual Basic 6.0 application with one form containing the Micro-
soft Calendar Control (named “Calendar1” here).
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
Friend Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
#Region "Windows Form Designer generated code "
…

'Required by the Windows Form Designer

…
Public WithEvents Calendar1 As AxMSACAL.AxCalendar
' NOTE: The following procedure is required by the Windows Form Designer
' It can be modified using the Windows Form Designer.
' Do not modify it using the code editor.
<System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> Private Sub InitializeComponent()
…
Me.Calendar1 = New AxMSACAL.AxCalendar
CType(Me.Calendar1, System.ComponentModel.ISupportInitialize).BeginInit()
…
Calendar1.OcxState = CType(resources.GetObject("Calendar1.OcxState"), _
System.Windows.Forms.AxHost.State)
Me.Calendar1.Size = New System.Drawing.Size(273, 177)
Me.Calendar1.Location = New System.Drawing.Point(56, 8)
Me.Calendar1.TabIndex = 0
Me.Calendar1.Name = "Calendar1"
Me.Controls.Add(Calendar1)
CType(Me.Calendar1, System.ComponentModel.ISupportInitialize).EndInit()
End Sub
#End Region
…
End Class

ActiveX Controls Upgraded to .NET Intrinsic Controls

The current version of the upgrade wizard automatically upgrades the Microsoft
Tabbed Dialog Control 6.0 ActiveX component to the .NET Framework control
System.Windows.Forms.TabControl.

For Visual Basic 2005:

The Visual Basic 2005 version of the upgrade wizard will have the ability to
upgrade additional ActiveX controls to their .NET Framework equivalents.

User Controls
Visual Basic 6.0 uses user controls that are also known as ActiveX Control projects,
to create ActiveX controls. After user controls are compiled, they can be hosted in
any container that supports ActiveX, including Visual Basic 6.0 forms and Internet
Explorer.
 Chapter 6: Understanding the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 215

In Visual Basic .NET, Windows Class Library projects are used to create reusable
classes and components that can be shared with other projects and hosted in Win-
dows Forms applications. The Windows Class Library template replaces the ActiveX
DLL project template in Visual Basic 6.0.

Note: Unlike Visual Basic 6.0 User Controls, Windows Class Library controls can not be hosted
in Internet Explorer.

The upgrade wizard upgrades Visual Basic 6.0 user controls to Windows Class
Libraries. If the entire project is an ActiveX DLL, the upgrade is automatic. If the
project is a standard Visual Basic project that contains User Controls, however the
upgrade wizard will not create a separate project for these components. After
upgrading the application, you should manually create a Class Library project and
move the components from the upgraded application to the new project.
In Visual Basic 6.0, the ReadProperties and WriteProperties events are used to
retrieve or save a UserControl’s values to a PropertyBag object. In Visual Basic
.NET, the PropertyBag object is no longer supported, and the ReadProperties and
WriteProperties events no longer exist. Visual Basic .NET does not support property
pages (.pag and .pax files) that contain serialized data for controls, including
PropertyBag information. Like any other unsupported project item, the original .pag
file (and .pax file, as well, if it exists), will be copied to the destination directory and
added to the project with a build action of None. For more information on the
upgrade of Property Pages see “Property Pages” in Chapter 9, “Upgrading Visual
Basic 6.0 Forms Features.”
The upgrade wizard automatically upgrades the remaining functionality of Visual
Basic 6.0 user controls, using System.Windows.Forms.UserControl as the base class.
Expressions, flow control statements, properties, events, procedures, and functions
are upgraded following the same rules that apply to the Visual Basic 6.0 application
upgrades.
For more information about components, see Chapter 4, “Common Application
Types,” Chapter 14 “Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET,” and
Chapter 15, “Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications.”

Summary
To ensure an efficient upgrade of your application, you should apply tools that
automate as much of the upgrade as possible.
While several tools are available, the most accessible is part of the Visual Studio
.NET IDE: the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard. The upgrade wizard is capable of
automatically performing much of the upgrade of your code. It also helps to identify
216 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

portions of code that cannot be automatically upgraded and provides references to

the MSDN website for additional help with the issues that it reports.
To make the best use of the upgrade wizard, it is helpful to understand the Visual
Basic 6.0 features that it supports and automatically upgrades and those that it does
not. This chapter highlights the features that the upgrade wizard can upgrade and
explains how it performs these upgrades. With this information, you can efficiently
prepare your Visual Basic 6.0 application for use with the upgrade wizard. You will
also understand what you need to do after the upgrade wizard had done its job.
Although the upgrade wizard is a powerful tool, there are some features that cannot
be automatically upgraded. The following chapters of this guide will provide you
with the techniques you need to facilitate features that require manual attention.

More Information
For more information about the ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion,
go to the ArtinSoft Web site:
http://www.artinsoft.com/.
For more information about partial types in Visual Basic 2005, see “What’s New
with the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard in Visual Basic 2005" on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html
/VBUpgrade.asp.
7
Upgrading Commonly-Used
Visual Basic 6.0 Objects
The Basic programming language has been around for a long time in a variety of
forms — Microsoft GW-BASIC, Microsoft QuickBasic, Microsoft Visual Basic, and
Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), to name just a few varieties. Each
product provides its own brand of the Basic programming language, supporting or
not supporting certain types and language constructs. Each product has also made
an attempt to clean up or simplify the language.
Microsoft Visual Basic .NET offers another version of the Basic language, adding
its own types and language constructs and omitting others. As a result, when you
upgrade your applications from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET, you may find
some issues in the upgraded applications. Some of these issues can be remedied
with a one-line fix, whereas others require you to recode the problem area or even
redesign it.
Different programmers will provide different solutions for the same problem; any
particular programming problem can be solved in many different ways. For each of
the problems in this chapter, a sample solution that you can use in your own code is
provided. However, the Microsoft .NET Framework often provides several different
alternatives that achieve the same effect. You may find that another approach is
more suitable for the particular problem you are trying to solve. Where possible,
alternative solutions are presented along with references to sources where you can
learn more about them.
Typical Visual Basic 6.0 applications are built with standard objects available in the
language. Several of these objects have become obsolete in Visual Basic .NET and
require special handling to upgrade. This chapter describes the most commonly
used Visual Basic 6.0 objects that are no longer supported in Visual Basic .NET and
how to replace them with Visual Basic .NET technologies.
218 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For Visual Basic 2005:

The upgrade wizard included in Visual Studio .NET 2003 converts third-party
components using ActiveX wrappers. The upgrade wizard included with
Visual Studio .NET 2005 supports the most common third-party component
libraries and upgrades the classes and controls to intrinsic .NET components,
eliminating the need of ActiveX wrappers.
The new libraries and the main components supported by the Visual Basic
Upgrade Wizard 2005 are:
● Microsoft Common Dialog Control 6.0: CommonDialog

● Microsoft Internet Controls: WebBrowse

● Microsoft Masked Edit Control 6.0: MaskEdBox

● Microsoft Rich Textbox Control 6.0: RichTextBox

● Microsoft Windows Common Controls 6.0:

● TreeView

● StatusBar

● ProgressBar

● ImageList

● ListView

● ToolBar

● COM+ Services Type Library: Most of the classes are supported.

Additionally, the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion (also known as the
Visual Basic Companion) includes support with different levels of automation
for the following components and technologies:
● Upgrade of ADO to ADO.NET

● Recordset (ADOR)

● Microsoft Windows Common Controls-2 6.0

● Microsoft Windows Common Controls 5.0

● Microsoft FlexGrid Control 6.0

● Microsoft XML, version 2.6

● ActiveX Threed controls

● SSPanel

● SSSplitter

● SSTab

● ComponentOne VSFlexGrid 7.0 (OLEDB and Light)

To obtain the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion, go to the ArtinSoft
Web site.
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 219

Upgrading the App Object

The App object in Visual Basic 6.0 is a global object that is used to set or retrieve
information about the application. There is no direct equivalent for the App object
in Visual Basic .NET; however, most of the properties can be mapped to equivalent
properties in the Microsoft .NET Framework. For example, the App object’s version
information properties are replaced by assembly attributes in Visual Basic .NET.
In Visual Basic 6.0, you can set the version information by using the Project Proper-
ties dialog box. To reach this dialog box, click on the Project menu and select Project
Properties (where Project is the name of your project). To set the version informa-
tion, click the Make tab and fill in the appropriate values in the Version Number
area.
In Visual Basic .NET you should use the assembly attributes, which are set by
editing the AssemblyInfo file of your converted project.
For example, suppose you have a Visual Basic 6.0 form with one PictureBox control
and one Label control on it. Assume all properties specifying the version of the
project are set. During form loading, the App object is used to retrieve the informa-
tion about the application version as major, minor, and revision numbers and the
path of the executable file. The following code example demonstrates this.
Private Sub Form_Load()
If App.PrevInstance = True Then
MsgBox ("The application is already running!")
End
End If

' Show the application's version number on the form label.

lblVersion.Caption = "Version " & App.Major & "." & App.Minor & _
"." & App.Revision

' Displaying an image file that is stored in the application's

' folder by retrieving the path to the executing application.
Picture1.Picture = LoadPicture(App.Path & "\Logo.jpg")
End Sub

Using the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard on the preceding code yields an upgrade
issue that must be manually addressed. Because there is no direct equivalent for the
App object in Visual Basic .NET, some parts of the code that reference it cannot be
translated by the upgrade wizard. In this case, the Revision property will not be
translated by the upgrade wizard, and the code using App.Revision remains un-
changed. Instead, the upgrade wizard inserts a comment highlighting the issue in
the code at the point in which the issue appears. The result of applying the upgrade
wizard to this code is shown on the next page.
220 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

' UPGRADE_ISSUE: App property App.Revision was not upgraded.

lblVersion.Text = "Version " & _
System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo( _
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).FileMajorPart &
_
"." & System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo( _
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).FileMinorPart &
_
"." & App.Revision

Note: This code example has been modified from that produced by the upgrade wizard to make
it easier to read. The comment and code are each generated on a single line, whereas this
code example has been broken up across multiple lines. This does not affect the compilation
of the code in any way.

The code generated by the upgrade wizard is unable to translate the App.Revision
property reference, and as a result, the code will not compile. There are two ways to
fix the error. The first is to simply remove the properties that cannot be upgraded
from the code. Using this approach, App.Revision would be removed from the
example, and the resulting code would appear as follows.
Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) _
Handles MyBase.Load
If (UBound(Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName( _
Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess.ProcessName)) > 0) Then
MsgBox("The application is already running!")
End
End If

lblVersion.Text = "Version " & _

System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo( _
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location _
).FileMajorPart & _
"." & System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo( _
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location _
).FileMinorPart

' Displaying an image file that is stored in the

' application's folder by retrieving the path to the
' executing application.
Picture1.Image = System.Drawing.Image.FromFile(VB6.GetPath & "\Logo.jpg")
End Sub

This approach allows the application to be built, but it will probably result in a loss
of functionality. A second approach is to search for components in the Microsoft
.NET Framework that can replace the desired functionality. In the preceding ex-
ample, the problem with the App.Revision property can be fixed using the
ProductVersion property of the Application object, which returns the entire version
number of the application in 0.0.0.0 format. Here is the replacement code.
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 221

lblVersion.Text = "Version " & Application.ProductVersion

Note that because the ProductVersion property returns the entire version number
for the application, some portions of the code that the upgrade wizard did translate
have also been removed.
If you want to access the revision value as a single integer, the mechanism for doing
this is provided in Table 7.1.
For a comprehensive list of App object properties and methods that have equivalent
replacements in Visual Basic .NET, see “App Object Changes in Visual Basic .NET”
in Visual Basic Concepts on MSDN. Table 7.1 summarizes the App object properties
and methods, and provides Visual Basic .NET equivalents you can use to replace
them.
Table 7.1: Visual Basic .NET Equivalents for App Object Properties and Methods
Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET Equivalent
Comments System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(System.Reflection.
Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).Comments
CompanyName (System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).
CompanyName
EXEName VB6.GetEXEName()
FileDescription System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(System.Reflection.
Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).FileDescription
HelpFile See the “Upgrading Integrated Help” section of Chapter 16,
“Application Completion,” for information about Visual Basic .NET
equivalents for the HelpFile property.
HInstance VB6.GetHInstance()
LegalCopyright System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(System.Reflection.
Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).LegalCopyright
LegalTrademarks System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(System.Reflection.
Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).LegalTrademarks
LogEvent method Logging in Visual Basic .NET is handled by event logs. You can replace
LogMode functionality by using the class System.Diagnostics.EventLog.
LogPath
Major System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(System.
Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).FileMajorPart
Note: The format for version numbers is different in Visual Basic .NET.
Minor System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(System.Reflection.
Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).FileMinorPart
Note: The format for version numbers is different in Visual Basic .NET.
continued
222 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET Equivalent

NonModalAllowed This was a read-only property related to ActiveX DLL files. The
.NET common language runtime automatically manages this
behavior, so this property can be removed.
OleRequestPendingMsgText These properties relate to OLE automation, which is not
OleRequestPendingMsgTitle supported by Visual Basic .NET. For alternatives, see Chapter
OleRequestPendingTimeout 14, “Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET.”
OleServerBusyMsgText
OleServerBusyMsgTitle
OleServerBusyRaiseError
OleServerBusyTimeout
Path VB6.GetPath
PrevInstance UBound(Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName
(Diagnostics.Process.- GetCurrentProcess.ProcessName)) > 0
ProductName System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(System.
Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).
ProductName
RetainedProject Visual Basic .NET does not have the ability to retain a project in
memory, so this property must be removed or replaced by the
False literal.
Revision If this property is used in combination with Major and Minor, all
references can be replaced by Application.ProductVersion.If
this property is used alone, the number can be replaced by
System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(System.
Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).
FileBuildPart
These calls provide the product version information that is
stored in the binary executable file.To get the revision number
of an assembly file use
System.Reflection.AssemblyName.GetAssemblyName(System.
Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.Location).Version.
Revision.
Note: The format for version numbers is different in Visual
Basic .NET.
StartLogging method Logging in to Visual Basic .NET is handled by way of event logs.
You can replace functionality by using the class
System.Diagnostics.EventLog.
StartMode In Visual Basic 6.0, this property was used to start an
application as an ActiveX component. ActiveX component
creation is not supported in Visual Studio .NET. To simulate this
behavior, you can add an additional optional parameter to the
constructor of the main form, and use 0 as default value when
the application is loaded directly by the user.
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 223

Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET Equivalent

TaskVisible To simulate this behavior, you can use System.Windows.Forms.
Form.ShowInTaskBar, or you can change your project to a
Windows service or a console application that will not show up
in the task list.
ThreadID The threading model is different in Visual Basic .NET, but this
property can be replaced by the method
AppDomain.GetCurrentThreadId().
Title System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly.GetName.
Name
There is no mapping for Set. In Visual Basic .NET, the name
that is displayed in the Microsoft Windows Task List is the Text
property of the form.
UnattendedApp References to this property should be removed. For unattended
applications in Visual Basic .NET, choose a Console Application
project.

For Visual Basic 2005:

Visual Studio 2005 includes the new My namespace that provides a full-
featured set of members and services designed to make the most common
programming scenarios the easiest to implement. Additional support for the
Visual Basic 6.0 App object can be obtained through the My.Application
namespace. The upgrade wizard included with this version of Visual Studio
.NET will automatically upgrade all applicable App members, including
CompanyName, EXEName, FileDescription, LegalCopyright,
LegalTrademarks, LogEvent, LogPath, Major, and Minor among others.
Additionally, the My namespace exposes functionality to handle computer and
resource objects and functions. The corresponding classes are included in
My.Computer and My.Resources.
For example, one of the conversions that the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 2005
will perform is shown here.
The following is the original Visual Basic 6.0 code.
…
labelText = LoadResString(1)
…
The following is the code obtained with the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 2003.
…
labelText = VB6.LoadResString(1)
…
The following is the code obtained with the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 2005.
…
labelText = My.Resources.str1
…
224 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Upgrading the Screen Object

Similar to the App object, the Visual Basic 6.0 Screen object provides properties and
methods for retrieving, and in some cases setting, global application properties.
Using the Screen object, you can set the MousePointer property to display an
hourglass pointer when a modal form is visible or retrieve the active control or
active form of the application. Although there is not a direct equivalent for the
Screen object in Visual Basic .NET, most of the properties can be mapped to equiva-
lent properties in the .NET Framework.
Consider the following Visual Basic 6.0 example in which the Screen object is used
to change the mouse pointer, maximize the active form, and change the text in a
specified Textbox control when that control is active.
Screen.MousePointer = vbHourglass
Screen.ActiveForm.WindowState = vbMaximized
If Screen.ActiveControl.Name = "Command1" Then
Screen.ActiveControl.Caption = "Maximized"
End If
Screen.MousePointer = vbDefault

When the upgrade wizard is applied, some properties of the Screen code are left
unchanged and marked with upgrade warnings, as shown here.
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Screen property Screen.MousePointer
' has a new behavior.
System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Current = System.Windows.Forms.Cursors.WaitCursor
System.Windows.Forms.Form.ActiveForm.WindowState =
System.Windows.Forms.FormWindowState.Maximized
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Control Name could not be resolved because
' it was within the generic namespace ActiveControl.
If VB6.GetActiveControl().Name = "txtState" Then
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Control Caption could not be resolved because
' it was within the generic namespace ActiveControl.
VB6.GetActiveControl().Text = "Maximized"
End If
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Screen property Screen.MousePointer has a
' new behavior.
System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Current = System.Windows.Forms.Cursors.Default

Despite the number of issues identified, modifying the upgraded code to correct the
issues is not difficult. Some of the identified warnings can be removed and some
instructions can be replaced by properties of Microsoft .NET Framework. For ex-
ample, the VB6.GetActiveControl reference can be replaced with
Me.ActiveControl. This property is defined in the
System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl class, which is the ancestor of the .NET
Form class. The property can be accessed through Me or
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 225

System.Windows.Forms.Form.ActiveForm, which return a Form object. Here is the

modified code.
System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Current = System.Windows.Forms.Cursors.WaitCursor
System.Windows.Forms.Form.ActiveForm.WindowState = _
System.Windows.Forms.FormWindowState.Maximized

If Me.ActiveControl.Name = "txtState" Then

Me.ActiveControl.Text = "Maximized"
End If
System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Current = System.Windows.Forms.Cursors.Default

For more information about the changes to the Screen object, see “Screen Object
Changes in Visual Basic .NET” in Visual Basic Concepts on MSDN.
Table 7.2 is a comprehensive list of the properties of Screen object and their equiva-
lent features in Visual Basic .NET.
Table 7.2: Visual Basic .NET Equivalents for Screen Object Properties
Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET Equivalent
ActiveControl System.Windows.Forms.Form.ActiveForm.ActiveControl
ActiveForm System.Windows.Forms.Form.ActiveForm
FontCount System.Drawing.FontFamily.Families.Length
Fonts System.Drawing.FontFamily.Families
Height System.Windows.Forms.Screen.PrimaryScreen.Bounds.Height
MouseIcon This feature must be upgraded manually by declaring a Cursor object and
initializing it with the MouseIcon’s path.
This is demonstrated in the following sample code:

' Visual Basic 6.0Screen.MouseIcon = _

LoadPicture("C:\WINDOWS\Cursors\3dwns.cur")

' Visual Basic .NET

Me.Cursor = New Cursor("C:\WINDOWS\Cursors\3dwns.cur")

For more information, see the section “Dealing with Changes to the
MousePointers Property” in Chapter 9, “Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms
Features.”
MousePointer System.Windows.Forms.Form.ActiveForm.Cursor.Current
TwipsPerPixelX VB6.TwipsPerPixelX
TwipsPerPixelY VB6.TwipsPerPixelY
Width System.Windows.Forms.Screen.PrimaryScreen.Bounds.Width
226 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Upgrading the Printer Object

In Visual Basic 6.0, the Printer object enables applications to communicate with a
system printer. The Printer object contains functions for printing text, lines, and
images. However, the printing model in the .NET Framework is quite different from
that in Visual Basic 6.0. The Printer object has become obsolete. Fortunately, the
functionality of the Printer object can be achieved with the classes that are provided
in the System.Drawing.Printing namespace, particularly the PrintDocument class.
There are two main options to upgrade the Visual Basic 6.0 printing functionality.
The first option is to replace the Printer object members with equivalent functional-
ity provided by the PrintDocument class. Typically, this requires reimplementation
of the functionality; this will be demonstrated in the next code example. The second
option is to create your own Printer class in Visual Basic .NET based on the .NET
PrintDocument class. This approach will allow you to mask the .NET
PrintDocument class functionality with the names provided in the Visual Basic 6.0
Printer object. This second option will also be demonstrated later in this section.
Applying the first approach will require reimplementation of the printing code. The
following Visual Basic 6.0 code example prints four lines of text with different font
settings:
Private Sub Form_Load()
With Printer
Printer.Print "Normal Line"
.FontBold = True
Printer.Print "Bold Line"
.FontItalic = True
Printer.Print "Bold and Italic Line"
.FontBold = False
.FontItalic = False
Printer.Print "Second Normal Line"
.EndDoc
End With
End Sub

This code can be reimplemented in Visual Basic .NET using methods of the
PrintDocument class, as shown here.
Dim WithEvents prn As New Printing.PrintDocument

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
prn.Print()
End Sub

Private Sub prn_PrintPage(ByVal sender As Object, _

ByVal e As System.Drawing.Printing.PrintPageEventArgs) Handles prn.PrintPage
Dim currFont As Font
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 227

Dim yPos As Integer

yPos = 1
With e.Graphics
currFont = New Font("Arial", 10, FontStyle.Regular)
.DrawString("Normal Line", currFont, Brushes.Black, 1, yPos)
yPos = yPos + currFont.GetHeight

currFont = New Font("Arial", 10, FontStyle.Bold)

.DrawString("Bold Line", currFont, Brushes.Black, 1, yPos)
yPos = yPos + currFont.GetHeight

currFont = New Font("Arial", 10, FontStyle.Bold Or FontStyle.Italic)

.DrawString("Bold and Italic Line", currFont, Brushes.Black, 1, yPos)
yPos = yPos + currFont.GetHeight

currFont = New Font("Arial", 10, FontStyle.Regular)

.DrawString("Second Normal Line", currFont, Brushes.Black, 1, yPos)
End With
End Sub

Notice how the structure of the code has changed and how the quantity of drawing
methods has increased. The .NET Framework provides more control and power over
the drawing operations, but from the upgrade point of view, it has a learning curve,
and the manual reimplementation of all the printing functionality can consume
extensive resources.
For more information about the equivalent functionality for the Printer object
members, see Tables 7.3 and 7.4 at the end of this section. For further guidance on
printing from Visual Basic .NET with the PrintDocument component, see “Printing
with the PrintDocument Component” in on MSDN.
The second upgrade approach involves the creation of your own Printer class. This
allows you to consolidate several drawing methods and collections of graphical
objects (such as Circle or Line) and to store the coordinates that will be used to print
these objects when the Print method or the EndDoc method is called. When the
Print method of the PrintDocument class is called, the PrintPage event is raised.
This event can be used to signal the application to draw all the objects and text
stored in the collections of your PrinterClass. The following Visual Basic .NET code
provides a small demonstration of how this Printer class can be developed.
Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility
' Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic.
Public Class PrinterClass
Public Enum FillStyleConstants As Short
vbFSSolid = 0
vbFSTransparent = 1
End Enum
' Scale mode Constants
Public Enum ScaleModeConstants As Short
vbTwips = 1
228 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

vbPixels = 3
End Enum
Private Structure LineInfo
Dim pen As System.Drawing.Pen
Dim p1, p2 As Drawing.Point
End Structure
Private Structure RectangleInfo
Dim pen As System.Drawing.Pen
Dim rec As Drawing.Rectangle
Dim FillStyle As FillStyleConstants
Dim FillColor As System.Drawing.Color
End Structure
Private Structure PageInfo
Public Lines() As LineInfo
Public Circles() As RectangleInfo
End Structure
Private Pages() As PageInfo
Private PageIndex = 0
Private WithEvents InnerPrinter As New System.Drawing.Printing.PrintDocument
Private objPen As New System.Drawing.Pen(System.Drawing.Brushes.Black)
Private intCurrentX As Double = 20
Private intCurrentY As Double = 20
Public ScaleMode As ScaleModeConstants = ScaleModeConstants.vbTwips
Public FillColor As Drawing.Color
Public FillStyle As FillStyleConstants = FillStyleConstants.vbFSTransparent

Public Sub New()

ReDim Pages(0)
Pages(0) = New PageInfo
End Sub

' Terminates a print operation sent to the Printer object,

' releasing the document to the print device or spooler.
Public Sub EndDoc()
Dim j As Integer
For j = 0 To Pages.Length - 1
PageIndex = j
InnerPrinter.Print()
Next
End Sub
Public Sub Circle(ByVal P As Drawing.Point, ByVal radius As Double, _
Optional ByVal [Step] As Boolean = False)
Circle(P, radius, objPen.Color, [Step])
End Sub
Public Sub Circle(ByVal P As Drawing.Point, ByVal radius As Double, _
ByVal Color As Drawing.Color, _
Optional ByVal [Step] As Boolean = False)

Dim diameter As Double

If [Step] = True Then

P.X = P.X + CurrentX
P.Y = P.Y + CurrentY
End If
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 229

diameter = radius * 2

' Moves the CurrentX and CurrentY properties

CurrentX = P.X + radius
CurrentY = P.Y + radius

P.X = ConvertToPixelsX(P.X)
P.Y = ConvertToPixelsY(P.Y)
diameter = ConvertToPixelsX(diameter)

If IsNothing(Pages(PageIndex).Circles) Then
ReDim Preserve Pages(PageIndex).Circles(0)
Else
ReDim Preserve
Pages(PageIndex).Circles(Pages(PageIndex).Circles.Length)
End If

Pages(PageIndex).Circles(Pages(PageIndex).Circles.Length - 1).rec = _
New Drawing.Rectangle(P.X, P.Y, diameter, diameter)
Pages(PageIndex).Circles(Pages(PageIndex).Circles.Length - 1).pen = objPen
Pages(PageIndex).Circles(Pages(PageIndex).Circles.Length - 1).FillColor =
_
FillColor
Pages(PageIndex).Circles(Pages(PageIndex).Circles.Length - 1).FillStyle =
_
FillStyle
End Sub
Private Sub Printer_PrintPage(ByVal sender As Object, _
ByVal e As System.Drawing.Printing.PrintPageEventArgs) _
Handles InnerPrinter.PrintPage
Dim i As Integer
' Draw all circles
If IsNothing(Pages(PageIndex).Circles) = False Then
For i = 0 To Pages(PageIndex).Circles.Length - 1
Dim x, y As Integer
e.Graphics.DrawEllipse(Pages(PageIndex).Circles(i).pen, _
Pages(PageIndex).Circles(i).rec)
If Pages(PageIndex).Circles(i).FillStyle = _
FillStyleConstants.vbFSSolid Then
e.Graphics.FillEllipse( _
New Drawing.SolidBrush( _
Pages(PageIndex).Circles(i).FillColor), _
Pages(PageIndex).Circles(i).rec)
End If
Next
End If
End Sub
Public Property CurrentX() As Double
Get
Return ConvertToPixelsX(intCurrentX)
End Get
Set(ByVal Value As Double)
intCurrentX = ConvertToPixelsX(Value)
End Set
230 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

End Property
Public Property CurrentY() As Double
Get
Return ConvertToPixelsY(intCurrentY)
End Get
Set(ByVal Value As Double)
intCurrentY = ConvertToPixelsY(Value)
End Set
End Property
Public Function ConvertToPixelsX(ByVal num As Double) As Double
Return IIf(ScaleMode = ScaleModeConstants.vbTwips, _
VB6.TwipsToPixelsX(num), num)
End Function

Public Function ConvertToPixelsY(ByVal num As Double) As Double

Return IIf(ScaleMode = ScaleModeConstants.vbTwips, _
VB6.TwipsToPixelsY(num), num)
End Function
End Class

Tables 7.3 and 7.4 list Visual Basic 6.0 Printer object properties and methods and
their Visual Basic .NET equivalents. Where there are no direct equivalents, links are
provided to additional information.
The following example shows you how to convert Visual Basic 6.0 code that uses a printer object
to Visual Basic .NET code that uses your own printer class as mentioned earlier.

Printer.FillColor = vbBlue
Printer.FillStyle = vbSolid
Printer.Circle (3000, 3000), 1500, vbRed
Printer.EndDoc

The preceding Visual Basic 6.0 code will print a circle filled with blue color and it
will have a red border. To convert this code to Visual Basic .NET, you can use the
printer class mentioned earlier and perform the following steps.
First, you have to add this printer class to the .NET project. After this, you have to
add a reference to the Micosoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility assembly.
The next step is to create a Visual Basic .NET module and add the following code.
Module Module1
Public Printer As PrinterClass = New PrinterClass
End Module

Finally, you need to perform some small changes to the original Visual Basic 6.0 code
to make it consistent with the new definition of your own printer class. Here is the
resulting Visual Basic .NET code.
Printer.FillColor = Color.Blue
Printer.FillStyle = PrinterClass.FillStyleConstants.vbFSSolid
Printer.Circle(New Point(3000, 3000), 1500, Color.Red)
Printer.EndDoc()
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 231

Table 7.3: Visual Basic .NET Equivalents for Printer Object Properties
Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET Equivalent
ColorMode PrintDocument.PrinterSettings.DefaultPageSettings.Color
Copies PrintDocument.PrinterSettings.Copies
CurrentX No equivalent. Replaced by location and dimension arguments of various
methods of the Graphics class.This property could be simulated in your
printer class with a double variable.
CurrentY No equivalent. Replaced by location and dimension arguments of various
methods of the Graphics class.This property could be simulated in your
printer class with a double variable.
DeviceName PrintDocument.PrinterSettings.PrinterName
DrawMode No equivalent. For details, see “Graphics Changes in Visual Basic .NET” on
MSDN.
DrawStyle System.Drawing.Drawing2D.DashStyle
DrawWidth System.Drawing.Pen.Width
DriverName No equivalent. No longer needed; printer drivers are managed by Windows.
Duplex System.Drawing.Printing.Duplex
FillColor No equivalent. For details, see “Graphics Changes in Visual Basic .NET” on
MSDN.This property could be simulated in your printer class with a
System.Drawing.Color variable.
FillStyle This functionality can be obtained using a Drawing.SolidBrush to fill the
Draws objects.
Font This property could be simulated in your printer class with a
System.Drawing.Font class.
FontBold To get the value, use: System.Drawing.Font.Bold.To set the value, use:
VB6.FontChangeBold.
FontCount System.Drawing.FontFamily.GetFamilies().Length
FontItalic To get the value, use: System.Drawing.Font.Italic.To set the value, use:
VB6.FontChangeItalic.
FontName To get the value, use: System.Drawing.Font.Name.To set the value, use:
VB6.FontChangeName.
Fonts System.Drawing.FontFamily.GetFamilies
FontSize To get the value, use: System.Drawing.Font.Size.To set the value, use:
VB6.FontChangeSize.
FontStrikethru To get the value, use: System.Drawing.Font.Strikeout.To set the value, use:
VB6.FontChangeStrikeout.
continued
232 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET Equivalent

FontTransparent No equivalent. For details, see “Font Changes in Visual Basic .NET” in Visual
Basic Concepts on MSDN.
FontUnderline To get the value, use: System.Drawing.Font.Underline.To set the value, use:
VB6.FontChangeUnderline.
ForeColor System.Drawing.Pen.Color
hDC PrintDocument.PrinterSettings.GetHdevmode.ToInt32
Height PrintDocument.DefaultPageSettings.PaperSize.Height
Orientation PrintDocument.DefaultPageSettings.Landscape
Page No direct equivalent. The current page number is not tracked; however, you can
easily do this by setting a variable in the BeginPrint event and incrementing it
in the PrintPage event.
PaperBin PrintDocument.PrinterSettings.PaperSources
PaperSize PrintDocument.DefaultPageSettings.PaperSize
Port No longer necessary. The PrintPreviewDialog control automatically sets port
information.
PrintQuality PrintDocument.DefaultPageSettings.PrinterResolution
RightToLeft No longer necessary. The direction of printing is controlled by the localization
settings in Windows.
ScaleHeight No equivalent. For details, see “Coordinate System Changes in Visual Basic
.NET” in Visual Basic Concepts on MSDN.
ScaleLeft No equivalent. For details, see “Coordinate System Changes in Visual Basic
.NET” on MSDN.
ScaleMode No equivalent. For details, see “Coordinate System Changes in Visual Basic
.NET” on MSDN.
ScaleTop No equivalent. For details, see “Coordinate System Changes in Visual Basic
.NET” on MSDN.
ScaleWidth No equivalent. For details, see “Coordinate System Changes in Visual Basic
.NET” on MSDN.
TrackDefault No direct equivalent. The IsDefaultPrinter property of the PrinterSettings
class can be used to determine whether a printer is the default, but printing
is no longer halted if the default printer changes.
TwipsPerPixelX No longer necessary. Measurements in Visual Basic .NET are always in pixels.
TwipsPerPixelY No longer necessary. Measurements in Visual Basic .NET are always in pixels.
Width PrintDocument.DefaultPageSettings.PaperSize.Height
Zoom No longer necessary. If the printer has zoom capabilities, settings are
automatically exposed in the Print dialog box.
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 233

Table 7.4: Visual Basic .NET equivalents for Printer object methods
Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET Equivalent
Circle PrintPageEvents.Graphics.DrawEllipse
EndDoc PrintDocument.Print
KillDoc PrintEventArgs.Cancel
Line PrintPageEvents.Graphics.DrawLine
NewPage This method needs to be simulated with an array of pages and call the
method Print of the class PrintDocument for each page.
PaintPicture PrintPageEvents.Graphics.DrawImage
Print PrintPageEvents.Graphics.DrawString
PSet PrintPageEvents.Graphics.DrawLine
Scale No equivalent. For details, see “Coordinate System Changes in Visual
Basic .NET” in Visual Basic Concepts on MSDN.
ScaleX No equivalent. For details, see “Coordinate System Changes in Visual
Basic .NET” on MSDN.
ScaleY No equivalent. For details, see “Coordinate System Changes in Visual
Basic .NET” on MSDN.
TextHeight System.Drawing.Graphics.MeasureString
TextWidth System.Drawing.Graphics.MeasureString

Upgrading the Printers Collection

Visual Basic 6.0 provides the Printers collection, which is used to return information
about available printers on a system. For example, it is possible to determine the
printer layout for a particular printer. Visual Basic .NET does not support the Print-
ers collection. The printing model has changed, and as a result, references to the
Printers collection require manual adjustment when upgrading to Visual Basic .NET.
Consider the following Visual Basic 6.0 example, which uses the Printers collection
to find the first available printer with its page orientation set to Portrait. If such a
printer is found in the collection, a message box showing the printer device name is
displayed. The code for the example follows.
Dim prn As Printer
For Each prn In Printers
If prn.Orientation = vbPRORPortrait Then
MsgBox prn.DeviceName
' Stop looking for a printer.
Exit For
End If
Next
234 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Because the Printers collection is not supported in Visual Basic .NET, this code
cannot be automatically upgraded with the upgrade wizard. Applying the upgrade
wizard results in the code being marked with upgrade issues, such as the one
demonstrated here.
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Printers collection was not upgraded.
For Each prn In Printers

The only way to achieve a similar effect in Visual Basic .NET is to implement your
own Printers collection, using various classes the Microsoft .NET Framework
provides. For example, you can create a new Visual Basic .NET module and class
like the following.
Module PrintersModule
Public Printers As New PrintersCollection
End Module

Public Class PrintersCollection : Implements IEnumerable

Private printer As System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings

Public ReadOnly Property Count() As Integer

Get
Return System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings.InstalledPrinters.Count
End Get
End Property

Public ReadOnly Property Item(ByVal Index As Integer) _

As System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings
Get
printer = New System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings
printer.PrinterName = _
System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings.InstalledPrinters.Item(Index)
Return printer
End Get
End Property
Overridable Function GetEnumerator() As IEnumerator _
Implements IEnumerable.GetEnumerator
Dim Count As Integer = _
System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings.InstalledPrinters.Count
Dim printersArray(Count) As System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings
Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To Count - 1
printersArray(i) = New System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings
printersArray(i).PrinterName = _
System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings.InstalledPrinters.Item(i)
Next
Return printersArray.GetEnumerator()
End Function
End Class
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 235

After the preceding module and class are created and added to the upgrade solu-
tion, the original code can be upgraded with only a few minor tweaks. These are
shown here (changes are highlighted in bold).
Dim prn As System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings
For Each prn In Printers
If prn.DefaultPageSettings.Landscape = False Then
MsgBox(prn.PrinterName)
Exit For
End If
Next

For more information about replacing the Printers collection functionality in Visual
Basic .NET, see “Printers Collection Changes in Visual Basic .NET” in Visual Basic
Concepts on MSDN.

Upgrading the Forms Collection

The Forms collection in Visual Basic 6.0 is a collection of all loaded forms in the
project. The most common uses of the Forms collection are to determine whether a
form is loaded, to iterate through the loaded forms, and to unload a form by name.
Visual Basic .NET does not support the Forms collection, but as with the other
objects discussed in this chapter, it does provide similar functionality.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 example shows how to iterate through the Forms
collection, determine whether a form called frmSecurity is open, and if so, disable
the buttons btnInsert, btnUpdate, and btnDelete.
Public Sub checkForm()
Dim privateForm As Form
Dim tempControl As Control
For Each privateForm In Forms
If privateForm.Name = "frmSecurity" Then
For Each tempControl In privateForm.Controls
If tempControl.Name = "btnInsert" Or _
tempControl.Name = "btnUpdate" Or _
tempControl.Name = "btnDelete" Then
tempControl.Enabled = False
End If
Next
MsgBox "For security reasons, this form can not be shown"
End If
Next
End Sub
236 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The Forms collection cannot be automatically upgraded with the upgrade wizard
because Visual Basic .NET does not support the Forms collection. As with the
previous examples, attempting to use the upgrade wizard with code like the ex-
ample will generate upgrade issue comments like the following.
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Forms collection was not upgraded.
For Each privateForm In Forms

The same approach for solving the Printers collection issues can also be applied to
the Forms collection issues. Create a module and class masking the Visual Basic
.NET functionality, as shown earlier in the Printers example. The code might look
like the following.
Module FormsCollection
Public Forms As New FormsCollectionClass()
End Module

Class FormsCollectionClass : Implements IEnumerable

Private collec As New Collection()
Sub Add(ByVal tempForm As Form)
collec.Add(tempForm)
End Sub
Sub Remove(ByVal tempForm As Form)
Dim itemCount As Integer
For itemCount = 1 To collec.Count
If tempForm Is collec.Item(itemCount) Then
collec.Remove(itemCount)
Exit For
End If
Next
End Sub
ReadOnly Property Item(ByVal index) As Form
Get
Return collec.Item(index)
End Get
End Property
Overridable Function GetEnumerator() As _
IEnumerator Implements IEnumerable.GetEnumerator
Return collec.GetEnumerator
End Function
End Class

The FormsCollectionClass will store all the loaded forms in a collection. Note that
you need to make sure that each form is added to the collection when it is created
and removed from the collection after it is released. For example, in the New event
for frmSecurity, you can add it to the collection by adding the following line of
code.
Forms.Add(Me)
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 237

Similarly, in the Disposed event, you can remove frmSecurity from the collection by
adding the following line of code.
Forms.Remove(Me)

The Add and Remove lines must be added to the New and Disposed events for
every form in the solution.
After the new module and class are added to the upgrade solution, the original
checkForm subroutine code can be used without requiring any changes at all.

For Visual Basic 2005:

This solution will be obsolete in the new Visual Basic 2005, because the Forms
collection is implemented in the My.Application.OpenForms class. This will
make it possible for an automatic upgrade to be performed, with no need to
create wrapper classes or modules with global members as shown in this
example.
Upgraded Forms collection code will look very similar to the original code, as
shown here.
Public Sub checkForm()
Dim privateForm As System.Windows.Forms.Form
Dim tempControl As System.Windows.Forms.Control
For Each privateForm In My.Application.OpenForms
If privateForm.Name = "frmSecurity" Then
For Each tempControl In privateForm.Controls
If tempControl.Name = "btnInsert" Or _
tempControl.Name = "btnUpdate" Or tempControl.Name = "btnDelete"
Then
tempControl.Enabled = False
End If
Next tempControl
MsgBox("For security this form can not be showed")
End If
Next privateForm
End Sub

Upgrading the Clipboard Object

Visual Basic 6.0 has a Clipboard object that allows you to store and retrieve text and
graphics to and from the Clipboard. In Visual Basic .NET, you manipulate the
Clipboard using the System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard namespace. The new
Clipboard classes are more flexible than those in Visual Basic 6.0 in that they allow
you to set and retrieve data in a particular format and query the contents of the
Clipboard object to see what formats are supported. The new flexibility comes at a
cost; Visual Basic 6.0 Clipboard object code cannot be automatically upgraded.
238 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

However, you will find it straightforward to implement the same functionality in

Visual Basic .NET.
For example, suppose you have a Visual Basic 6.0 form with one TextBox control on
it named Text1. The following code sets and retrieves the text “Hello” to and from
the clipboard, using the vbCFText constant to indicate that only plaintext format is
applied.
Clipboard.Clear
Clipboard.SetText "Hello", vbCFText
If Clipboard.GetFormat(vbCFText) Then
Text1.Text = Clipboard.GetText(vbCFText)
End If

Using the upgrade wizard to upgrade this code causes the Clipboard object code to
be left unchanged but marked with upgrade warnings, as shown here.
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Clipboard method Clipboard.Clear was not upgraded.

The upgraded code causes compile errors in Visual Basic .NET, because the Clip-
board object functions are not supported in Visual Basic .NET. Correcting the issues
requires deleting the Clipboard object code that was not upgraded and replacing it
with Visual Basic .NET functionality. The new Visual Basic .NET version of the
example is shown here.
Dim datobj As New System.Windows.Forms.DataObject

datobj.SetData("")
datobj.SetData System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.Text, "hello"
System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetDataObject(datobj)

If System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.GetDataObject.GetDataPresent( _
System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.Text) Then
Text1.Text = System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.GetDataObject.GetData( _
System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.Text)
End If

The remaining Clipboard object functions and the equivalent functionality in Visual
Basic .NET are shown in Table 7.5. The DataFormat parameter should be replaced
with the appropriate format, such as DataFormats.Text or DataFormats.Rtf.
Rewriting the Clipboard code with Visual Basic .NET functionality requires you to
know the content’s format when it is moved to the Clipboard, such as plaintext as
used in this example. Table 7.6 lists the Clipboard class’s constants and each equiva-
lent feature in Visual Basic .NET.
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 239

Table 7.5: Visual Basic .NET Clipboard Methods Equivalents

Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET Equivalent
Clear method Clipboard.SetDataObject(“”)
Clipboard.GetData Clipboard.GetDataObject.GetData(DataFormat, True)
GetFormat Clipboard.GetDataObject.GetDataPresent(DataFormat)
GetText Clipboard.GetDataObject.GetData(DataFormat, True)
SetData Dim datobj As New
System.Windows.Forms.DataObjectdatobj.SetData(DataFormat,
data)System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetDataObject(datobj)
SetText Dim datobj As New
System.Windows.Forms.DataObjectdatobj.SetData(DataFormat,
data)System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetDataObject(datobj)

Table 7.6: Visual Basic .NET Clipboard Constant Equivalents

Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET Equivalent
vbCFBitmap System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.Bitmap
vbCFDIB System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.DIB
vbCFEMetafile System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.EnhancedMetafile
vbCFFiles System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.FileDrop
vbCFLink No equivalent. For more information about the Clipboard object constant
vbCFLink, see “Dynamic Data Exchange Changes in Visual Basic .NET” in
Visual Basic Concepts on MSDN.
vbCFMetafile System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.MetafilePict
vbCFPalette System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.Palette
vbCFRTF System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.Rtf
vbCFText System.Windows.Forms.DataFormats.Text

For Visual Basic 2005:

My.Computer is one of the top level groupings under the My namespace
provided with Visual Studio .NET 2005. My.Computer provides access to
instances of the most commonly used objects of the .NET Framework that
relate to items in the computer running the application. One of these items is
the Clipboard. The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard 2005 will automatically
upgrade the Visual Basic 6.0 Clipboard members to My.Computer.Clipboard
members.
240 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Upgrading the Licenses Collection

Visual Basic 6.0 allows you to dynamically load ActiveX controls when an applica-
tion is running. Some ActiveX controls require the use of a license for them to be
used within a program. The Licenses collection of an application contains the license
information for all loaded ActiveX controls and allows you to add and remove each
license as needed. The licensing model in Visual Basic .NET is completely different,
so upgrading applications that use the Licenses collection requires some effort.
The following code example demonstrates a typical use of the Licenses collection in
Visual Basic 6.0, where the license for the control Customers.ListCustomer is
checked before this component becomes visible. If the license is not set, a message is
displayed.
On Error GoTo NoLicense
Dim customer As VBControlExtender
Licenses.Add "Customers.ListCustomer"
Set customer = Me.Controls.Add("Customers.ListCustomer", "ListCustomer")
customer.Visible = True
Exit Sub

NoLicense:
'make sure the error is about the license for this control.
If Err.Number = 731 Then
MsgBox "You need a License to dynamically load this ActiveX
Customers.ListCustomer control"
End If

However, Visual Basic .NET compiles the license directly into the executable. That
means that the control must already be present in the project before it can be dy-
namically added at run time. Thus, license management cannot be automatically
upgraded, and an alternative strategy must be applied in Visual Basic .NET.
One way to do this is to add a dummy form to the project and put all ActiveX
controls that will be dynamically added to this form. After you create this dummy
form, you can dynamically add the ActiveX control to any form in your project. The
resulting Visual Basic .NET code might look like the following.
On Error GoTo NoLicense
Dim customer As System.Windows.Forms.AxHost
customer = New Customers.ListCustomer
Me.Controls.Add("Customers.ListCustomer", "ListCustomer")
customer.Visible = True
Exit Sub

NoLicense:
' Make sure the error is about the license for this control.
If Err.Number = 731 Then
MsgBox("You need a License to dynamically load this ActiveX
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 241

Customers.ListCustomer control")
End If

Note that the license management has been removed from the code. It is no longer
necessary.

Upgrading the Controls Collection

To add and remove controls at run time, Visual Basic 6.0 provides the Controls
collection. The Controls collection is a dynamic collection of controls on a form or
container. Through this collection, it is possible to add and remove controls on a
form (or container) at run time.
For example, consider the following code that adds a Label dynamically to a form at
run time.
Dim labelControl As Control
Set labelControl = Me.Controls.Add("VB.Label", "labelControl")
labelControl.Visible = True

This code adds a Label to the form and makes it visible. It is also easy in Visual Basic
6.0 to dynamically remove a control. The following line of code removes the Label
that was added in the preceding code example.
Me.Controls.Remove "labelControl"

One of the major disadvantages of the Visual Basic 6.0 model is that the Controls
collection does not support Microsoft IntelliSense® technology. You have to remem-
ber the methods, parameters, and ProgID of the control to add.
The upgrade wizard does not automatically upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 code using the
Controls collection Add method because of changes in the behavior of Add between
Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET. Fortunately, Visual Basic .NET does provide
an alternative to achieve the same functionality. It is relatively easy to add and
remove intrinsic controls in Visual Basic .NET. The following example demonstrates
how to dynamically add a Label to a form at run time in Visual Basic .NET.
Dim c As Control
c = New Label()
c.Name = "labelControl"
Me.Controls.Add(c)
242 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

In Windows Forms, the form model used in Visual Basic .NET, controls are indexed
by number instead of name. To remove a control by name, you have to iterate
through the Me.Controls collection, find the desired control, and remove it. The
following code shows how to remove the newly added control by name in Visual
Basic .NET.
Dim tempControl As Control
For Each tempControl In Me.Controls
If tempControl.Name = "labelControl" Then
Me.Controls.Remove(tempControl)
Exit For
End If
Next

For Visual Basic 2005:

In the new Visual Basic 2005, the Controls collection will provide methods that
allow removing controls in the same manner as Visual Basic 6.0, so you will not
have to iterate through the Controls collection. For example, it will be possible
to replace the preceding iteration example with a single line of code.

Me.Controls.RemoveByKey(tempControl)

The Item indexed property allows the user to access one control in the collec-
tion by specifying the numeric index of the control. In Visual Basic 2005, it is
also possible to access one control by indicating the name of the control (as a
string).
Visual Studio 2005 also adds other new methods to the ControlCollection class
that help achieve some of the functionality that Visual Basic 6.0 programmers
expected from the ControlArray. ControlCollection is the type of the Controls
property of the Control class. This class now contains a find() method that
allows you to search a control and all its child controls recursively for a control
with a specific name and returns an array with all the matching controls. The
other new methods are RemoveByKey(), ContainsKey(), IndexOfKey(), and a
new string parameter for the Item property. All these new methods provide ways
to manipulate the ControlCollection using the names of the controls instead of
their index. For more information, see “Control.ControlCollection Class
(System.Windows.Forms)” in the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN.
For more information about the new Controls collection available in Visual
Basic 2005, see “Controls Collection for Visual Basic 6.0 Users” in Visual Basic
Concepts on MSDN. Please note that at the time of this writing, the content
contained in this documentation refers to a pre-release version of Visual Basic
2005 and is subject to change.
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 243

Dynamically adding ActiveX controls at run time requires a bit more work. Visual
Basic .NET creates wrappers for ActiveX controls. These wrappers must exist before
a control can be added. In addition, most ActiveX controls have design-time licenses
that must be present before the control can be created on the form. Visual Basic .NET
compiles the license into the executable. These factors mean that the control must
already be present in the project before it can be dynamically added at run time. One
way to do this is to add a dummy form to the project and put all ActiveX controls
that will be dynamically added to this form. After you create this dummy form, you
can dynamically add the ActiveX control to any form in your project. The following
code shows how to dynamically add a Windows Common Controls TreeView
control to a form (assuming the project already has a dummy form with a TreeView
added).
Dim activexControl As New AxMSComctlLib.AxTreeView()
activexControl.Name = "TreeViewUsuers"
Me.Controls.Add(activexControl)

After the control is added, it can be dynamically removed in a manner similar to

removing an intrinsic control. Only adding requires additional work.
It is important to consider that there is a behavior difference between the Visual
Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET Controls collection. In Visual Basic 6.0, this collec-
tion contains all the controls that have been added to a particular Form, including
controls that were added to other container controls such as PictureBox or Frame
controls. In Visual Basic .NET, the Controls collection includes only the controls that
were directly added to the control that owns the collection; for example, if a Form
contains a Panel control that contains a Button control named button1, button1 will
not be contained in the Controls collection that belongs to the Form; instead of that,
button1 will be contained in the panel’s Controls collection. As a consequence,
iterating through the elements in a form’s Controls collection will not consider all
the controls contained in the form, as it did in Visual Basic 6.0. For more information
about the Controls collection behavior differences, see “Getting Back Your Visual
Basic 6.0 Goodies” on MSDN.
The following code example presents a typical For Each loop that will perform an
operation on all the controls in a Visual Basic 6.0 form.
Function ListOfControlNames() As String
Dim res As String
For Each c In Me.Controls
res = res & c.Name & " "
Next
ListOfControlNames = res
End Function
244 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

If the form has the layout illustrated in Figure 7.1, the output of the previous func-
tion will be “Frame1 Command1.”

Figure 7.1
Form with nested controls

After the ListOfControlNames function is upgraded, the following code will be the
result.
Function ListOfControlNames() As String
Dim c As System.Windows.Forms.Control
Dim res As String
For Each c In Me.Controls
res = res & c.Name & " "
Next c
ListOfControlNames = res
End Function

In Visual Basic .NET, the output of the function will be “Frame1.” There is a clear
difference with the result obtained in Visual Basic 6.0. Correcting this difference
would require the definition of two new functions that recursively obtain the con-
trols contained in Form1. The two new functions are shown here.
Function MyControls() As ArrayList
Dim res As New ArrayList
GetAllControls(Me, res)
Return res
End Function
Function GetAllControls(ByVal c As Control, ByVal res As ArrayList)
Dim curControl As Control
For Each curControl In c.Controls
res.Add(curControl)
GetAllControls(curControl, res)
Next
End Function
 Chapter 7: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Objects 245

The For Each loop in the ListOfControlNames function must be changed to use the
MyControls function instead of Me.Controls. It is important to notice that the order
in which the controls are processed may change because of the recursive way in
which the controls are obtained, if your code depends on the order in which the
controls are obtained, it will require adjustments to be functionally equivalent to the
Visual Basic 6.0 code.

Summary
Changes in Visual Basic .NET have made several objects from previous versions of
the language obsolete. The compatibility library is provided to help minimize the
effort in upgrading some of these objects. For objects that are not in the compatibil-
ity library, Visual Basic .NET almost always offers the same functionality through
new objects and functions. This chapter described the most common Visual Basic 6.0
objects that are now obsolete, and how to replace these features in Visual Basic .NET.
Changes to objects are not the only changes that have taken place between Visual
Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET. There are other language features that have also
changed or become obsolete. The next chapter discusses how to upgrade some of the
more commonly-used language features that cannot be automatically upgraded by
the upgrade wizard.

More Information
Robinson, Ed, Robert Ian Oliver, and Michael Bond. Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic
6.0 To Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, Redmond: Microsoft Press, 2001, ISBN:
073561587X. Also available on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbrun/staythepath/additionalresources/upgradingvb6/.
For information about obtaining the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion and
additional upgrade tools and services, see the ArtinSoft Web site:
http://www.artinsoft.com/.
For a comprehensive list of App object properties and methods that have equivalent
replacements in Visual Basic .NET, see “App Object Changes in Visual Basic .NET”
in Visual Basic Concepts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vxconChangesToAppObjectInVisualBasicNET.asp.
For more information about the changes to the Screen object, see “Screen Object
Changes in Visual Basic .NET” in Visual Basic Concepts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vxconChangesToScreenObjectInVisualBasicNET.asp.
246 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For more information about printing from Visual Basic .NET with the
PrintDocument component, see “Printing with the PrintDocument Component” on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vbconprintingwithprintdocumentcontrol.asp.
For information about details, see “Graphics Changes in Visual Basic .NET” in Visual
Basic Concepts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vbcongraphicschangesinvisualbasicnet.asp.
For more information about the Controls collection behavior differences, see
“Getting Back Your Visual Basic 6.0 Goodies” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/using/columns/adventures/default.aspx?pull=/library
/en-us/dnadvnet/html/vbnet05132003.asp.
For information about finding an equivalent replacement for the Visual Basic 6.0
FontTransparent property, see “Font Changes in Visual Basic .NET” in Visual Basic
Concepts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vbconfontchangesinvisualbasic60.asp.
For information about finding an equivalent replacement for the Visual Basic 6.0
ScaleHeight property, see “Coordinate System Changes in Visual Basic .NET” in
Visual Basic Concepts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vbconcoordinatesystemchangesinvisualbasicnet.asp.
For more information about replacing the Printers collection functionality in Visual
Basic .NET, see “Printers Collection Changes in Visual Basic .NET” in Visual Basic
Concepts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vxconprinterscollectionchangesinvisualbasicnet.asp.
For more information about Visual Studio 2005 methods to manipulate the
ControlCollection using the names of the controls instead of their index, see
“Control.ControlCollection Class (System.Windows.Forms)” in the .NET Framework
Class Library on MSDN:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/f4w0yshb(en-us,vs.80).aspx.
For more information about the new Controls collection available in Visual Basic
2005, see “Controls Collection for Visual Basic 6.0 Users” on MSDN:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/7e4daa9c(en-us,vs.80).aspx.
For more information about the Clipboard object constant vbCFLink, see “Dynamic
Data Exchange Changes in Visual Basic .NET” in Visual Basic Concepts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vbcondynamicdataexchangechangesinvisualbasicnet.asp.
8
Upgrading Commonly-Used
Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features
In addition to commonly used objects, other features of the Microsoft Visual Basic
6.0 language have become obsolete and are not directly supported in Visual Basic
.NET. However, in most cases Visual Basic .NET has equivalent functionality for
unsupported features. This chapter describes the unsupported language features
and the alternative functionality you can use to achieve the same effect in Visual
Basic .NET.
As you read this chapter, please take particular note of the need for strong quality
assurance. This is especially true for all code that is upgraded with the help of the
Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard. In some cases, the wizard will successfully create
Visual Basic .NET source code files that will compile without error. However, some
of the upgraded code may have different behavior than the original code or may
generate run-time exceptions that will result in program failures if the problem areas
are not fixed. Each discussion will note any such problems you should check for,
when appropriate.

Resolving Issues with Default Properties

Default properties in Visual Basic 6.0 allow you to simplify your code by specifying
a property that is set or retrieved by using only the object name. Thus, a commonly
used property for an object can be referenced in code using only the object name
instead of the fully qualified object.property name. However, default properties are no
longer supported in the Visual Basic .NET.
When using the upgrade wizard to upgrade code with default properties, the wizard
will modify code by inserting the property name wherever a default property is
used. This happens only if the wizard is able to determine which property is the
248 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

default property for each object reference. If the upgrade wizard cannot determine
the property being referenced as a default property, as is the case with late-bound
objects, the wizard will leave your code unchanged but insert a warning comment
indicating the issue to be resolved.
There are at least two ways to handle this situation. The first is to modify your
original code base to remove any use of default properties and explicitly refer to all
properties by their full names. The second option is to modify the upgraded code by
manually correcting the default property issues identified by the wizard. The second
option is discussed here.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 code example demonstrates the differences in up-
grade results when default properties are accessed using both late-bound and early-
bound objects.
Private Sub CopyButton_Click()
EarlyBoundCopy Text1, Text2
LateBoundCopy Text1, Text3
End Sub

' This method's parameters are explicitly defined as TextBoxes.

Private Sub EarlyBoundCopy(sourceCtrl As TextBox, destCtrl As TextBox)
destCtrl.Text = sourceCtrl
End Sub

' This method's parameters are variants (the default type).

Private Sub LateBoundCopy(sourceCtrl, destCtrl)
destCtrl.Text = sourceCtrl
End Sub

When the upgrade wizard is applied to the preceding code, it will insert two run-
time warnings in your code, as shown here. The bold items are upgrade warning
comments inserted by the upgrade wizard to indicate problems it encountered while
attempting to resolve default properties.
Private Sub CopyButton_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles CopyButton.Click
EarlyBoundCopy(Text1, Text2)
LateBoundCopy(Text1, Text3)
End Sub

' This method's parameters are explicitly defined as TextBoxes.

Private Sub EarlyBoundCopy(ByRef sourceCtrl As _
System.Windows.Forms.TextBox, ByRef destCtrl As _
System.Windows.Forms.TextBox)
destCtrl.Text = sourceCtrl.Text
End Sub

' This method's parameters are variants (the default type).

Private Sub LateBoundCopy(ByRef sourceCtrl As Object, _
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 249

ByRef destCtrl As Object)

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Couldn't resolve default property of object
' destCtrl.Text.
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Couldn't resolve default property of object
' sourceCtrl.
destCtrl.Text = sourceCtrl
End Sub

The code produced by the upgrade wizard will compile successfully, but it will
result in a run-time exception when LateBoundCopy is invoked. This is because
default properties are handled differently in Visual Basic .NET; they require param-
eters. Because default properties are now supported in a different way, the runtime
will attempt to cast sourceCtrl as a string, resulting in an InvalidCastException
(because it is not a string but a TextBox). For more information about parameterized
default properties in Visual Basic .NET, see “Default Properties Changes in Visual
Basic” in Visual Basic Language Concepts on MSDN.

Note: Carefully examine all UPGRADE_WARNING comments relating to default properties

generated by the upgrade wizard. Failure to correct the issues in source code will likely result in
unhandled run-time exceptions, causing the program to fail.

Modifying the code generated by the upgrade wizard requires manually appending
the correct property to the object name. In this code example, the appropriate prop-
erty of sourceCtrl would be the Text property.
Private Sub LateBoundCopy(ByRef sourceCtrl As Object, _
ByRef destCtrl As Object)
destCtrl.Text = sourceCtrl.Text
End Sub

Modifying the upgraded code in this fashion is exactly what the upgrade wizard
does for early-bound objects. In such situations, the wizard can identify the appro-
priate default property and add it to the upgraded code for you. Whenever possible,
it is best to use early binding in code.

Resolving Issues with Custom Collection Classes

Collection classes allow you to group objects, typically to allow for better organiza-
tion and processing of related objects. Chapter 7 addressed some of the standard
collection classes available in Visual Basic 6.0, such as the Controls and Printers
collections. However, it is also possible to build your own custom collections. Often,
this is done by using the Visual Basic 6.0 Class Builder.
Upgrading custom collections created with the class builder can be accomplished
with the upgrade wizard. However, the number of manual adjustments that will
250 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

have to be made will depend on any modifications made to the collection code
beyond what was generated by the class builder.
For collections with little or no custom code, the upgrade wizard will do most of the
upgrade work for you, inserting only a ToDo comment to flag the need to review
the resulting code. With simple modifications, the final result will behave as the
original collection.
Consider the following Visual Basic 6.0 collection example.
' Local variable to hold collection
Private myCollec As Collection

Public Sub Add(obj As Object)

mCol.Add obj
End Sub

Public Sub Insert(obj As Object, Key As Variant)

mCol.Add obj, Key
End Sub

Public Property Get Item(Index As Variant) As Object

' Used when referencing an element in the collection
' vntIndexKey contains either the Index or Key to the collection,
' this is why it is declared as a Variant
' Syntax: Set myVar = x.Item(xyz) or Set myVar = x.Item(5)
Set Item = myCollec(Index)
End Property

Public Property Get Count() As Long

' Used when retrieving the number of elements in the
' collection. Syntax: Debug.Print x.Count
Count = myCollec.Count
End Property

Public Sub Remove(vntIndexKey As Variant)

' Used when removing an element from the collection
' vntIndexKey contains either the Index or Key, which is why
' it is declared as a Variant
' Syntax: x.Remove(xyz)

myCollec.Remove vntIndexKey
End Sub

Public Property Get NewEnum() As IUnknown

' This property allows you to enumerate
' this collection with the For...Each syntax
Set NewEnum = myCollec.[_NewEnum]
End Property
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 251

Private Sub Class_Initialize()

' Creates the collection when this class is created
Set myCollec = New Collection
End Sub

Private Sub Class_Terminate()

' Destroys collection when this class is terminated
Set myCollec = Nothing
End Sub

When the upgrade wizard is applied to the preceding collection code, it will produce
Visual Basic .NET code to achieve the same behavior. However, the NewEnum
property of the collection will be commented out and replaced with a new method:
GetEnumerator. The upgraded code as produced by the upgrade wizard is shown
here.
Friend Class MyCollection
Implements System.Collections.IEnumerable
' Local variable to hold collection
Private myCollec As Collection

Public Sub Add(ByRef obj As Object)

Dim mCol As Object
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property
' of object mCol.Add.
mCol.Add(obj)
End Sub

Public Sub Insert(ByRef obj As Object, ByRef Key As Object)

Dim mCol As Object
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property
' of object mCol.Add.
mCol.Add(obj, Key)
End Sub

Public ReadOnly Property Item(ByVal Index As Object) As Object

Get
' Used when referencing an element in the collection
' vntIndexKey contains either the Index or Key to the
' collection, this is why it is declared as a Variant
' Syntax: Set abc = x.Item(xyz) or Set abc = x.Item(5)
Item = myCollec.Item(Index)
End Get
End Property

Public ReadOnly Property Count() As Integer

Get
' Used when retrieving the number of elements in the
' collection. Syntax: Debug.Print x.Count
Count = myCollec.Count()
End Get
252 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

End Property

' UPGRADE_NOTE: NewEnum property was commented out.

' Public ReadOnly Property NewEnum() As stdole.IUnknown
' Get
' This property allows you to enumerate
' This collection with the For...Each syntax
' NewEnum = myCollec._NewEnum
' End Get
' End Property

Public Function GetEnumerator() As System.Collections.IEnumerator _

Implements System.Collections.IEnumerable.GetEnumerator
' UPGRADE_TODO: Uncomment and change the following line to
' return the collection enumerator.
' GetEnumerator = myCollec.GetEnumerator
End Function

Public Sub Remove(ByRef vntIndexKey As Object)

' Used when removing an element from the collection
' vntIndexKey contains either the Index or Key, which is why
' it is declared as a Variant
' Syntax: x.Remove(xyz)

myCollec.Remove(vntIndexKey)
End Sub

' UPGRADE_NOTE: Class_Initialize was upgraded to Class_Initialize_Renamed.

Private Sub Class_Initialize_Renamed()
' Creates the collection when this class is created
myCollec = New Collection
End Sub
Public Sub New()
MyBase.New()
Class_Initialize_Renamed()
End Sub

' UPGRADE_NOTE: Class_Terminate was upgraded to Class_Terminate_Renamed.

Private Sub Class_Terminate_Renamed()
' Destroys collection when this class is terminated
' UPGRADE_NOTE: Object myCollec may not be destroyed until it is
' garbage collected.
myCollec = Nothing
End Sub
Protected Overrides Sub Finalize()
Class_Terminate_Renamed()
MyBase.Finalize()
End Sub
End Class
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 253

Replacing the NewEnum property with the GetEnumerator method may require
additional work. To ensure that this replacement is reviewed, the upgrade wizard
includes an UPGRADE_TODO comment in the GetEnumerator code and com-
ments out the single line of code that actually returns the enumerator. The result is
that you are forced to evaluate the code to determine if returning the enumerator
member of the underlying collection is sufficient, or if more custom code is required
because of customization in your original collection. In the vast majority of cases,
removing comments from this single line of code is all that is required. By forcing
you to review it, the upgrade wizard ensures that you have made a conscious
decision that the result it produced will have the same behavior as your original
Visual Basic 6.0 collection.

Dealing with Changes to Commonly-Used Functions and Objects

Visual Basic .NET provides a compatibility library for many Visual Basic 6.0 func-
tions and objects, to ease upgrade while maintaining the functional behavior of your
application. Whenever appropriate, the upgrade wizard will substitute a function in
your original code with the Visual Basic .NET equivalent available in the compatibil-
ity library. The upgrade wizard will also add a reference to the Visual Basic 6.0
compatibility library namespace (Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility) to your
solution whenever any such substitutions are made.

Note: Throughout this chapter, the term compatibility library is used as a shortened name for
the Visual Basic 6.0 compatibility library (Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility).

The compatibility library will minimize the amount of effort required to upgrade.
This library attempts to duplicate the functional behavior of the original Visual Basic
6.0 functions, but the functionality upgraded to members of that library should be
considered as the initial attempt to upgrade that will leverage the application
toward a more extensive assimilation to Visual Basic .NET. Some of the functionality
in the compatibility library is also available in the Microsoft .NET Framework,
allowing the possibility of different upgrade options that you should evaluate
according to the available time and resources. In general, upgrading functionality
to the .NET Framework instead of using the compatibility library will generate an
application with an improved design and usage of references because the quantity
of redundant components will be reduced.
As an example, consider the following Visual Basic 6.0 code example.
Private Sub cmdUpdate_Click()
Dim currentTime As Date

currentTime = Now
lblDate.Caption = Format(currentTime, "dddd, mmm d yyyy")
lblTime.Caption = Format(currentTime, "hh:mm:ss AMPM")
End Sub
254 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The example code updates the labels on a form with the current date and time
whenever a button is clicked. It uses the Format function to format the date and
time.
Applying the upgrade wizard to this code will result in a reference to the compat-
ibility library’s version of the Format function, as shown here. The items in bold
identify the changes made by the upgrade wizard in order to use the compatibility
library.
Private Sub cmdUpdate_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) _
Handles cmdUpdate.Click
Dim currentTime As Date

currentTime = Now
lblDate.Text = VB6.Format(currentTime, "dddd, mmm d yyyy")
lblTime.Text = VB6.Format(currentTime, "hh:mm:ss AMPM")
End Sub

This code will compile successfully and exhibit the same behavior as the original
code.
An alternative to referencing the compatibility library is to find pure Visual Basic
.NET equivalents to achieve the same behavior. In the provided example, an alterna-
tive to the compatibility library is to use the Visual Basic .NET version of the Format
function, provided in the String class. The modified Visual Basic .NET code is
shown here. The items in bold are the changes that are needed in order to remove
the dependence on the compatibility library.
Private Sub cmdUpdate_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) _
Handles cmdUpdate.Click
Dim currentTime As Date

currentTime = Now
lblDate.Text = String.Format("{0:dddd, mmm d yyyy}", currentTime)
lblTime.Text = String.Format("{0:hh:mm:ss tt}", currentTime)
End Sub

The revised version of this function has the same behavior as the original function,
but it is no longer dependent on the compatibility library.
Keep in mind that there may be more than one Visual Basic .NET equivalent for a
function in the compatibility library. For example, an alternative way to rewrite the
example is to replace VB6.Format with the ToString method of the DateTime class,
which the currentTime object belongs to. The following example code shows the
modification. Again, the items in bold are the changes that would be applied to
remove dependence on the compatibility library and replace the String.Format.
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 255

Private Sub cmdUpdate_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) _
Handles cmdUpdate.Click
Dim currentTime As Date

currentTime = Now
lblDate.Text = currentTime.ToString("dddd, mmm d yyyy")
lblTime.Text = currentTime.ToString("hh:mm:ss tt")
End Sub

The compatibility library contains replacements for many commonly used Visual
Basic 6.0 functions and objects. For a complete listing of the functions and objects,
see “VisualBasic.Compatibility Namespace Reference” in Visual Basic .NET Help.
For more information about using DateTime.ToString and String.Format, see Visual
Basic .NET Help for the DateTime and String classes, respectively.

Dealing with Changes to TypeOf

In Visual Basic 6.0, the TypeOf clause can check an object’s type at run time. This
clause is used in a decision statement (that is, If) to select a course of action based on
the type of an object. The clause evaluates to True when the object is of the specified
type; otherwise, it evaluates to False.
Visual Basic .NET supports the TypeOf keyword, but its behavior has changed.
There are two major changes:
1. In Visual Basic 6.0, user-defined types are considered object types for use in the
TypeOf clause. In Visual Basic .NET, user-defined types (otherwise known as
structures) are no longer considered object types and therefore cannot be used in
a TypeOf clause.
2. In Visual Basic 6.0, inheritance is only possible by implementing interfaces. In
Visual Basic .NET, true inheritance is supported; this allows classes to inherit
from other classes. This impact affects the TypeOf clause because it will base the
answer on the type of the underlying object that a variable refers to, not the type
of the variable. For information about inheritance in Visual Basic .NET, see the
“Taking Advantage of Object-Oriented Features” section of Chapter 17, “Intro-
duction to Application Advancement.”
To illustrate these points, the following example uses of the TypeOf clause in a
Visual Basic 6.0 application.
Private Type MyType
Data as Integer
End Type

' This example uses TypeOf with a user-defined type.

Sub CheckMyType()
256 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Dim demo as MyType

If TypeOf demo Is MyType Then
MsgBox "demo is of type MyType"
End If
End Sub

' This example uses TypeOf with Visual Basic type.

Sub ControlProcessor(MyControl As Control)
Dim message as String
If TypeOf MyControl Is CommandButton Then
Message = "A button was clicked."
ElseIf TypeOf MyControl Is CheckBox Then
Message = "A checkbox was changed."
ElseIf TypeOf MyControl Is TextBox Then
Message = "A label was clicked."
End If
MsgBox Message
End Sub

The upgrade wizard can be applied to the preceding code, and an upgraded version
will be produced. However, several UPGRADE_WARNING comments will be
included in the code, and in the case of the user-defined type, the code will not
compile. The code generated by the upgrade wizard is shown here.
Private Structure MyType
Dim a As Short
End Structure

Sub CheckMyType()
Dim demo As MyType
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeOf has a new behavior.
If TypeOf demo Is MyType Then
MsgBox "demo is of type MyType"
End If
End Sub

Sub ControlProcessor(ByRef MyControl As System.Windows.Forms.Control)

' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeOf has a new behavior.
If TypeOf MyControl Is System.Windows.Forms.Button Then
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeName has a new behavior.
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("You passed in a " & TypeName(MyControl))
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeOf has a new behavior.
ElseIf TypeOf MyControl Is System.Windows.Forms.CheckBox Then
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeName has a new behavior.
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("You passed in a " & TypeName(MyControl))
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeOf has a new behavior.
ElseIf TypeOf MyControl Is System.Windows.Forms.TextBox Then
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeName has a new behavior.
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("You passed in a " & TypeName(MyControl))
End If
End Sub
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 257

The issue with the user-defined type requires modification because the TypeOf
operator cannot be used with user-defined types in Visual Basic .NET. Thus, even
though the upgrade wizard left the TypeOf clause in the If statement when testing
against MyType, this code will produce a compile-time error. Modifying the code
requires removing the TypeOf keyword, creating a new object of the target type, and
using the GetType method to compare the types of the test object and the target
object. The modifications are shown here.
Private Sub cmdUserDefined_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) _
Handles cmdUserDefined.Click
Dim demo As MyType
Dim test As MyType
If demo.GetType Is test.GetType Then
MsgBox("MyType")
End If
End Sub

This strategy can be used with any user-defined type, if necessary.

The other issues are warnings that result from inheritance in Visual Basic .NET. The
use of TypeOf in this second context will compile and run, but the code should still
be carefully reviewed. Because of inheritance, TypeOf can return True if the object’s
type matches an ancestor class of the object. For example, the introduction of a test
for type Object in the preceding If construct may trigger an unexpected result. This
is demonstrated here.
Sub ControlProcessor(ByRef MyControl As System.Windows.Forms.Control)
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeOf has a new behavior.
If TypeOf MyControl Is System.Windows.Forms.Button Then
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeName has a new behavior.
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("You passed in a " & TypeName(MyControl))
ElseIf TypeOf MyControl Is Object Then
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("You passed in an Object")
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeOf has a new behavior.
ElseIf TypeOf MyControl Is System.Windows.Forms.CheckBox Then
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeName has a new behavior.
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("You passed in a " & TypeName(MyControl))
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeOf has a new behavior.
ElseIf TypeOf MyControl Is System.Windows.Forms.TextBox Then
' UPGRADE_WARNING: TypeName has a new behavior.
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("You passed in a " & TypeName(MyControl))
End If
End Sub

The new ElseIf branch in the preceding example will cause the “Object” message to
display for any control other than a Button because all controls inherit from the
Object class. Thus, without careful review of the upgraded code, an unexpected
branch may execute when the TypeOf clause is used.
258 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Upgrading References to Visual Basic 6.0 Enum Values

Upgrading code that refers to any predefined Visual Basic 6.0 enumerator values
requires special care. The upgrade wizard may replace the enumerator reference
with a new object in Visual Basic .NET that represents the same value, but it is not a
simple enumerator value. The examples in this section demonstrate this.
If you define a constant in Visual Basic 6.0 to represent a property on a Windows
form or control, you may find that the code does not compile after you upgrade the
project. Consider the following Visual Basic 6.0 code example.
Const myGreenColor = vbGreen

This simple statement defines a constant value to be used to represent the color
green. It is assigned to the value in the Visual Basic 6.0 predefined enumerator value
vbGreen. Applying the upgrade wizard will result in the following Visual Basic
.NET code.
' UPGRADE_NOTE: myGreenColor was changed from a Constant to a Variable.
Dim myGreenColor As System.Drawing.Color = System.Drawing.Color.Lime

The first thing to note is that the declaration has changed from a constant declara-
tion to a variable declaration. Why was this change made? The change was made
because the upgrade wizard replaced the reference to the Visual Basic .NET repre-
sentation of the color green. However, System.Drawing.Color.Lime is not a constant
value; it is a non-constant expression. Instead of being a fixed numeric value, it is a
property that returns a System.Drawing.Color object.
You can view the declaration for System.Drawing.Color.Lime within the upgraded
Visual Basic .NET project by right-clicking Lime in the code window and then
clicking Go To Definition. The Object Browser will display the definition of
System.Drawing.Color.Lime as follows.
Public Shared ReadOnly Property Lime() As System.Drawing.Color

The impact of this change is that in some cases, you may encounter a compiler error
when upgrading code that references Visual Basic 6.0 predefined enumerator values.
For example, suppose that in your original code you created an enumerator named
RGBColors containing values for red, green, and blue. You use the enumerator
values in code to combine red, blue, black, and yellow to create a custom back-
ground for your labels, as shown here.
Enum RGBColors
myDarkRose = vbRed + vbBlue
myWhite = vbBlue + vbBlack + vbYellow
End Enum
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 259

Private Sub frmCollection_Load()

Label1.BackColor = RGBColors.myDarkRose
Label2.BackColor = RGBColors.myWhite
End Sub

Applying the upgrade wizard to this code results in the following.

Enum RGBColors
myDarkRose = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.ToOle(System.Drawing.Color.Red) _
+
System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.ToOle(System.Drawing.Color.Blue)
myWhite = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.ToOle(System.Drawing.Color.Blue) _
+ System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.ToOle(System.Drawing.Color.Black)
_
+ System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.ToOle(System.Drawing.Color.Yellow)
End Enum

Private Sub frmCollection_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Label1.BackColor = _
System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromOle(RGBColors.myDarkRose)
Label2.BackColor = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromOle(RGBColors.myWhite)
End Sub

Because the declarations for the color objects myDarkRose and myWhite are initial-
ized with values that are not constants, literals, or enumerations, each line results in
the compiler error “Constant expression is required.”
There are a two ways to fix these issues. First, you can define your own constant
values and replace the use of the Visual Basic .NET property for each enumerator
with your constants. Alternatively, you can use nonconstant values directly. Each of
these alternatives is described in the sections that follow.

Defining Your Own Constant Values

The easiest way to fix your code is to use constant values in place of the Red, Blue,
Black, and Yellow objects generated by the upgrade wizard. For example, you can
declare constants with the values of the Visual Basic 6.0 constants vbRed, vbBalck,
vbWhite, and vbBlue, so that you can initialize the enumerator members with these
new constants. The following code example demonstrates this approach.
Const RedBlue As Integer = &HFFs + &HFF0000
Const BlueBlackYellow As Single = &HFF0000 + &H0s + &HFFFFs

Enum RGBColors
myDarkRose = RedBlue
myWhite = BlueBlackYellow
End Enum

Private Sub frmCollection_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

260 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

Label1.BackColor = _
System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromOle(RGBColors.myDarkRose)
Label2.BackColor = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromOle(RGBColors.myWhite)
End Sub

Using the Non-Constant Values

Another way to solve the problem is to replace any instances in which a member of
RGBColors is used with the matching System.Drawing.Color. Taking this approach
may require additional research and work because of the differences between
constant values and nonconstant properties. For example, the preceding code
example computes the value of the background color by performing addition on two
enumerator values. If you instead use the System.Drawing.Color properties Red
and Blue, you cannot directly compute the background color using this approach
because you cannot add two objects together. However, if you can use a method or a
function that will give you a meaningful numeric value for the object, you can use
the numeric values in your calculation. Using a numeric-to-object conversion func-
tion allows you to turn the result of the numeric calculation back into an object
representing the calculated value. However, this is possible only if such conversion
functions exist.
In the case of color objects, you can obtain a meaningful numeric color value by
using the ToOle method of the System.Drawing.ColorTranslator class. The ToOle
method takes a color object, such as System.Drawing.Color.Red, and obtains an
RGB color value for it. For example, ToOle(System.Drawing.Color.Red) will return
the RGB value 255, or hexadecimal value FF; it is no coincidence that the vbRed
constant in Visual Basic 6.0 has the same value. After you calculate the new color,
you can convert the result back to a color object by using the
ColorTranslator.FromOle method.
The following code example shows how to modify the example to use the
System.Drawing.Color properties to achieve the same result as the original code.
' Include the Imports statement at the top of the Form file.
Imports System.Drawing
…
Private Sub frmCollection_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Label1.BackColor = ColorTranslator.FromOle(ColorTranslator.ToOle(Color.Red) +
_
ColorTranslator.ToOle(Color.Blue))
Label2.BackColor = ColorTranslator.FromOle(ColorTranslator.ToOle(Color.Blue) +
_
ColorTranslator.ToOle(Color.Black) + _
ColorTranslator.ToOle(Color.Yellow))
End Sub
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 261

It is up to you whether you want to define your own constants or use the
nonconstant values directly in your code. If, in your original code, you are using the
constant values in combination with other constant values, it would make sense to
define your own constant values and use the constants in your code. On the other
hand, if you are making a simple assignment of a constant value to a property, it
would make more sense to use the nonconstant value directly.

Dealing with Changes to Arrays

In Visual Basic 6.0, you can specify the starting index for arrays using the Option
Base declaration or by specifying the index range in the array declaration. In Visual
Basic .NET, all arrays have a starting index of 0. As a result, the Option Base 1
declaration is not supported, nor is specifying an array index range.
Consider the following Visual Basic 6.0 array declarations.
Option Base 1
Dim VariantArray(5) As Variant '5 elements (1-5)

' Specify the array index range in the array declaration.

Dim StringArray(1 To 100) As String '100 elements
Dim LongArray(15 To 25) As Long '11 elements
Dim IntArray(-10 To 10) As Integer '21 elements

None of the preceding declarations are supported in Visual Basic .NET. All array
declarations must have a starting index of 0. Thus, code in which array declarations
have a non-zero starting index must be adjusted. Applying the upgrade wizard to
code with such declarations will result in UPGRADE_WARNING comments in-
serted in the upgraded code wherever the declarations appear. Furthermore, some
declarations may be changed and others left unchanged depending on the starting
index in the original code.
The following code example shows the result of applying the upgrade wizard to the
example declarations in the preceding example.
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Lower bound of array VariantArray was changed from 1 to 0.
Dim VariantArray(5) As Object '6 elements (0-5)

' Specify the array index range in the array declaration.

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Lower bound of array StringArray was changed from 1 to 0.
Dim StringArray(100) As String '101 elements
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Lower bound of array LongArray was changed from 15 to 0.
Dim LongArray(25) As Integer '26 elements
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Declaration type not supported: Array with lower
' bound less than zero.
Dim IntArray(-10 To 10) As Short 'Invalid array declaration
262 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Note: The comments in the preceding upgraded code have been altered to reflect the changes
in the number of elements each array contains after the upgrade. The actual comments would
remain the same as in the original Visual Basic 6.0 code.

Each of the issues will be examined in turn.

For code that uses Option Base 1, the upgrade wizard will issue the following
UPGRADE_WARNING message.
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Lower bound of array VariantArray was
' changed from 1 to 0.

This UPGRADE_WARNING is added for each array declaration that does not
specify a lower bound. The impact of the change in array bounds is that
VariantArray now has six elements, indexed from 0 to 5. The same will be true for
any array in the original code that did not specify a starting index; the upgraded
versions will all begin at index 0 and end at the original ending index.
For array declarations that specify an index range in which a positive lower index is
specified, a similar change is made. The upgrade wizard removes the lower index
from the declaration, leaving only the ending index. Thus, the upgraded
StringArray and LongArray declarations have been modified so that only the
ending index is kept. The impact is that the number of elements in the upgraded
arrays is increased by a number equivalent to the original starting index. For ex-
ample, StringArray, which was declared with a starting index of 1, now begins at
index 0 and has only one extra element. LongArray, which originally had a starting
index of 15, now starts at index 0 resulting in 15 additional array elements in the
upgraded array.
In each of these examples, the upgraded declarations will compile and run. How-
ever, care must be taken if the original code uses dynamic references to the lower
bound of the array because the upgraded array will have more elements than the
original. Consider the following Visual Basic 6.0 loop that fills LongArray with the
item counter.
Dim i As Integer
Dim Index As Integer
i = 1
For Index = LBound(LongArray) To UBound(LongArray)
LongArray(Index) = i
i = i + 1
Next

The upgraded code will remain unchanged by the upgrade wizard. However, the
behavior is now different because the original code filled only 11 elements (indexed
15 to 25), whereas the upgraded version now fills 26 elements (indexed 0 to 25).
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 263

Visual Basic 6.0 arrays declared with a negative lower bound are left unchanged by
the upgrade wizard. However, because specifying an array index range in the array
declaration is no longer supported, any such declarations in the upgraded code will
generate compile time errors. This forces you to manually change any such array
declarations to use a 0 lower bound. Furthermore, you may need to change any code
that used the array to remove any negative index references.
Consider the fourth array declaration in the examples provided earlier. The array
declaration for IntArray contains a starting index of -10. The upgrade wizard leaves
this declaration unchanged, and as a result the upgraded code will not compile. You
must manually change the array declaration in the new code so that it contains the
same number of elements as the original code. In this example, an array with in-
dexes -10 through 10 would have 21 elements. The new declaration should then be
as shown here.
Dim IntArray(20) As Integer

In this new declaration, you now have an array 21 elements long, indexed from 0 to
20.
You would also need to check for any references to negative array indexes. Suppose,
for example, that your original code had the following loop with hard-coded in-
dexes to process the contents of IntArray.
Dim i As Integer
For i = -10 To 10
IntArray(i) = i
Next

Adjusting the array declaration will allow the code to compile, but any attempt to
execute the preceding loop will result in a run-time exception,
System.IndexOutOfRangeException, because -10 is outside the range of array
indexes for this array. The changes you make will depend on your needs. For ex-
ample, if you needed to fill this array with the values -10 through 10, you could
adjust the code to offset the array index by 10. This is demonstrated here.
Dim i As Integer
For i = -10 To 10
IntArray(i + 10) = i
Next

Keep in mind that such code replacement must be performed anywhere array
indexes are used to ensure that negative indexes are never used.
As an alternative, you may choose to use the new collections that are provided by
the .NET Framework instead of arrays. These include ArrayList, SortedList, Queue,
Stack, and HashTable. Some of these collections allow access to elements using
264 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

either a key or an index. Thus, you can assign your original index structure as key
values for the items in the collection and continue to refer to these items with these
keys instead of the new zero-based indexes. For example, you can replace the array
declaration for IntArray with a SortedList collection and then store your items with
your original indexes as keys. This is demonstrated here.
Dim IntList As New Collections.SortedList(20)
Dim i As Integer
For i = -10 To 10
IntList.Add(i,i)
Next

For more information about the new collections available in Visual Basic .NET, see
“System.Collections Namespace” in the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN.

Legacy Visual Basic Language Features

Visual Basic 6.0 maintains code compatibility for many language features going all
the way back to the original version of Visual Basic. These features include elements
such as DefInt, VarPtr, and GoSub…Return. These features and others are depre-
cated in Visual Basic 6.0.
In Visual Basic .NET, some of these features have been eliminated because they lead
to confusing and cryptic coding styles and are not appropriate for the kind of large-
scale distributed application development that is becoming dominant in today’s
business environment.
The decision to remove these features was intended to move the language forward
in the most expeditious, and ultimately beneficial, way possible. The following
Visual Basic 6.0 language features are upgraded by the upgrade wizard but are not
recommended for use in your applications: DefInt, DefStr, DefObj, DefDbl,
DefLng, DefBool, DefCur, DefSng, DefDec, DefByte, DefDate, DefVar, GoTo,
Imp, and Eqv. For code clarity and maintainability, it is recommended that use of
these features should be avoided. DefType statements will be automatically up-
graded by the upgrade tool and comments will be generated in the target code to
indicate that DefType statements were removed and explicit declarations of the
affected variables were added. The upgrade wizard will handle this situation when-
ever possible, but it is recommended that you remove deprecated features that are
not supported by the Visual Basic .NET language from your original source code
prior to upgrade.
The following features are not upgraded by the upgrade wizard, and the developer
must eliminate them: GoSub…Then, LSet, VarPtr, ObjPtr, StrPtr, and Null and
Empty. Table 8.1 lists some obsolete features and suggested alternatives to apply
when upgrading.
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 265

Table 8.1: Obsolete Keywords, Functions, and Statements in Visual Basic .NET
Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET alternative
Array The { } can be used in the declaration of the array, to assign values to
the array.
As Any Visual Basic .NET supports overloading declares so that explicit data
types must be used.
Calendar Available in the System.Globalization namespace.
Currency Replaced by the Decimal data type. The ToString(“C”) method can be
used to display Decimal values as currency according to the current
culture settings.
Date Still supported as a data type (mapping to System.DateTime) but is no
longer a function returning a 4-byte date value. Use the Today property
of the System.DateTime structure to return the day in the 8-byte CLR
format.
Debug.Assert, Replaced by methods in the System.Diagnostics namespace.
Debug.Print
Def<Type> No longer supported. All variables must be explicitly declared.
DoEvents Replaced by a method in the System.Windows.Forms.Application
class.
Empty, Null, All are handled by Nothing keyword. Statements to check for these
IsEmpty, IsNull conditions have also been removed. Database nulls can be tested for
using the IsDBNull function or against the System.DBNull.Value
property.
Eqv, Imp Use the equals (=) operator in conjunction with Not and Or. For
example, replace A Imp B with (Not A) Or B.
GoSub No longer supported. Remove all in original code before upgrading.
IsMissing In Visual Basic .NET, all optional parameters must have default values.
IsObject Replaced by IsReference.
Let, Set Because parameterless default properties are no longer supported,
these statements have been removed.
LSet, RSet Replaced by PadRight and PadLeft methods of the System.String
class, although still supported. However, note that LSet can no longer
be used to copy user-defined types (UDTs). The equivalent to UDTs in
Visual Basic .NET are structures; these cannot be copied directly but
the members can be copied one by one to achieve the same result.For
more information about using UDTs to access file records, see the
section titled “Accessing Fixed-Length Records Using User Defined
Types” in Chapter 11, “Upgrading String and File Operations,” and the
“User-Defined Types” section in Chapter 6, “Understanding the Visual
Basic Upgrade Wizard.”
continued
266 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET alternative

PSet, Scale No longer supported. Equivalent functionality exists in System.Drawing.
Option Private Module Any module can be marked as private using the Private keyword.
String Functions Visual Basic functions that returned strings by appending a dollar sign
($) have now been replaced by overloaded methods. Their counterparts
that return Variants have been replaced with overloaded methods that
return Objects.
Time Replaced by the TimeOfDay property of the System.DateTime
structure. Note that the Date data type is no longer represented as
Double; instead, it is represented as a DateTime structure.
Type Replaced by the Structure statement.
VarType Although it still exists, it should be replaced by the GetTypeCode
method of the specific data types.
Variant Replaced by Object as the universal data type.
Wend Replaced by End While.

Upgrading Add-ins
You can use the Visual Basic extensibility object model to ease development through
add-ins. Add-ins are tools that you create programmatically using objects and
collections in the extensibility model to customize and extend the Visual Basic
integrated development environment (IDE). In a sense, add-ins “snap on” to the
Visual Basic IDE. Regardless of how they are created, the primary goal of an add-in
is to enable you to automate something in the development environment that is
difficult, tedious, or time-consuming to accomplish manually. Add-ins are automa-
tion tools that save time and labor for the Visual Basic programming environment.
Although add-ins are still supported in Visual Studio .NET, there are differences that
require making changes to your project when you upgrade them from Visual Basic
6.0. This section will discuss some of the adjustments you will have to make, using
example add-in code for illustration.
The sample add-in we will work with is simple, but it has enough features to dem-
onstrate many of the basic modifications you will have to make in a typical add-in
upgrade. Our add-in project is named LabAddIn and contains a Class Module
named Connect and a resources file with the same name as the project. This re-
sources file contains a bitmap associated with ID 101. After the add-in is registered
on the computer, whenever Visual Studio 6.0 is loaded, the add-in shows a button in
the Visual Basic Standard toolbar. Clicking this button inserts the Option Explicit
directive at the beginning of the current source code document, by way of the
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 267

clipboard object. For more information about creating and registering Visual Basic
6.0 add-ins, see “Creating a Basic Add-In” on MSDN.
The code for the Connect Class Module of the add-in is shown here.
Implements IDTExtensibility

Dim MenuCommandBar As Office.CommandBarControl

Public WithEvents MenuHandler As CommandBarEvents
Dim CurrentVBInstance As VBIDE.VBE
Dim LastButton As Long
Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnAddInsUpdate(custom() As Variant)
' Required procedure for add-in
End Sub
Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnConnection(ByVal VBInst As Object, _
ByVal ConnectMode As VBIDE.vbext_ConnectMode, _
ByVal AddInInst As VBIDE.AddIn, custom() As Variant)

Set CurrentVBInstance = VBInst

CurrentVBInstance.CommandBars("Standard").Visible = True
LastButton = CurrentVBInstance.CommandBars("Standard").Controls.Count
Set MenuCommandBar = CurrentVBInstance.CommandBars("Standard").Controls.Add(1,
_
, , LastButton)
Clipboard.SetData LoadResPicture(101, vbResBitmap)
MenuCommandBar.PasteFace
MenuCommandBar.ToolTipText = "Lab AddIn"
Set Me.MenuHandler = CurrentVBInstance.Events.CommandBarEvents(MenuCommandBar)
End Sub

Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnDisconnection(ByVal RemoveMode As _

VBIDE.vbext_DisconnectMode, custom() As Variant)
CurrentVBInstance.CommandBars("Standard").Controls.Item(LastButton).Delete
End Sub

Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnStartupComplete(custom() As Variant)

' Required procedure for add-in
End Sub

Private Sub MenuHandler_Click(ByVal CommandBarControl As Object, _

handled As Boolean, CancelDefault As Boolean)
Screen.MousePointer = vbHourglass
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
Call CurrentVBInstance.ActiveCodePane.CodeModule.InsertLines(1, _
"Option Explicit" + Chr(13))
Screen.MousePointer = vbDefault
Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
MsgBox Err.Description, vbCritical
Screen.MousePointer = vbDefault
End Sub
268 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

When the upgrade wizard is applied to this code, the result is the following.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("Connect_NET.Connect")> _
Public Class Connect
Implements VBIDE.IDTExtensibility

Dim MenuCommandBar As Microsoft.Office.Core.CommandBarControl

Public WithEvents MenuHandler As VBIDE.CommandBarEvents
Dim CurrentVBInstance As VBIDE.VBE
Dim LastButton As Integer
Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnAddInsUpdate(ByRef custom As System.Array) _
Implements VBIDE.IDTExtensibility.OnAddInsUpdate
' Required procedure for add-in
End Sub
Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnConnection(ByVal VBInst As Object, _
ByVal ConnectMode As VBIDE.vbext_ConnectMode,
_
ByVal AddInInst As VBIDE.AddIn, _
ByRef custom As System.Array) _
Implements VBIDE.IDTExtensibility.OnConnection

CurrentVBInstance = VBInst
CurrentVBInstance.CommandBars("Standard").Visible = True
LastButton = CurrentVBInstance.CommandBars("Standard").Controls.Count
MenuCommandBar = CurrentVBInstance.CommandBars("Standard").Controls.Add( _
1, , , LastButton)
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Clipboard method Clipboard.SetData was not upgraded.
Clipboard.SetData(VB6.LoadResPicture(101, VB6.LoadResConstants.ResBitmap))

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object

' MenuCommandBar.PasteFace.
MenuCommandBar.PasteFace()
MenuCommandBar.ToolTipText = "Lab AddIn"
Me.MenuHandler = CurrentVBInstance.Events.CommandBarEvents(MenuCommandBar)
End Sub

Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnDisconnection( _

ByVal RemoveMode As VBIDE.vbext_DisconnectMode, _
ByRef custom As System.Array) _
Implements VBIDE.IDTExtensibility.OnDisconnection
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object
' CurrentVBInstance.CommandBars().Controls.Item().Delete.
CurrentVBInstance.CommandBars("Standard").Controls.Item(LastButton).Delete()
End Sub

Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnStartupComplete(ByRef custom As System.Array) _

Implements VBIDE.IDTExtensibility.OnStartupComplete
'Required Procedure for add-in
End Sub
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 269

Private Sub MenuHandler_Click(ByVal CommandBarControl As Object, _

ByRef handled As Boolean, _
ByRef CancelDefault As Boolean) _
Handles MenuHandler.Click

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Screen property Screen.MousePointer has a new behavior.

System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Current = _
System.Windows.Forms.Cursors.WaitCursor
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
Call CurrentVBInstance.ActiveCodePane.CodeModule.InsertLines(1, _
"Option Explicit" & Chr(13))
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Screen property Screen.MousePointer has a new behavior.
System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Current = System.Windows.Forms.Cursors.Default
Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
MsgBox(Err.Description, MsgBoxStyle.Critical)
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Screen property Screen.MousePointer has a new behavior.
System.Windows.Forms.Cursor.Current = System.Windows.Forms.Cursors.Default
End Sub
End Class

A compilation error related to this code appears in the Task List. The error is a result
of changes to the Clipboard object as explained earlier in this chapter. You can
correct this error by changing the offending instruction, as shown here.
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Clipboard method Clipboard.SetData was not upgraded.
Clipboard.SetData(VB6.LoadResPicture(101, VB6.LoadResConstants.ResBitmap))

This statement can be replaced with the following code to deal with the changes to
the Clipboard in Visual Basic .NET.
Dim d As New System.Windows.Forms.DataObject(VB6.LoadResPicture (101, _
VB6.LoadResConstants.ResBitmap))
System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetDataObject(d)

In addition to correcting the Clipboard code, you must also correct references to the
VBIDE and Microsoft.Office.Core libraries, which enable access to Visual Basic IDE
features. These libraries have been replaced by equivalent ones in .NET. To use the
new versions of these libraries, you must first delete these references. Next, add the
references to the libraries EnvDTE, Extensibility, and Office. These libraries enable
the extensibility functionality of Visual Studio .NET and allow access to the current
instance of the IDE. You can access the Add Reference dialog box by selecting the
Add Reference item on the Project menu.
Making these changes to the references will cause new compilation errors in your
code resulting from calls to functions in the VBIDE library. The next step in the
upgrade is to correct these errors by replacing the calls with the equivalent versions
in the libraries you just referenced. For example, an error occurs with the following
line of code.
Implements VBIDE.IDTExtensibility
270 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

You can correct this error by replacing it with the following two lines of Visual Basic
.NET code.
Implements Extensibility.IDTExtensibility2
Implements EnvDTE.IDTCommandTarget

This change substitutes the extensibility interface of the VBIDE library, and it allows
you to modify aspects of the Visual Studio .NET IDE’s graphical interface.
These changes are still not enough to complete the upgrade. The next step is to
import the EnvDTE, Extensibility, and System.Runtime.InteropServices libraries.
Add the following lines of code before the declaration of the Connect class to import
these libraries.
Imports EnvDTE
Imports Extensibility
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Table 8.2 lists code replacements that must be made in OnAddInsUpdate,

OnConnection, OnDisconnection, and OnStartUpComplete events.
Table 8.2: Replacements for Code Events
Original code Replacement
VBIDE.IDTExtensibility Extensibility.IDTExtensibility2
VBIDE.vbext_ConnectMode Extensibility.ext_ConnectMode
VBIDE.AddIn Object
VBEIDE.vbext_DisconnectMode Extensibility.ext_ConnectMode

The resulting code with changes applied is shown here.

Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnAddInsUpdate(ByRef custom As System.Array) _
Implements Extensibility.IDTExtensibility2.OnAddInsUpdate

Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnConnection(ByVal VBInst As Object, _

ByVal ConnectMode As Extensibility.ext_ConnectMode, _
ByVal addInInst As Object, ByRef custom As System.Array) _
Implements Extensibility.IDTExtensibility2.OnConnection

Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnDisconnection( _

ByVal RemoveMode As Extensibility.ext_DisconnectMode, _
ByRef custom As System.Array) Implements _
Extensibility.IDTExtensibility2.OnDisconnection

Private Sub IDTExtensibility_OnStartupComplete(ByRef custom As System.Array) _

Implements Extensibility.IDTExtensibility2.OnStartupComplete
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 271

Your upgraded add-in must include an OnBeginShutdown event handler. The

following code example can be used.
Public Sub IDTExtensibility_OnBeginShutdown(ByRef custom As System.Array) _
Implements Extensibility.IDTExtensibility2. OnBeginShutdown
' Required by add-in
End Sub

The following code handles the connect command that will be sent to the plug-in
when it is used in the Visual Studio .NET IDE. This will allow a connection with the
plug-in and will unfold the corresponding controls on the user interface.
Public Sub Exec(ByVal cmdName As String, _
ByVal executeOption As vsCommandExecOption, ByRef varIn As Object, _
ByRef varOut As Object, ByRef handled As Boolean) _
Implements IDTCommandTarget.Exec
handled = False
If (executeOption = vsCommandExecOption.vsCommandExecOptionDoDefault) Then
If cmdName = "LabAddIn.Connect" Then
handled = True
Exit Sub
End If
End If
End Sub

Public Sub QueryStatus(ByVal cmdName As String, _

ByVal neededText As vsCommandStatusTextWanted, _
ByRef statusOption As vsCommandStatus, _
ByRef commandText As Object) _
Implements IDTCommandTarget.QueryStatus
If neededText = _
EnvDTE.vsCommandStatusTextWanted.vsCommandStatusTextWantedNone Then
If cmdName = "LabAddIn.Connect" Then
statusOption = CType(vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusEnabled + _
vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusSupported, _
vsCommandStatus)
Else
statusOption = vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusUnsupported
End If
End If
End Sub

Your new code still has two compilation errors. These can be solved by referencing
the EnvDTE library instead of the eliminated VBIDE, as shown here.
Public WithEvents MenuHandler As CommandBarEvents
Dim CurrentVBInstance As DTE
272 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Next, you must change the ProgId class attribute to use the correct name of add-in
project, the automatic upgrade process sets Connect_NET.Connect in this attribute,
using the following instruction of the class declaration.
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("Connect_NET.Connect")>

The attribute should be changed by the correct name: in this example, this means
changing the name to LabAddIn.Connect and the previous will be changed to the
following.
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("LabAddIn.Connect")>

Finally, you must change the following line in the MenuHandler.Click event.
Call CurrentVBInstance.ActiveCodePane.CodeModule.InsertLines(1, _
"Option Explicit" & Chr(13))

Use the following instructions to replace this previous line of code.

Dim Txt As TextDocument = CurrentVBInstance.ActiveDocument.Object()
Txt.CreateEditPoint().Insert("Option Explicit On" & Chr(13))

With this final change, you now have a project that is ready to build. The add-in
should now compile correctly and be ready to plug in to the Visual Studio .NET IDE.
To do so, you will have to register it to make the functionality available. You can
register your add-in with the following steps:
1. Build the dynamic link library (DLL) file for the add-in.
2. Open a command prompt.
3. At the command prompt, enter regasm name.dll where name is the name of the
add-in.
4. Edit the registry. You can use the regedit command to start the registry editor.
5. Find the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\AddIns.
If the key AddIns is not already created, you must create it yourself.
6. Add a key with the same name of the ProgId class attribute.
7. In the new key, add the following string value: FriendlyName and Description.
8. Set the display name of the add-in in the FiendlyName option.
9. Set a descriptive comment about the add-in in the Description option.
10. Load Visual Studio .NET.
11. On the Tools menu, click Add-in Manager.
12. Select your add-in in the list to have it added to the Visual Studio .NET IDE.
 Chapter 8: Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0 Language Features 273

By applying these steps, you can customize the Visual Studio .NET IDE just as you
can the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE.

Summary
Several Visual Basic 6.0 language features have been changed or removed in Visual
Basic .NET. This does not mean that you do not have options for upgrading code
that contains these features; however, it does mean you will likely have to make
manual adjustments to your code.
An important step in understanding how to deal with changed features is to learn
which features were changed. Just as important is to understand what the change
was and how it impacts upgrades.
Each feature identified in this chapter will require manual correction. This chapter
has given some ideas about how to address these issues. Remember, there may be
more than one way to solve problems that arise from these issues, so if a particular
suggestion does not suit you, a Web search may help you find a more appropriate
solution.

More Information
For more information about parameterized default properties in Visual Basic .NET,
see “Default Property Changes in Visual Basic” in Visual Basic Language Concepts on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html
/vaconDefaultProperties.asp.
For more information about the new collections available in Visual Basic .NET, see
“System.Collections Namespace” in the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html
/frlrfsystemcollections.asp.
For more information about creating and registering Visual Basic 6.0 add-ins, see
“Creating a Basic Add-In” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon98/html
/vbconcreatingaddin.asp.
9
Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms
Features
Many Microsoft Windows-based applications are based on forms. One of the key
advantages of Microsoft Visual Basic is the ease with which forms can be built,
making it a common language for rapid application development.
There have been big changes in the basic forms architecture since Visual Basic 6.0.
Forms applications in Visual Basic .NET are created with Windows Forms architec-
ture. Windows Forms is a richer, more extensible architecture than that available in
Visual Basic 6.0, but the differences require making adjustments when upgrading
applications. This chapter will introduce you to some of the changes in forms, and
what you need to do to upgrade your forms applications.

Handling Changes to Graphics Operations

Visual Basic 6.0 provides a number of graphics methods for drawing lines and
shapes on a form. It also provides the PictureBox and Image controls, which allow
you to apply drawing methods on other controls. There are several changes to how
drawing operations are performed in Visual Basic .NET. The next sections describe
these changes.

Removal of the Line Control in Visual Basic .NET

The Line control in Visual Basic 6.0 allows you to draw a line segment on a form. It
has no equivalent control in Visual Basic .NET. When the upgrade wizard is applied,
vertical and horizontal Line controls are replaced with the Windows Forms Label
control, with the Text property set to an empty string, the BorderStyle property set
to None, and the BackColor, Width, and Height properties set to match the original
control. Line controls that are not vertical or horizontal are not upgraded; the up-
grade wizard replaces such lines with a Label control, with the BackColor property
set to Red to highlight the issue.
276 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Line controls can be replaced with lines drawn in the Paint event using graphics
functions available in Visual Basic .NET. The following example shows how a
diagonal line is painted in Visual Basic .NET.
Private Sub Form1_Paint(ByVal sender As Object, _
ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs) _
Handles MyBase.Paint
' Create a Pen object.
Dim pen As New Drawing.Pen(System.Drawing.Color.Brown, 1)
e.Graphics.DrawLine(pen, 0, 0, 100, 100)
pen.Dispose()
End Sub

Using the DrawLine method may be more work than using a Line control, but it is
necessary for lines that are not vertical or horizontal. It will also be necessary for
lines that have non-default values for attributes such as BorderWidth or
BorderStyle. Furthermore, a Label control is significantly different from a graphic
object such as a Line. Although it may initially appear the same in your upgraded
project, the behavior will not be quite the same. Keep in mind that upgrading the
Line control to a Label control is a temporary solution that should be
reimplemented using the DrawLine method.

Removal of the Shape Control in Visual Basic .NET

The Shape control in Visual Basic 6.0 has no equivalent in Visual Basic .NET. Rectan-
gular or square Shape controls in code are replaced with Windows Forms Label
controls where the BorderStyle is set to FixedSingle, and the BackColor, Width,
and Height properties are set to match the original control. Oval and circle Shape
controls cannot be upgraded; they are replaced with a placeholder Label control
with its BackColor property set to Red.
You can replace Shape controls with drawing methods in the Paint event. This
strategy can be used for any Shape control, but it is mandatory for oval and circle
Shape controls. The following code example demonstrates how to draw a circle in
Visual Basic .NET.
Private Sub Form1_Paint(ByVal sender As Object, _
ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs) _
Handles MyBase.Paint
' Create a Pen object.
Dim pen As New Drawing.Pen(System.Drawing.Color.Brown, 1)
e.Graphics.DrawEllipse(pen, 0, 0, 100, 100)
pen.Dispose()
End Sub

Note: It may be necessary to use the ZOrder method to achieve the same visual layout as the
original application.
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 277

Table 9.1 lists Visual Basic 6.0 graphics properties and methods and their Visual
Basic .NET equivalents.
Table 9.1: Graphics Properties and Methods
Visual Basic 6.0 Visual Basic .NET equivalent
AutoRedraw property No equivalent. To create persistant graphics, put graphics methods in
the Paint event handler.
Circle method Graphics.DrawEllipse method
ClipControls property No equivalent. To repaint only part of an object, create a clip in the
Paint event handler using the Graphics.SetClip method.
Cls method Graphics.Clear method
CurrentX property The x parameter of various graphics methods. For example,
DrawRectangle(pen, x, y, width, height).
CurrentY property The y parameter of various graphics methods. For example,
DrawRectangle(pen, x, y, width, height).
DrawMode property Pen.Color property
DrawStyle property Pen.PenType property
DrawWidth property Pen.Width property
FillColor property SolidBrush.Color property
FillStyle property Pen.Brush property
HasDC property No equivalent. Device contexts are no longer necessary with GDI+.
HDC property No equivalent. Device contexts are no longer necessary with GDI+.
Image property Image property. In Visual Basic 6.0, the Image property returned a
handle; in Visual Basic .NET, it returns a System.Drawing.Image object.
Line method Graphics.DrawLine method
PaintPicture method Graphics.DrawImage method
Point method No equivalent for forms or controls. For bitmaps, use Bitmap.GetPixel
method.
Print method Graphics.DrawString method
Pset method No equivalent for forms or controls. For bitmaps, use Bitmap.SetPixel
method.
TextHeight property Graphics.MeasureString method. This method returns a
System.Drawing.SizeF structure that represents the size, in pixels, of
the specified string as drawn with a given font. The SizeF.Height
property can be used to get the text height.
TextWidth property Graphics.MeasureString method. This method returns a
System.Drawing.SizeF structure that represents the size, in pixels, of
the specified string as drawn with a given font. The SizeF.Width
property can be used to get the text width.
278 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Handling Changes to the PopupMenu Method

One of the most frequently used features of Visual Basic 6.0 Menu controls is the
PopupMenu method, which displays a pop-up menu on an MDIForm or Form
object. The pop-up menu can be displayed at the current mouse location or specified
coordinates. Usually, this method is used in combination with mouse events.
The following code example displays a pop-up menu at the cursor location when the
user right-clicks a form. This example assumes the existence of a form that includes
a Menu control named mnuFile with at least one menu item. The form’s code
contains the following MouseDown event handler.
…
Private Sub Form_MouseDown (Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, _
X As Single, Y As Single)
If Button = 2 Then
PopupMenu mnuFile
End If
End Sub
…

When the code is upgraded to Visual Basic .NET, the PopupMenu instruction does
not change, but it is marked with upgrade warnings as shown here.
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Form method Form1.PopupMenu was not upgraded.

The upgraded code causes compile time errors in Visual Basic .NET. To get the same
functionality, you have to replace the upgraded code with instructions that use the
ContextMenu object. The following code sample demonstrates this strategy.
Private Sub Form1_MouseDown(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs) _
Handles MyBase.MouseDown
Dim Button As Short = eventArgs.Button \ &H100000
Dim Shift As Short = _
System.Windows.Forms.Control.ModifierKeys \ &H10000
Dim X As Single = VB6.PixelsToTwipsX(eventArgs.X)
Dim Y As Single = VB6.PixelsToTwipsY(eventArgs.Y)
If Button = 2 Then
Dim popupmenu As ContextMenu
popupmenu = New ContextMenu
popupmenu.MergeMenu(mnuFile)
popupmenu.Show(Me, New Point(eventArgs.X, eventArgs.Y))
End If
End Sub
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 279

The preceding code example uses a ContextMenu object to allow a pop-up menu to
be displayed. The MergeMenu instruction adds the items that are in the mnuFile
Menu control.
If your original code displayed the pop-up menu at specified coordinates, you can
specify the desired coordinates in the Show method. For example, the original pop-
up menu code may look like this.
PopupMenu mnuFile, , 10, 10

If it does, you can specify the display coordinates in Visual Basic .NET, as shown
here.
popupmenu.Show(Me, New Point(10, 10))

Not all features of Visual Basic 6.0 pop-up menus are available in Visual Basic .NET.
Flags and boldcommand arguments have no equivalent. Menu items in Visual Basic
.NET can not be set to bold with version 1.1 of the .NET Framework unless you use
owner-drawn menus. However, this ability has been added to version 2.0. The pop-
up menu position depends entirely on the position specified in the parameters of the
Show method, and the pop-up menu reacts to a mouse click only when you use the
left mouse button. Additional visual effects, such as bold items, can be achieved in
Visual Basic .NET by using the MenuItem.OwnerDraw property to specify that a
menu item will be drawn by the owner. This technique requires a user-defined event
handler for the MenuItem.DrawItem event and the usage of the Graphics object.
For more information, see “MenuItem.DrawItem Event” in the .NET Framework Class
Library on MSDN.

Handling Changes to the ClipControls Property

Clipping is the process of determining which parts of a form or container, such as a
Frame or PictureBox control, are painted when the form is displayed. An outline of
the form and controls is created in memory. The Windows operating system uses
this outline to paint some parts, such as the background, without affecting other
parts, such as the contents of a TextBox control. Because the clipping region is
created in memory, setting this property to False can reduce the time to paint or
repaint a form.
The ClipControls property can be set at design time. At run time, this property
returns a value that determines whether graphics methods in Paint events repaint
the entire object or only newly exposed areas. It also determines whether the Win-
dows operating system creates a clipping region that excludes nongraphical controls
contained by the object.
280 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Visual Basic .NET does not support the ClipControls property. When your applica-
tion is upgraded and this property is referenced in the code, it is left as-is and is
marked with upgrade warnings, as shown here.
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Form property Form1.ClipControls was not upgraded.

To correct this issue, you must replace references to the property with a call to the
Graphics.SetClip method. By providing an event handler for the Paint event, you
can access the Graphics object associated with the control that is going to be drawn.
Using this object, the SetClip method can be called to specify a clipping region.
This is a somewhat advanced technique that requires additional work; before writ-
ing custom drawing routines you should test the drawing performance of your
upgraded application. The ClipControls property is used to improve performance
in hardware that has limited capabilities. Modern high-performance computers and
video cards are often sufficient to render displays without the need for clipping. It is
possible that your upgraded application has enough performance on the current
target systems without low-level handling of clipping regions. If this is the case, you
can remove the code related to the ClipControls property instead of upgrading it.

Drag-and-Drop Functionality
Drag-and-drop capability is an important feature of most modern form-based
applications. There are a number of important differences in drag-and-drop func-
tionality between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET. This section provides an
overview of the differences so that you can better understand how they will affect
your application.

Drag-and-Drop Functionality in Visual Basic 6.0

Visual Basic 6.0 supports two kinds of drag-and-drop operations: standard drag-
and-drop functionality, which supports moving items between controls within a
single form, and OLE drag-and-drop functionality, which supports moving items
between applications. This section focuses on OLE drag-and-drop functionality.
The standard Visual Basic 6.0 controls have varying degrees of support for OLE
drag-and-drop functionality.
Table 9.2 lists the standard Visual Basic 6.0 controls and their support for manual
and automatic drag-and-drop operations.
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 281

Table 9.2: Visual Basic 6.0 Controls: Support for OLE Drag-and-Drop Functionality
Controls OLEDragMode OLEDropMode
TextBox, PictureBox, VbManual, vbAutomatic vbNone, vbManual,
Image, RichTextBox, vbAutomatic
MaskedBox
ComboBox, ListBox, VbManual, vbAutomatic vbNone, vbManual
DirListBox, FileListBox,
DBCombo, DBList,
TreeView, ListView,
ImageCombo, DataList,
DataCombo
Form, Label, Frame, Not supported vbNone, vbManual
CommandButton,
DriveListBox, Data,
MSFlexGrid, SSTab,
TabStrip, Toolbar,
StatusBar, ProgressBar,
Slider, Animation,
UpDown, MonthView,
DateTimePicker, CoolBar

Figure 9.1 on the next page outlines the life cycle of an OLE drag-and-drop opera-
tion in Visual Basic 6.0.
Although drag-and-drop functionality is supported in Visual Basic .NET, there are
differences. The next section details drag-and-drop functionality in Visual Basic
.NET.
282 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Sub Source_MouseDown(...) The user clicks on the

source.OLEDrag source control.

Sub Source_OLEStartDrag(Data, Effects) The source control sets the

Data.SetData [bytes] [,format] available formats and the data
to be transferred.

The user moves the mouse

Sub Target_OLEStartDrag(Data, Effects) over the target control, which
Effects - vbDropEffectCopy responds by setting one or
more drag-and-drop effects.

The source control provides

Sub Source_OLEGiveFeedback(Effect, DefaultCursors)
feedback by changing the
Screen.MousePointer - vbCustom
cursor’s shape.

Sub Target_OLEDragDrop(Data, Effect, ...)

If Data.GetFormat([format]) Then The mouse button is released.
var - Data.GetData(...)

Sub Source_OLESetData(Data, Format) Sub Source_OLECompleteDrag(Effect)

Data.SetData var, [format]
The data is requested of the source control The source control can optionally complete
if it was not specified in the OLEStartDrag the operation by deleting source data.
event method.
Figure 9.1
The life cycle of a Visual Basic 6.0 drag-and-drop operation

Drag-and-Drop Functionality in Visual Basic .NET

In Visual Basic .NET, the drag-and-drop operations are consolidated into a single
framework. Drag-and-drop operations between controls is handled the same as
drag-and-drop operations between applications. This change simplifies the pro-
gramming burden for new development, but it requires rewriting drag-and-drop
code for existing applications.
Figure 9.2 outlines the life cycle of a drag-and-drop procedure in Visual Basic .NET.
Note that this cycle applies to both control-to-control and application-to-application
drag-and-drop operations.
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 283

Source Control Events

Sub source_MouseDown(...)

The user clicks on the source control.

Populate the data at this point.

Sub Source_DragEnter(...) Sub Source_DragOver(...)

The source evaluates This event is called

the drag data and repeatedly as the cursor is
defines it’s response. dragged around inside the
control boundaries.

Sub Source_DragLeave(...)

The source control provides

feedback by changing the
cursor’s shape.

Target Control Events

Sub Target_DragEnter(...)

The target evaluates the drag

data and defines its response.

Sub Target_DragOver(...)

The event is called repeatedly

as the cursor is dragged around
inside of the control boundaries.

Sub Target_DragLeave(...) Sub Target_DragDrop(...)

The source control provides The mouse button is released

feedback by changing the inside of the target control.
cursor’s shape.

Figure 9.2
Life cycle of a Visual Basic .NET drag-and-drop operation

The changes necessary to make the drag-and-drop code work in Visual Basic .NET
are fairly significant. Because of changes in the drag-and-drop programming model,
the upgrade wizard cannot automatically make the modifications. Instead, the
284 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

methods are unchanged, and you have to implement the logic in the Visual Basic
.NET drag-and-drop event model. The following code example shows how drag-
and-drop operations are handled in Visual Basic 6.0.
Private Sub MyPictureBox_MouseDown(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, _
X As Single, Y As Single)
MyPictureBox.OLEDrag
End Sub

Private Sub MyPictureBox_OLEDragDrop(Data As DataObject, Effect As Long, _

Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, X As Single, Y As Single)

If Data.GetFormat(vbCFFiles) Then
Dim i As Integer
For i = 1 To Data.Files.Count
Dim ImagePath As String
Dim Index As Integer

ImagePath = Data.Files(i)
Index = ImageIndexOf(ImagePath)
If Index = -1 Then
Select Case UCase(Right(ImagePath, 4))
Case ".BMP", ".JPG", ".GIF"
ImageList.AddItem ImagePath
ImageList.ListIndex = ImageList.ListCount - 1

Set MyPictureBox.Picture = LoadPicture(ImagePath)

End Select
Else
ImageList.ListIndex = Index
End If
Next
End If

End Sub

Private Sub MyPictureBox_OLEStartDrag(Data As DataObject, AllowedEffects As Long)

Data.Files.Clear
Data.Files.Add ImageList
Data.SetData , vbCFFiles
AllowedEffects = vbDropEffectCopy
End Sub

Private Function ImageIndexOf(ImagePath As String) As Integer

Dim i As Integer

For i = 0 To ImageList.ListCount
If ImageList.List(i) = ImagePath Then
ImageIndexOf = i
Exit Function
End If
Next
ImageIndexOf = -1
End Function
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 285

Instead of upgrading the Visual Basic 6.0 code, it is necessary to replace it with the
Visual Basic .NET drag-and-drop event model. In the Visual Basic .NET event
model, information is passed back and forth in a different way. The following code
example shows how to implement the equivalent drag-and-drop operation demon-
strated in the preceding Visual Basic .NET.
Private Sub MyForm_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
MyPictureBox.AllowDrop = True
Application.DoEvents()
End Sub

Private Sub MyPictureBox_DragDrop(ByVal sender As Object, _

ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.DragEventArgs) _
Handles MyPictureBox.DragDrop
' Clear out the existing image and ensure that any resources
' are released.
If Not MyPictureBox.Image Is Nothing Then
MyPictureBox.Image.Dispose()
MyPictureBox.Image = Nothing
End If

Dim Images() As String = e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.FileDrop, True)

Dim i As Integer
Dim Index As Integer

For i = 0 To Images.Length - 1
Index = ImageIndexOf(Images(i))
If Index = -1 Then
ImageList.SelectedIndex = ImageList.Items.Add(Images(i))
Else
ImageList.SelectedIndex = Index
End If
Next

' Set the picture to the last image that was added.
MyPictureBox.Image = Image.FromFile(ImageList.SelectedItem)
End Sub

Private Sub PictureDisplay_DragEnter(ByVal sender As Object, _

ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.DragEventArgs) _
Handles MyPictureBox.DragEnter
If e.Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.FileDrop) Then
Dim FileType As String
Dim file() As String = e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.FileDrop, True)

FileType = UCase(Microsoft.VisualBasic.Right(file(0), 4))

Select Case FileType
Case ".BMP", ".JPG", ".GIF"
e.Effect = DragDropEffects.Copy
Case Else
e.Effect = DragDropEffects.None
286 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

End Select
Else
e.Effect = DragDropEffects.None
End If
End Sub

Private Sub PictureDisplay_MouseDown(ByVal sender As Object, _

ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs) _
Handles MyPictureBox.MouseDown
Dim file(0) As String
file(0) = ImageList.SelectedItem

Dim d As New DataObject(DataFormats.FileDrop, file)

ImageList.DoDragDrop(d, DragDropEffects.Copy)
End Sub

Private Function ImageIndexOf(ByRef ImagePath As String) As Short

Dim i As Short

For i = 0 To ImageList.Items.Count
If VB6.GetItemString(ImageList, i) = ImagePath Then
ImageIndexOf = i
Exit Function
End If
Next
ImageIndexOf = -1
End Function

This example should give you an idea of the kind of work you have to do to replace
drag-and-drop functionality in Visual Basic .NET.

Handling Changes to the MousePointer and MouseIcon

Properties
In Visual Basic 6.0, you can use the MousePointer and MouseIcon properties to
display a custom icon, cursor, or any one of a variety of predefined mouse pointers.
Changing the mouse pointer gives you a way to inform the user of a variety of
activities or possible activities. For example, it can inform the user that long back-
ground tasks are processing, that a control or window can be resized, or that a
particular control does not support drag-and-drop operations. Using custom icons
or mouse pointers, you can express an endless range of visual information about the
state and functionality of your application. Each pointer option is represented by an
integer value setting.
At run time, you can set the value of the mouse pointer either by using the integer
values or the Visual Basic mouse pointer constants. For example, the following line
of code sets the mouse pointer to an hourglass display.
Form1.MousePointer = vbHourglass
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 287

To use a custom icon or cursor, set the MousePointer property to vbCustom and
load an icon file or cursor file into the MouseIcon property. The following code
example demonstrates setting the mouse pointer to a custom image.
Form1.MousePointer = vbCustom
Form1.MouseIcon = LoadPicture("c:\Icons\EW_06.CUR")

The upgrade of predefined mouse pointers of Visual Basic 6.0 is automatic. How-
ever, additional work is required for custom mouse pointers. When such code is
upgraded with the upgrade wizard, the code is unchanged but marked with up-
grade warnings as shown here.
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Form property Form1.MousePointer does not support
' custom mousepointers.

' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Form property Form1.MouseIcon was not upgraded.

The upgraded code causes compile errors in Visual Basic .NET. To get the same
functionality, you must replace it with code that uses the
System.Windows.Forms.Cursor object, as shown here.
Me.Cursor = New Cursor("c:\Icons\EW_06.CUR")

Note that custom mouse pointers are not supported at design time in Visual Basic
.NET; the MousePointer property is replaced by the Cursor property, and the
MouseIcon property no longer exists. However, you can load your custom mouse
pointer in the Load event.
Table 9.3 lists the Visual Basic 6.0 mouse pointer constants and the Visual Basic .NET
equivalents.
Table 9.3: Mouse Pointer Constants
Visual Basic 6.0 Value Visual Basic .NET Equivalent
vbDefault 0 Windows.Forms.Cursors.Default
vbArrow 1 Windows.Forms.Cursors.Arrow
vbCrosshair 2 Windows.Forms.Cursors.Cross
vbIbeam 3 Windows.Forms.Cursors.IBeam
vbIconPointer 4 Windows.Forms.Cursors.Default
vbSizePointer 5 Windows.Forms.Cursors.SizeAll
vbSizeNESW 6 Windows.Forms.Cursors.SizeNESW
vbSizeNS 7 Windows.Forms.Cursors.SizeNS
continued
288 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Visual Basic 6.0 Value Visual Basic .NET Equivalent

vbSizeNWSE 8 Windows.Forms.Cursors.SizeNWSE
vbSizeWE 9 Windows.Forms.Cursors.SizeWE
vbUpArrow 10 Windows.Forms.Cursors.UpArrow
vbHourglass 11 Windows.Forms.Cursors.WaitCursor
vbNoDrop 12 Windows.Forms.Cursors.No
vbArrowHourglass 13 Windows.Forms.Cursors.AppStarting
vbArrowQuestion 14 Windows.Forms.Cursors.Help
vbSizeAll 15 Windows.Forms.Cursors.SizeAll
vbCustom 99 No direct equivalent. Use the example shown in
this section to replace code.

Handling Changes to Property Pages

Visual Basic 6.0 property pages allow you to work around the limitations of the
Visual Basic Property Browser. For example, you can use property pages to give
users a way to add a collection of colors to a color list user control. In the property
page, you would write code that manages the collection, something beyond the
capabilities of the Visual Basic 6.0 Property Browser. In contrast, the Visual Basic
.NET Property Browser can be used to edit any .NET variable type or class. Property
pages are no longer needed.
Property pages in user controls are not automatically upgraded by the upgrade
wizard. To enable your control to edit the values that used to be exposed in the
control’s property pages, you need to add properties to your user control. The good
news is that the Visual Basic .NET Property Browser automatically recognizes the
types of your control’s properties and allows users to edit them in the Property
Browser. In the case of a color collection, you simply add the property to your user
control, and the Visual Basic .NET Property Browser provides a color collection
editor.
The following code example demonstrates this mechanism. Add the following code
to a Windows Forms user control.
Dim ColorsCollection() As Color
Property Colors() As Color()
Get
Return ColorsCollection
End Get
Set(ByVal Value As Color())
ColorsCollection = Value.Clone
End Set
End Property
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 289

If you add the user control to a form, you will notice that the control has a new
property, named Colors. When you access this property, the Collection editor is
displayed, with all colors that are contained in the collection. If you try to change
the color of a collection’s item, Visual Studio .NET automatically shows the Colors
editor, as shown in Figure 9.3.

Figure 9.3
Adding a color collection to your user control

The advantage of showing properties in the Property Browser instead of in property

pages is that all of the properties for your control are visible and easily discoverable.
Compare this with Visual Basic 6.0 property pages, which hide functionality from
clients who use your controls.
In Visual Basic 6.0, the data included in property pages is usually persisted using a
PropertyBag object. The ReadProperties and WriteProperties events are used to
retrieve or save a UserControl’s values to a PropertyBag object. In Visual Basic
.NET, the PropertyBag object is no longer supported, and the ReadProperties and
WriteProperties events no longer exist.
However, you can still persist an object’s data using the
System.Runtime.Serialization and System.IO namespaces. Serialization in .NET
requires using the Serializable class attribute. A Stream object and a
BinaryFormatter or SoapFormatter object can be used to retrieve the object’s data
from a file when instantiating the corresponding object. Stream and
290 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

BinaryFormatter objects can be used to write the object’s values to the file before
destroying the object. For more information about making an object’s data persist,
see “Property Bag Changes in Visual Basic .NET” on MSDN.
To change and manage properties in Visual Basic .NET, use Property Editors and
Designers. When editing properties, a visual designer should create a new instance
of the specified editor through a dialog box or drop-down list. The base class for
editors is System.Drawing.Design.UITypeEditor, which is used in conjunction with
System.ComponentModel.EditorAttribute. For example, this Visual Basic .NET
code creates the MyImage class, which is marked with an EditorAttribute that
specifies the ImageEditor as its editor.
<Editor("System.Windows.Forms.ImageEditorIndex, System.Design", _
GetType(UITypeEditor))> _
Public Class MyImage
…
End Class 'MyImage

The Designer attribute (System.ComponentModel.DesignerAttribute) specifies the

class used to implement design-time services for a component. The following Visual
Basic .NET code creates a class named MyForm. MyForm that has two attributes: a
DesignerAttribute that specifies this class uses the DocumentDesigner, and a
DesignerCategoryAttribute that specifies the Form category.
<Designer("System.Windows.Forms.Design.DocumentDesigner,
System.Windows.Forms.Design.DLL", _
GetType(IRootDesigner)), DesignerCategory("Form")> _
Public Class MyForm
Inherits ContainerControl
…
End Class 'MyForm

To implement a functionality equivalent to Visual Basic 6.0 property pages in Visual

Basic .NET, it is necessary to use some .NET Framework classes and member at-
tributes. The first class you should consider is
System.Drawing.Design.UITypeEditor. This class provides basic functionality that
you can use or derive from to implement a custom editor for the design-time envi-
ronment. Custom editors can be applied to the data types specified by the developer
and are useful in situations where simple text value editors are insufficient. The
following code example presents a class derived from UITypeEditor that provides a
color chooser for design-time property value edition. For a complete example of
these techniques, see “.NET Samples – Windows Forms: Control Authoring” in .NET
Framework QuickStarts on MSDN.
…
Public Class FlashTrackBarValueEditor
Inherits UITypeEditor
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 291

Private edSvc As IWindowsFormsEditorService

' This method is used to handle the user interface, user

' input processing, and value assignment.
Public Overloads Overrides Function EditValue(ByVal context As _
ITypeDescriptorContext, ByVal provider As IServiceProvider, _
ByVal value As Object) As Object
If (Not (context Is Nothing) And Not (context.Instance Is Nothing) And _
Not (provider Is Nothing)) Then
edSvc = CType(provider.GetService( _
GetType(IWindowsFormsEditorService)), IWindowsFormsEditorService)
If Not (edSvc Is Nothing) Then
' This is where the corresponding control can be visually updated.
Dim trackBar As FlashTrackBar = New FlashTrackBar
SetEditorProps(CType(context.Instance, FlashTrackBar), TrackBar)
edSvc.DropDownControl(trackBar)
' Usually, performing this assignment on the affected property
' requires additional validations.
value = trackBar.Value
End If
End If
Return value
End Function

' This method is used to inform the Properties window of the type
' of editor style that the editor will use.
Public Overloads Overrides Function GetEditStyle( _
ByVal context As ITypeDescriptorContext) As UITypeEditorEditStyle
If (Not (context Is Nothing) And Not (context.Instance Is Nothing)) Then
Return UITypeEditorEditStyle.DropDown
End If
Return MyBase.GetEditStyle(context)
End Function
End Class
…

The previous class can be used to specify a custom editor for one of the properties of
a UserControl. In this case, a UserControl named FlashTrackBar is defined to
provide functionality similar to a progress bar with a gradient color. This
UserControl has two properties that indicate the start and end color whose value
will be modified at design time with the custom editor that was previously defined.
To specify the custom editor for a property, the EditorAttribute attribute class must
be used, as shown here.
…
<Category("Flash"), _
Editor(GetType(FlashTrackBarDarkenByEditor), GetType(UITypeEditor)), _
DefaultValue(200)> _
Public Property DarkenBy() As Byte
Get
Return myDarkenBy
End Get
292 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Set(ByVal Value As Byte)

…
End Set
End Property
…

Design-time services for a component can be specified with the DesignerAttribute

and DesignerCategoryAttribute class attributes. For example, the following code
example specifies that an instance of the DocumentDesigner class will provide
design time behavior and view of the MyDialog control. The DocumentDesigner
class is a base designer class used for extending the design mode behavior of a
control that supports nested controls and can handle scroll messages. This class also
provides design mode view for the affected control.
<Designer("System.Windows.Forms.Design.DocumentDesigner, _
System.Windows.Forms.Design.DLL", GetType(IRootDesigner)), _
DesignerCategory("Form")> _
Public Class MyDialog
Inherits ContainerControl
…
End Class

Handling Changes to the OLE Container Control

The OLE Container control is used to dynamically add objects to a form at run time.
For example, you can use an OLE Container to create a control that contains an
embedded Microsoft Word document, create a control that contains a linked Word
document, or bind to an OLE object in a database.
Visual Basic .NET does not support the OLE Container control. As a result, the
upgrade wizard is unable to upgrade an OLE Container control. Instead, it replaces
the control with a red label to highlight the need to rewrite the code.
Figure 9.4 illustrates a sample Visual Basic 6.0 application with an embedded OLE
Container control holding an embedded Microsoft Word document.
Figure 9.5 illustrates the Visual Basic .NET version after applying the upgrade
wizard.
The code produced by the upgrade wizard is marked with UPGRADE_ISSUE
comments wherever OLE Container controls appear. The following is an example of
such a comment.
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Ole method OLE1.CreateLink was not upgraded.
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 293

Figure 9.4
OLE Container control with linked object in Visual Basic 6.0

Figure 9.5
OLE Container control after applying the upgrade wizard
294 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

A strategy for replacing the OLE Container is to use a WebBrowser ActiveX control
in place of the OLE Container to display the Word document in the form. Through
this control, you can display, edit, and save documents displayed in the control.
Figure 9.6 illustrates an updated version of the Visual Basic .NET code that has
replaced the OLE Container with a WebBrowser ActiveX control to display the
Word document.

Figure 9.6
A Microsoft Word document displayed using the WebBrowser control

To replace the OLE Container with a WebBrowser ActiveX control

1. Remove the red label inserted by the upgrade wizard as a placeholder for the
OLE Container.
2. Add a WebBrowser control to the form. You can do this by right-clicking in the
ToolBox, clicking Add/Remove Items, clicking the COM Components tab, and
then clicking Microsoft WebBrowser Control in the Customize Toolbox compo-
nent picker.
3. After you add the control, add the following code to the Form_Load subroutine
(or wherever you want to bind to the document):
Me.AxWebBrowser1.Navigate("C:\Temp\LinkedDoc.doc")

Be sure to substitute the file name in this example for the location of the object to
which you are linking. After completing these steps, you should be able to re-
build the solution.
Note that this method works for most objects that can be displayed in Microsoft
Internet Explorer, such as HTML files, Word documents, spreadsheets, GIFs, and
JPEG files.
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 295

Handling Changes to Control Arrays

Visual Basic 6.0 provides control arrays for managing the controls on your forms.
Control arrays allow sharing event procedures for a set of controls that share the
same name and type. Also, they provide a mechanism for iterating through a set of
controls and for adding controls at run time.
There were limits to control arrays. You can only put controls of the same type in a
control array. So, for example, if one of your input boxes is a masked edit control, it
cannot be in the same control array as your text boxes.
Control arrays are not consistent in Visual Basic 6.0. They are not quite collections
and not quite arrays. This is why they are not provided in Visual Basic .NET. In-
stead, Visual Basic .NET has a rich set of features that provide all of the benefits of
control arrays without the limitations.
In Visual Basic 6.0 and earlier versions, there were three main reasons that develop-
ers used control arrays:
1. To allow one event routine to be hooked to several controls
2. To access controls as a collection in a For Each loop
3. To dynamically add and remove controls in forms
Each of these tasks can be achieved in Visual Basic .NET using the available mecha-
nisms for event handling, collections, and dynamic control creation. These tech-
niques are explained in the rest of this section. For more information, see “Getting
Back Your Visual Basic 6.0 Goodies” on MSDN.

Event Handling
Control arrays in Visual Basic 6.0 allow you to define one set of event procedures for
all controls in the control array. In Visual Basic .NET, this functionality can be
achieved for controls defined at design time and created at run time. The event
handling mechanism allows controls to share event handler procedures without the
need for control arrays. The following code demonstrates an event handler in Visual
Basic .NET.
Private Sub ProcessGotFocus(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
_
Handles Text1.GotFocus
'Event handling code goes here
End Sub

Visual Basic .NET event handlers use the Handles keyword to define which events
the handler will manage. In the preceding example, the GotFocus event for Text1 is
handled by the ProcessGotFocus subroutine. If you need share an event handler
296 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

with other controls, you should add the other events to the Handles clause. The
following sample code demonstrates this.
Private Sub ProcessGotFocus(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
_
Handles Text1.GotFocus, Text2.GotFocus,
MaskBox1.GotFocus
' Event handling code goes here.
End Sub

Now, the ProcessGotFocus subroutine will handle the GotFocus event for the
controls Text1, Text2, and MaskBox1. With the handles clause, you can share
event handlers for controls of different types and even for different events as long
as the handler procedure parameters correspond to the parameters of the event
declaration.

Accessing Control Arrays as a Collection

Visual Basic .NET provides extensive support for collections and other types of
structures that can be used to hold groups of controls. It is convenient to loop
through the controls in a set like that to update common properties or modify the
behavior of the controls.
Because there are no control arrays in Visual Basic .NET, the user must explicitly
build a collection of objects and add all the required objects. In this way, the user can
create different groupings of objects according to the current needs.
The following code example shows a method that groups three Label controls in an
ArrayList class that can be used as a collection in a For Each loop. The example
assumes that the code is part of a form that has three Label controls. The
Demo_Load procedure sets the UseMnemonic property to True for all labels.
Dim labelCollection As ArrayList
Private Sub GroupLabels()
labelCollection = New ArrayList
labelCollection.Add(Label1)
labelCollection.Add(Label2)
labelCollection.Add(Label3)
End Sub

Private Sub Demo_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, _

ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Dim obj As Control
For Each obj In labelCollection
Dim curLabel As Label
curLabel = CType(obj, Label)
curLabel.UseMnemonic = True
Next
End Sub
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 297

Visual Studio .NET provides a collection that holds all the controls that have been
included in a particular form; the management of this collection is done in an
automatic way. It is exposed as the Controls property of the Form class, and its type
is ControlsCollection. For more information about this collection, see the “Upgrad-
ing the Controls Collection” section in Chapter 7, “Upgrading Commonly-Used
Visual Basic 6.0 Objects.”

Adding Controls Dynamically

Another important goal of control arrays in Visual Basic 6.0 is that they provide an
easy way to add controls at run time. You can create the control array at design time
and then add controls of the same type to the array at run time. In Visual Basic .NET,
you do not need a control array to add controls at run time. You can use the Controls
collection to add controls of any type at run time; this will be shown in the next code
example.
In the case where controls are dynamically added to a form according to the original
Visual Basic 6.0 application logic, it will be necessary to dynamically connect the
new controls with the preexisting event handlers. This can be done with the
AddHandler statement, which ties events raised by controls with specific proce-
dures that can handle the event. An example of this technique is shown in the
following Visual Basic .NET code example.
Sub Addbutton()
Dim newButton As New System.Windows.Forms.Button
AddHandler newButton.Click, AddressOf General_Click_Handler
Me.Controls.Add(newButton)
End Sub
Private Sub General_Click_Handler(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("A control was clicked")
End Sub

The AddButton procedure creates a new Button control and connects its Click event
with the General_Click_Handler event handler; it then adds the new control to the
corresponding form’s Controls collection, which will display the button on the form.
Visual Basic .NET supports control arrays through the Visual Basic .NET compatibil-
ity library. With it, you can simplify the upgrade process while retaining some of the
Visual Basic 6.0 features. However, as mentioned in the “Upgrading the Controls
Collection” section of Chapter 7, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic 6.0
Objects,” use of the compatibility library instead of the .NET Framework should be
analyzed according to the available resources and the advantages for the future
advancement of the application.
298 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

There are third-party components for Visual Studio .NET that provide functionality
similar to Visual Basic 6.0 control arrays, including design-time support. One of
these components is the ControlArray control that is available on the .NET Frame-
work Windows Forms Web site. This component allows the user to create logical
groupings of controls on a form that will share the ControlArray event handlers. It
also allows the user to set properties or call methods for all the contained controls at
the same time through the ControlArray container, using the
System.Windows.Forms.Control interface.

Handling Changes to DDE Functionality

At one time, Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) was one of the few ways you could
pass data between applications without using a shared file. Support for DDE in
Visual Basic has been present since version 1. However, DDE has since been replaced
by COM.
With COM, you can share data and invoke methods between applications in a more
efficient and scalable manner. Because most Windows-based applications that
expose public data and methods do so by way of COM, DDE is not the primary way
that you retrieve public data and invoke public methods in a Windows-based
application. As a consequence, COM can be used as a means of communicating with
most Windows-based applications.
After upgrading your application to Visual Basic .NET, it is highly recommended
that you replace all DDE communication with COM. For example, a Visual Basic 6.0
application can call LinkExecute to send a command in a DDE conversation with a
server application. In this case, it is advisable to look at the documentation or type
library for the server application and see whether the functionality provided by the
DDE command can be replicated with one or more of the COM methods. If such
functionality is available, a COM reference can be added to the Visual Basic .NET
project and the corresponding methods can be called.
Neither Visual Basic .NET nor the .NET Framework provides support for DDE. If
you must communicate with another application using DDE, you will have to
implement DDE in your Visual Basic .NET application in one of the following two
ways:
● Interoperate with a user-defined ActiveX EXE server built in Visual Basic 6.0 that
manages the DDE conversation.
● Declare and implement the DDE-related Windows API functions.

If you want to reuse your Visual Basic 6.0 DDE code, you can create a Visual Basic
6.0 ActiveX EXE project and add a public class to exchange the DDE-related infor-
mation you need with your Visual Basic .NET application. For example, if you want
 Chapter 9: Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Forms Features 299

to perform a DDE LinkExecute operation in your Visual Basic .NET code, you create
a DDE helper class written in Visual Basic 6.0 as follows:
1. Create a Visual Basic 6.0 ActiveX EXE project.
2. Add a public method to the class (default name Class1) named LinkExecute that
takes two parameters: ServerTopic and ExecCommand.
3. Add a form, for example named Form1, to the ActiveX EXE project.
4. Add a TextBox, for example named Text1, to the form.
5. Add the following code to the LinkExecute method in Class1.
Dim f As New Form1
f.Text1.LinkMode = 0 'None
f.Text1.LinkTopic = ServerTopic
f.Text1.LinkMode = 2 'Manual
f.Text1.LinkExecute ExecCommand

6. Build the ActiveX EXE server, by default named Project1.dll.

Note that you can, and should, name the classes, forms, and controls more appropri-
ately for your project. However, the name for the method LinkExecute should not
change to keep it consistent with existing DDE code.
To perform the LinkExecute operation in Visual Basic .NET, add a COM reference to
Project1.dll to your Visual Basic .NET project References list, and then enter the
following code.
Dim DDEClientHelper As New Project1.Class1Class()
DDEClientHelper.LinkExecute("MyDDEServer•MyTopic", "MyCommand")

Implementing DDE in a Visual Basic .NET application requires calling the Windows
DDE-related API functions; at minimum, it is necessary to call the methods
DdeInitialize and DdeUninitialize. To call DdeInitialize, you have to implement
DdeCallbackProc. Additionally, it will be necessary to call a number of other DDE-
related API functions to establish a connection and send data. To implement func-
tionality to perform LinkExecute, for example, requires calling at least eight other
DDE-related API functions. This task also requires a deep understanding of Win-
dows messaging architecture and memory management. This understanding is in
addition to knowledge of how to represent Windows types — such as handles and
structures — in Visual Basic code. This undertaking is not for the faint of heart. To
learn more about the DDE-related Windows API, search for “Dynamic Data Ex-
change Management Functions” on MSDN. For more information about issues
related to using Declare statements for Windows API function calls in your code,
see the section “Type Changes” in Chapter 13, “Working with the Windows API.”
300 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Summary
Most Visual Basic 6.0 applications use forms. The forms architecture has been
completely redone in Visual Basic .NET as the Windows Forms package to conform
to the .NET Framework. The result is a flexible architecture for building robust
forms-based applications, but the trade-off is that some Visual Basic 6.0 forms
features must be manually upgraded.
The techniques provided in this chapter will help you achieve functional equiva-
lence for those forms features that are no longer supported in Visual Basic .NET.
However, you may find that this is an ideal time to consider redesigning the forms
that drive your applications. If you are considering redesigning your forms, you can
find a wealth of information about the Windows Forms package and tutorials to get
you started on MSDN. A good starting point is “Building Windows Forms Applica-
tions” in the Microsoft .NET Framework Developer Center on MSDN.

More Information
For more information about the MenuItem.DrawItem event, see
“MenuItem.DrawItem Event” in the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html
/frlrfsystemwindowsformsmenuitemclassdrawitemtopic.asp.
For more information about making an object’s data persist, see “Property Bag
Changes in Visual Basic .NET” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html
/vbtchpropertybagchangesinvisualbasicnet.asp.
For more information about techniques for control authoring, see “.NET Samples –
Windows Forms: Control Authoring” in .NET Framework QuickStarts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpqstart/html
/cpsmpNETSamples-WindowsFormsControlAuthoring.asp.
For more information about control arrays, see “Getting Back Your Visual Basic 6.0
Goodies” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/using/columns/adventures/default.aspx?pull=/library
/en-us/dnadvnet/html/vbnet05132003.asp.
To download the ControlArray control, go to the .NET Framework Windows Forms
Web site:
http://www.windowsforms.net/default.aspx?tabindex=6&tabid=47&ItemID=16&mid=142.
For more information about the Windows Forms package, see “Building Windows
Forms Applications” in the Microsoft .NET Framework Developer Center on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/programming/winforms/.
10
Upgrading Web Applications
Visual Basic 6.0 includes several features that support programming for the Web.
These include Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) applications (Web
classes), DHTML applications, ActiveX documents, and ActiveX controls that can
be downloaded to Web pages.
Visual Basic .NET was built to support Web programming with features such as
ASP.NET Web applications, XML Web services, and much more. Because Visual
Basic .NET is built on a new architecture, Visual Basic 6.0 Web features either are no
longer supported or have changed substantially; however, your knowledge of Web
programming should help you to quickly transition to the new Web technologies.
In Visual Basic 6.0, IIS applications used the Active Server Pages (ASP) model to
create applications that ran on IIS. In Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET technology allows
you to create an application using Web Forms pages and to create components using
XML Web services. These technologies make programming for the Web very similar
to programming for Windows in Visual Basic 6.0.
Visual Basic 6.0 DHTML applications used the Dynamic HTML object model and
Visual Basic code to create applications that could respond to actions performed in a
Web browser by a user. Visual Basic .NET Web Forms expand on the DHTML model,
providing richer dynamic user-interface capabilities as well as client-side validation.
Visual Basic 6.0 ActiveX documents are not supported in Visual Basic .NET. You can
still interoperate with ActiveX documents from your Visual Basic .NET Web applica-
tions, but development should be maintained in Visual Basic 6.0.
Like Visual Basic 6.0, Visual Basic .NET allows you to create ActiveX controls that
can be downloaded to Web pages and to use existing ActiveX controls in your
applications.
This chapter will explain the changes you will have to deal with when upgrading
Web applications.
302 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Upgrading ActiveX Documents

A feature available in Visual Basic 6.0 is the ability to create ActiveX documents;
these are forms that can appear within Web browsers. ActiveX documents offer
features such as built-in viewport scrolling, hyperlinks, and menu negotiation.
ActiveX documents are not supported in Visual Basic .NET. Instead, Web user
controls can be used to achieve the same effect as ActiveX documents. Therefore,
when dealing with applications that use ActiveX documents, you have three up-
grade options:
● You can use ActiveX documents from your Visual Basic .NET Web applications
through interoperability, but development must be maintained in Visual Basic 6.0.
You can navigate from a Visual Basic .NET Web Form to a Visual Basic 6.0
ActiveX document, and vice-versa.
● You can rewrite your ActiveX documents as Web user controls. You will have to
include the new controls in a Web Form to simulate the behavior of your ActiveX
documents.
● You can create a Windows Form control that corresponds to the original ActiveX
document and then host it in Microsoft Internet Explorer. This approach takes
advantage of the similar features in both the source and target components, but
nonetheless is limited with respect to deployment and compatibility.
To illustrate the upgrade of an ActiveX document to a Web user control, assume that
you have an ActiveX document project that contains a user document named
docCalculate, with three TextBox controls, a Line control, and Button control, as
shown in Figure 10.1.

Figure 10.1
A sample Visual Basic 6.0 ActiveX document application

In the Button’s code, you the multiply the values of the first two TextBox controls,
and display the result in the third TextBox. The event code looks like following.
Option Explicit
Private Sub btnCalculate_Click()
On Error GoTo Exception
If (txtFirstNumber.Text <> "") Then
 Chapter 10: Upgrading Web Applications 303

If (txtSecondNumber.Text <> "") Then

Dim res As Single
res = CSng(txtFirstNumber.Text) * CSng(txtSecondNumber.Text)
txtResult.Text = CStr(res)
End If
End If
Exit Sub
Exception:
txtResult.Text = "####ERROR####"
End Sub

If you try to convert this project with the upgrade wizard, your user document
will not be upgraded; however, the wizard will copy it unchanged to the upgraded
project. This code will generate a compilation error stating that Sub Main was not
found in prjActiveX. Also, the resulting project will be a Windows Forms project
that does not exhibit the same behavior as an ActiveX document.
To upgrade this code, the first step is to create a user control for each user document
that exists in the ActiveX document. A recommended naming strategy is to set the
name for each control to the original name of the user document prefixed with
“UC.” You can then copy the controls and the code for each ActiveX document to
its respective user control.
The next step is to convert your ActiveX document project using the upgrade wiz-
ard. This will only upgrade the user controls, so you will need to perform additional
steps to create a document project. You can add an ASP.NET Web application to the
solution to achieve this affect. A recommended naming strategy is to use the name of
your original ActiveX document prefixed with “Web.” In this example, the recom-
mended name would be WebprjActiveX. Note that adding the ASP.NET Web appli-
cation to your solution will result in Visual Studio .NET creating a virtual directory
in your IIS with the same name. Additionally, you will need to add a Web Form to
the project for each user document in the original Visual Basic 6.0 project. A sug-
gested naming strategy for each Web Form is to use the original name of the user
document. For this example, only one Web Form would be added, with its name set
as docCalculate.aspx.
You will need to add a Web user control to the project for each user document in the
original Visual Basic 6.0 project. For each such control, set the name as the original
name. In this example, only one Web user control will be added, and its name will
be docCalculate. When all the Web user controls have been added, you can copy the
design of your user documents in its respective Web user control. In this example,
you can add a grid layout panel to the control, three text box controls, a button
control, and a label control. The respective names for each control will be the same
as in the original Visual Basic 6.0 project. Figure 10.2 illustrates an example of the
final resulting Visual Basic .NET form.
304 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 10.2
A sample Visual Basic .NET upgrade of a Visual Basic 6.0 ActiveX document application

As a final step, you will have to copy the code, upgraded in the user controls, to the
respective Web user control. After the converted code is copied, you can add each
Web user control to the appropriate Web Form. The project should rebuild, and any
issues that had been generated should be fixed, and the document should now be
viewable in Internet Explorer.

Upgrading Web Classes

In Visual Basic 6.0, WebClass projects (also known as IIS application projects) are
used to create Web applications based on ASP technology. In Visual Basic .NET,
ASP.NET Web application projects are used to create Web applications based on the
newer ASP.NET technology. When a Visual Basic 6.0 WebClass project is upgraded
to Visual Basic .NET, it is converted to an ASP.NET Web application project.
Visual Basic 6.0 WebClass projects have a StateManagement property that can be
used to keep an instance of the WebClass alive between requests. This is done by
setting the StateManagement property to wcRetainInstance at design time. The
ReleaseInstance method is used to terminate an instance.
In Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET Web applications do not have a StateManagement
property. The model for managing application state differs considerably. Any code
related to state management will need to be replaced; there are many options for
this. Some options involve keeping information on the client (for example, directly
in the page or in a cookie), and others involve storing information on the server
between round trips.
 Chapter 10: Upgrading Web Applications 305

If you decide store your instance on the client, you can use some of the following
techniques:
● View state. The control.ViewState property provides a dictionary for retaining
values between multiple requests for the same page. This information is auto-
matically stored. When the page is processed, the current state of the page and
controls is hashed into a string and saved in the page as a hidden field. When the
page is posted back to the server, the page parses the view state string at page
initialization and restores property information on the page.
● Hidden form fields. You can create hidden fields on a form that are not visibly
rendered by the browser. With this technique, you can set properties just as you
can with a standard control. When the page is submitted to the server, the content
of the hidden field is sent in the HTTP Form collection along with the values of
the other controls, which allows you to store information directly in the page by
way of the hidden fields.
● Cookies. You can use cookies to store information about a particular client,
session, or application. The cookies are saved on the client device, and when the
browser requests a page, it sends the information in the cookie along with the
requested information. The server can read the cookie and extract the necessary
value.
● Query strings. You use query strings to maintain some state information, but
they are limited to the capacity of the browser and client devices. This imposes a
255 character limit on the length of the URL. For query string values to be avail-
able during page processing, you must submit the page using an HTTP GET
method. The consequence of this is that you cannot take advantage of this option
if a page is processed in response to an HTTP POST method.
Alternatively, if you decide that the best option is to store the information on the
server, you can use any of the following methods:
● Application state. With ASP.NET, you can save values using application state (an
instance of the HttpApplicationState class for each active Web application).
Application state is a global storage mechanism accessible from all pages in the
Web application and is useful for storing information that needs to be maintained
between server round trips and between pages. Application state is a key-value
dictionary structure created during each request to a specific URL. You can add
your information to this structure to store it between page requests.
● Session state. With ASP.NET, you can save values using session state (an instance
of the HttpSessionState class for each active Web application session).
● Database support. You can maintain the state of the page using database technol-
ogy when you are storing a large amount of information. Database storage is
particularly useful for maintaining long-term state or state that must be pre-
served even if the server must be restarted. The database approach is often used
in conjunction with cookies.
306 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

When upgrading WebClass projects, Function and Sub procedures in your Visual
Basic 6.0 code (for example, ProcessTags or Respond) will have their scope changed
from Private to Public to allow the WebClass Compatibility runtime to execute
them.
Certain Visual Basic 6.0 WebClass events are not supported in ASP.NET. These
include Initialize, BeginRequest, EndRequest, and Terminate. These event proce-
dures will be upgraded by the upgrade wizard, but they will not be called at run
time. After upgrading, you will need to move any code in these events to equivalent
ASP.NET events, such as Init or Unload.
The upgrade wizard will also add several declarations to your project: one for the
WebClass and one for each of the WebItems and templates in the original project. A
Page_Load event procedure will be added to the project, creating first a WebClass
object and then WebItem objects for each of the WebItems and templates associated
with original project. Finally, in the Page_Load event procedure, you will see a call
to the WebClass Compatibility runtime, WebClass.ProcessEvents. This allows the
runtime to render the WebItem specified in the request URL. This code is the only
new code added to your upgraded project and only serves to emulate the underly-
ing behavior of the Visual Basic 6.0 WebClass runtime.

Summary
Upgrading your Web-based applications will require manual effort. ActiveX docu-
ments, which are not supported in Visual Basic .NET, must be rewritten to use Web
user controls to recreate similar functionality. However, Web classes can be at least
partially upgraded automatically with the help of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard
and the WebClass compatibility runtime. The techniques presented in this chapter
should help you address issues with upgrading these types of Web-based applica-
tions to Visual Basic .NET.
11
Upgrading String and File
Operations
A typical Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 application will have to perform some types of
string operations. It is also not uncommon for applications to use or process files
while performing their tasks.
When upgrading to Visual Basic .NET, there are two approaches to upgrading code
that performs string or file operations. The first option is to allow the upgrade
wizard to automatically upgrade the code. The resulting code will have the same
behavior as your original code with the help of the Visual Basic Compatibility
library (which is discussed in Chapter 8, “Upgrading Commonly-Used Visual Basic
6.0 Language Features”). The second option is to replace these operations with new
Visual Basic .NET features. This option requires more work, but it has no depen-
dence on the compatibility library.
This chapter describes how to upgrade string and file operations to Visual Basic
.NET. Both the compatibility library approach and the replacing with new function-
ality approach will be demonstrated, and pointers to sources of further information
will be provided.

Operations Handled by the Upgrade Wizard

The simplest approach is to allow the upgrade wizard to do the work for you. This
section discusses those features that are automatically handled by the upgrade
wizard.
308 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Auto-Upgraded String Operations

The most basic string operations involve concatenating strings and obtaining
substrings. These are the simplest types of string manipulations, and they are also
the most commonly used. The following code example demonstrates how to obtain
left, middle, and right substrings, and how to concatenate strings.
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim length As Integer
' Divide the string into equal size parts
Dim chunk As Integer

length = Len(Label1.Caption)
chunk = length / 3
lblLeft.Caption = Left(Label1.Caption, chunk)
lblMid.Caption = Mid(Label1.Caption, chunk + 1, chunk)
lblRight.Caption = Right(Label1.Caption, chunk)
labelRandom.Caption = lblMid.Caption & lblRight.Caption & lblLeft.Caption
End Sub

The upgrade wizard can be applied to the preceding code, and the result can be built
and executed with no issues. The result produced by the upgrade wizard is shown
here.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
Imports VB = Microsoft.VisualBasic
…
Private Sub Command1_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles Command1.Click

Dim length As Short

Dim chunk As Short

length = Len(Label1.Text)
chunk = length / 3
lblLeft.Text = VB.Left(Label1.Text, chunk)
lblMid.Text = Mid(Label1.Text, chunk + 1, chunk)
lblRight.Text = VB.Right(Label1.Text, chunk)
labelRandom.Caption = lblMid.Text & lblRight.Text & lblLeft.Text
End Sub
…

Note the inclusion of the Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace with the Import state-
ment. This namespace contains the core Visual Basic .NET functionality, including
the string functions used in this example. The Visual Basic 6.0 string functions are
upgraded by the upgrade wizard to the equivalent functions in this namespace.
When executed, the preceding code has the exact same behavior as the original code.
 Chapter 11: Upgrading String and File Operations 309

A complete listing of the string operations that are included in the

Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace can be found by viewing Help for this
namespace.

Auto-Upgraded File Operations

File input and output is supported through the Microsoft.VisualBasic library. This
section focuses on how the upgrade wizard handles file input and output in your
Visual Basic 6.0 applications.

Accessing Text Files

Visual Basic 6.0 provides several I/O commands to manage the access to files and
directories. These commands include: Open, Close, Reset, Get, Put, Print, Write,
Input, LineInput, Lock, Unlock, and Width.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 code example demonstrates the use of some of these
file operations to open a text file, read its contents one character at a time, and send
the characters read to the Immediate window.
Dim FileName as String
Dim MyChar as String

FileName = "C:\Temp\TextBox.txt"
' Open file.
Open FileName For Input As #1
' Loop until end of file.
Do While Not EOF(1)
' Get one character.
MyChar = Input(1, #1)
' Print to the Immediate window.
Debug.Print MyChar
Loop
Close #1

Please note that the FileName variable should be set to a valid name before attempt-
ing to execute this example.
This code can be upgraded automatically by the upgrade wizard. The result pro-
duced is shown in the following code example.
Dim FileName As String
Dim MyChar As String

FileName = "C:\Temp\TextBox.txt"
' Open file.
FileOpen(1, filename, OpenMode.Input)
' Loop until end of file.
Do While Not EOF(1)
' Get one character.
310 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

MyChar = InputString(1, 1)
' Print to the Immediate window.
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(MyChar)
Loop
FileClose(1)

This code compiles and executes with the same behavior as the original code, thanks
to the support provided by the compatibility library. As previously stated, whenever
the resources allow it, it is possible to rewrite the output using only core Microsoft
.NET Framework functionality. The preferred method for working with files in
Visual Basic .NET is to use streams. A stream is a more generic view of a sequence of
bytes that allows reading, writing, and seeking. Streams can be associated with a
file, a network connection, and memory, to name just a few examples. Visual Basic
.NET even provides for reading and writing cryptographic streams.
The Visual Basic .NET code generated by the upgrade wizard can be rewritten to use
streams instead of text file functions. For more information, see the “Improving File
I/O with Streams” section later in this chapter.

Accessing Fixed-Length Records Using User-Defined Types

It is not unusual to find Visual Basic 6.0 applications that communicate with legacy
systems through flat files. Visual Basic 6.0 provided useful tools for that type of
interaction, including random, binary, and sequential file access mode. This section
presents the steps necessary to upgrade random file access code to Visual Basic
.NET.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 sample code includes one method for storing a record
and another method to read it from a flat file.
Type employee
name As String * 15
last_name As String * 20
department As String * 6
phone_ext(3) As Long
salary As Integer
End Type

Private Sub Form_Load()

WriteRecord 3
ReadRecord 3
End Sub
Sub ReadRecord(recordnum As Integer)
Dim fileh As Integer
Dim emp As employee
fileh = FreeFile
Open "C:\recordtest.dat" For Random As fileh Len = 73
' The record will be read from the position indicated by recordnum:
Get fileh, recordnum, emp
 Chapter 11: Upgrading String and File Operations 311

MsgBox ("Employee: " & emp.name & " " & emp.last_name & _
", Dept: " & emp.department)
Close fileh
End Sub
Sub WriteRecord(recordnum As Integer)
Dim fileh As Integer
Dim emp As employee
fileh = FreeFile
Open "C:\recordtest.dat" For Random As fileh Len = 73
emp.name = "John"
emp.last_name = "Doe"
emp.department = "First aids"
emp.phone_ext(0) = 123
emp.salary = 1000

' The record will be saved in the position indicated by recordnum:

Put fileh, recordnum, emp
Close fileh
End Sub

The employee user-defined type (UDT) contains only fixed length fields that allow
the UDT to be accessed in a random way when it is stored inside a file. The follow-
ing code sample presents the output that was obtained with the upgrade wizard and
then was adjusted by the user according to the upgrade warnings.
Structure employee
<VBFixedString(15),System.Runtime.InteropServices.MarshalAs( _
System.Runtime.InteropServices.UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, _
SizeConst:=15)> Public name As String

<VBFixedString(20),System.Runtime.InteropServices.MarshalAs( _
System.Runtime.InteropServices.UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, _
SizeConst:=20)> Public last_name As String

<VBFixedString(6),System.Runtime.InteropServices.MarshalAs( _
System.Runtime.InteropServices.UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, _
SizeConst:=6)> Public department As String

<VBFixedArray(3)> Dim phone_ext() As Integer

Dim salary As Short

' UPGRADE_TODO: "Initialize" must be called to initialize instances of

' this structure. Click for more:
' 'ms-help://MS.VSCC.2003/commoner/redir/redirect.htm?keyword="vbup1026"'
Public Sub Initialize()
ReDim phone_ext(3)
End Sub
End Structure

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
WriteRecord(3)
312 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

ReadRecord(3)
End Sub
Sub ReadRecord(ByRef recordnum As Short)
Dim fileh As Short
Dim emp As employee
emp.Initialize()
fileh = FreeFile
FileOpen(fileh, "C:\recordtest.dat", OpenMode.Random, , , 73)
' The record will be read from the position indicated by recordnum:
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Get was upgraded to FileGet and has a new behavior. Click
for
' more: 'ms-help://MS.VSCC.2003/commoner/redir/
redirect.htm?keyword="vbup1041"'
FileGet(fileh, emp, recordnum)
MsgBox("Employee: " & emp.name & " " & emp.last_name & ", Dept: " & _
emp.department)
FileClose(fileh)
End Sub
Sub WriteRecord(ByRef recordnum As Short)
Dim fileh As Short
Dim emp As employee
emp.Initialize()
fileh = FreeFile
FileOpen(fileh, "C:\recordtest.dat", OpenMode.Random, , , 73)
emp.name = "John"
emp.last_name = "Doe"
emp.department = "First aids"
emp.phone_ext(0) = 123
emp.salary = 1000
' The record will be saved in the position indicated by recordnum:
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Put was upgraded to FilePut and has a new behavior. Click
for
' more: 'ms-help://MS.VSCC.2003/commoner/redir/
redirect.htm?keyword="vbup1041"'
FilePut(fileh, emp, recordnum)
FileClose(fileh)
End Sub

To initialize the employee structure and set the size of the phone_ext field, the
Initialize method must be called as shown with the statements in bold. Notice that
an upgrade warning about behavior differences was included before the FilePut and
FileGet method calls. The warning refers to the situation when these functions
receive dynamic arrays or strings as arguments; in this case, a two-byte length
descriptor is added and the obtained file will have a different size. However, be-
cause the example is using fixed-length fields, this difference is not applicable, so
the warning can be removed.
 Chapter 11: Upgrading String and File Operations 313

Manual String and File Operation Changes

As with all programming, there are multiple ways to accomplish various string and
file manipulation tasks. The previous section demonstrated the types of changes the
upgrade wizard applies to automatically upgrade string and file code from Visual
Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET. However, the new version of the language includes
many other powerful string and file methods and classes to improve the perfor-
mance, maintainability, and simplicity of file operations. This section will introduce
just a few of the possibilities.

Replacing Strings with StringBuilders

In Visual Basic 6.0 and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, strings are immutable. This
means that whenever a string is declared and a value is assigned to it, the value that
the string holds in memory never changes. The following code example demon-
strates the impact of this characteristic.
Dim sMyString As String
sMyString = "Hello"
sMyString = sMyString + " World"

In the preceding code, although it seems as if a single string is being modified, in

fact three strings are actually created. The first string creation occurs in the first line
where the string is declared. The second string is created when the value “Hello” is
assigned to the sMyString variable, and a third when the string is concatenated with
the “ World” value.
This characteristic of strings has some drawbacks. For starters, you are using more
memory than what you actually require to perform a simple task. There are two
remaining objects that require cleanup by the garbage collector. There is also a
performance overhead because of the extra CPU cycles that are needed to create the
object, create the copies of the object, and clean the old strings from memory.
String variables can be used when the stored values will not be changed frequently
during the program execution. In cases like the previous example, where a fixed
quantity of strings is concatenated, the usage of a String data type is appropriate.
When the quantity of operations that a string will participate in is not known before-
hand, and a high quantity of modifications is expected, the StringBuilder class is the
best choice because no new objects are created when the string value is altered. In
operations such as appending text to a string, the StringBuilder will most likely
outperform String concatenation because there is less overhead in terms of creating
new objects in memory for each operation.
314 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

In Visual Studio .NET, the StringBuilder class can be found in the System.Text
namespace. The following code example demonstrates how to modify the previous
code to use the StringBuilder class.
Dim sMyString As New StringBuilder("Hello ")
sMyString.Append(" World")

In contrast to the original code example, this code does not create a new object every
time the StringBuilder object is modified. The same data in memory is modified for
any content-changing operation performed on the StringBuilder. If you ever needed
to fetch the String contents from the StringBuilder, you would only need to use the
toString() method to retrieve this information.
Significant performance improvements will be obtained when StringBuilder is used
for series of string operations that modify one string variable, as in the following
string replacement function.
Public Shared Function ReplaceSymbols(str As String) As String
Dim tmpStrB As New StringBuilder(str)
tmpStrB.Replace("#"c, "!"c, 15, 29)
tmpStrB.Replace("!"c, "o"c)
tmpStrB.Replace("cat", "dog")
tmpStrB.Replace("dog", "fox", 15, 20)
Return tmpStrB.ToString()
End Function

Does this mean that you should change every instance of String in your old Visual
Basic 6.0 code to use StringBuilders in Visual Basic .NET? No; if you are not modify-
ing your strings or if you are concatenating small numbers, you might leave your
strings as they are. If, on the other hand, you are performing many manipulations
(concatenating, changing case, replacing/inserting characters, and so on), you might
be better off changing your String instances to StringBuilders. By following this
approach, you would be assured that your application will not suffer performance
degradation due to String manipulation.

Replacing Complex String Manipulation with Regular Expressions

Visual Studio .NET programming languages, including Visual Basic .NET, are able to
fully exploit the power of regular expressions. To take advantage of the classes that
provide access to the .NET Framework regular expression engine, you need to
import the System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace into your code.
Regular expressions allow a programmer to define patterns to be found in a general
manner, which is great for several reasons. For starters, the amount of coding re-
quired to perform a specific task is greatly reduced because regular expressions
allow a programmer to write in a few lines of code in what usually took many lines
before. For example, the following code example shows a function written in Visual
 Chapter 11: Upgrading String and File Operations 315

Basic .NET that finds the number of occurrences of a character pattern within a
string.
Function findOccurrences(ByVal sHaystack As String, ByVal sNeedle As String) _
As Integer
Dim iPosition As Integer
Dim iCount As Integer
For i As Integer = 1 To sHaystack.Length
iPosition = InStr(i, sHaystack, sNeedle)
If (iPosition > 0) Then
iCount = iCount + 1
i = iPosition
End If
Next i
Return iCount
End Function

By utilizing regular expressions, the function can be rewritten more succinctly in the
following manner.
Function findOccurrences2(ByVal sHaystack As String, ByVal sNeedle As String) _
As Integer
Return Regex.Matches(sHaystack, sNeedle).Count
End Function

By comparing the two functions, you can clearly see that the amount of code re-
quired for the second function is minimal compared to the original function. There is
no need to have temporary variables to store the current result and there is no need
to code the looping section of the procedure; thus, the code has not only been
reduced, but it is also more efficient code and easier to understand. The preceding
code example is a very simple one; a more complex problem could easily convert
hundreds of lines of code into a simplified expression.
If you wanted to modify the function to carry out the same search but with different
options, you can easily do so by changing the regular expression options. For in-
stance, if you wanted to have the function perform the search without being case
sensitive, you would only need to pass RegexOptions.IgnoreCase as an option
parameter to the Matches function — a procedure that would otherwise require
many changes to the code found in the original findOccurences method. There are
many options in the RegularExpressions namespace that can aid you in carrying
out a complex procedure with strings. For information about the different enumer-
ated values available in this particular namespace, see
“System.Text.RegularExpressions Namespace” in the .NET Framework Class Library
on MSDN.
You should seriously consider using regular expressions if your upgraded code
handles any type of complex input validation or complex string modification. For
316 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

example, visualize a scenario in which you are upgrading a Visual Basic 6.0 pass-
word verification routine that has intricate requirements: the password must be at
least eight characters long, must contain at least one digit, and should contain at
least one special character. The non-regular expression code for that function may
span many lines of code to parse the password chosen by a user. The available
Visual Basic 6.0 procedures used to code this type of algorithm might leave no other
choice but to write very hard to read code that might be unnecessarily complicated.
By using the classes under the RegularExpression namespace, you could carry out
the verification with one line of code if your regular expression has been well
planned.
The Regex.Replace function can also help you perform complex string manipula-
tions at a fraction of the code that would otherwise take. The following code ex-
ample shows the order of the last name and first name passed to a function is
reversed.
' Assumes input is in the (last_name,first_name) format
Function switchPlaces(ByVal sInput As String) As String
return Regex.Replace(sInput, "(?<last>.+\D),(?<first>.+\D)", _
"${first} ${last}")
End Function

The Replace function receives one input string and a regular expression that speci-
fies the pattern to be detected in the input string. The last argument indicates how
the elements of the instance that was found must be replaced. Character escapes and
substitutions are the only special constructs recognized in a replacement pattern. For
example, the replacement pattern a*${test}b inserts the string “a*” followed by the
substring matched by the “test” capturing group, if any, followed by the string “b”.
Other examples are: $123 substitutes the last substring matched by group number
123 (decimal), and ${name) substitutes the last substring matched by a (?<name>)
group. For more information about regular expressions, see “Regular Expression
Language Elements” in the .NET Framework General Reference on MSDN.
This code is another example of how easy string manipulation can be if regular
expressions are used. The parameter is parsed using a regular expression and back-
references are used to store the substrings retrieved. Matching strings are replaced
based on the format specified in the method call.
The .NET implementation of regular expressions allows regular expressions to be
written in a more efficient and maintainable manner than using string functions to
perform intricate string manipulation. Becoming comfortable with regular expres-
sions may take some time, but the ultimate reward will come as an increased ability
to carry out complex string manipulations proficiently and effortlessly.
 Chapter 11: Upgrading String and File Operations 317

Improving File I/O with Streams

The upgrade wizard is able to upgrade most of the file access methods using the
Visual Basic 6.0 Compatibility library available in .NET. However, the result pro-
duced by the upgrade wizard uses methods in the Visual Basic Compatibility library.
An alternative to upgrading file access is to use new Visual Basic .NET methods for
file access. The preferred method in .NET is to use streams.
For example, consider the following code.
Dim FileName As String
Dim MyChar As String

FileName = "C:\Temp\TextBox.txt"
FileOpen(1, filename, OpenMode.Input) ' Open file.
Do While Not EOF(1) ' Loop until end of file.
MyChar = InputString(1, 1) ' Get one character.
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(MyChar) ' Print to the Immediate window.
Loop
FileClose(1)

As shown earlier in this chapter, this code can be automatically upgraded by the
upgrade wizard. However, to achieve the same effect using streams, you will have to
manually rewrite the operations.
Streams are the recommended choice for reading and writing data from files in .NET
for most new development projects. A stream is a generic view of a sequence of
bytes that allows reading, writing, and seeking. Streams can be associated with a file
or other sources (such as network connections) and have highly optimized methods
that make them faster than the compatibility library methods for file access.
The original Visual Basic 6.0 file code sample can be rewritten to use streams instead
of text file functions in Visual Basic .NET. A revised version of this code is shown
here.
Dim fs As FileStream
Dim MyChar(1) As Char
Dim reader As System.IO.StreamReader

fs = New FileStream("C:\Temp\TextBox.txt", FileMode.Create)

fs.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin)
reader = StreamReader(fs, System.Text.Encoding.ASCII)
Do While reader.Peek <> - 1
reader.Read(MyChar, 0, 1)
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(MyChar(0))
Loop
reader.Close()
318 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

As demonstrated in this code sample, reading from a stream is fairly straightfor-

ward. Instead of opening a file associated with a file handle, you create a
StreamReader object to open the file. After the file is opened, the StreamReader
method Read can be used to obtain the next character. The Peek property allows
you to look ahead one character to determine whether the end of the file has been
reached (indicated if Peek returns -1). After the file contents are read, the Close
method closes the stream.

For Visual Basic 2005:

The System.IO.File.ReadAll method provides functionality to open a file, read
the contents into a string variable, and close the file using a single method.
Dim path As String
Dim fileContents As String
fileContents = File.ReadAll(path)

The analogous method for writing files is System.IO.File.WriteAll.

The StreamReader class’s Read, ReadBlock, ReadLine, and ReadToEnd methods

are used to read the contents of a file. The StreamWriter class provides methods for
writing to streams. The process is similar to reading. First, create a StreamWriter
object, use the appropriate methods for writing to the stream, and close the stream
when finished. You can use the StreamWriter class’s Write and WriteLine methods
to write to the stream.
Traditional Visual Basic 6.0 sequential I/O has some characteristics in common with
streaming. Streaming also has similarities to binary I/O. Sequential access with
streaming functionality can be achieved using the FileStream and StreamWriter
classes, as in the previous example. Notice how the file access is done with ASCII
encoding; this is necessary because .NET strings use Unicode encoding and to access
a file that was written with Visual Basic 6.0 in mind, ASCII encoding must be used.
Streams maintain a current position that is a pointer to the location where the next
operation will occur. Both StreamWriter and StreamReader objects update the
current position after every operation that is executed.
Streams have an important limitation with respect to Visual Basic 6.0 sequential
access. There is no built-in capability to read delimited data. When processing
delimited data with streams, it is the programmer’s responsibility to parse the data.
Sequential writing of a file can be achieved with the StreamWriter.WriteLine
method, which can write a string followed by a line terminator. Binary writing of a
file, which allows any amount of data to be placed in the file during a writing
operation, can be achieved with StreamWriter.Write; this method can write different
data types at the current position.
 Chapter 11: Upgrading String and File Operations 319

Stream classes are available in the System.IO namespace. Additionally, this

namespace includes classes for other file operations, such as directory handling. The
following code example illustrates how you can use the GetDirectories method of
the Directory class to get a listing of subdirectories that are contained in the
C:\Temp directory.
Dim directories() As String
Dim i As Integer
directories = System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories("C:\temp")
For i = 0 To directories.Length - 1
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(directories(i))
Next

For more information about the System.IO namespace, see the Visual Basic .NET
documentation.

File Access Through the File System Object Model

Another option available in Visual Basic .NET for accessing and manipulating files is
to use the File System Object (FSO) model. This model provides objects and methods
for working with files and folders (directories) in an object-oriented way. This model
is provided through the Visual Basic Scripting type library (Scrrun.dll).
Using the FSO model, you can create or delete files and folders, obtain information
about files and folders (such as path information), and perform other manipulations
such as copying and moving files and folders. The model also provides a class,
TextStream, which allows you to create objects for reading and writing text files.
Note that binary file reading and writing is not supported by the FSO model.
The following code example demonstrates a very simple use of the FSO model of file
and directory access. It creates a FileSystemObject object to facilitate the use of the
FSO model. It also creates a TextStream object to open a text file whose contents are
displayed to the console.
Private Sub Command1_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles Command1.Click

Dim fs As Scripting.FileSystemObject
Dim inFile As Scripting.TextStream
Dim filename As String

' Obtain the file name.

…
' Create a FileSystemObject for file manipulation.
fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
' Open a text file for reading.
inFile = fs.OpenTextFile(filename, Scripting.IOMode.ForReading)
' Display the contents of the text file to the console.
While Not inFile.AtEndOfStream
320 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

System.Console.WriteLine(inFile.ReadLine)
End While
inFile.Close()

' Copy the file to a temp directory.

fs.CopyFile(filename, "C:\Temp\", True)
End Sub

Using methods and properties of the FileSystemObject, you can also perform
activities such as creating temporary file and folder names, check for the existence
of a particular file or folder, delete a file or folder, and more. The FSO model of file
access available through the scripting library is too extensive to cover here. For more
information about the FileSystemObject model of file access, or to get tips about
how to choose between the different file access models available in Visual Basic
.NET, see “Accessing Files with FileSystemObject” and “Choosing Among File I/O
Options in Visual Basic .NET” in Visual Basic .NET Help. These documents are also
available on MSDN.

Summary
Changes in Visual Basic .NET have made several features of earlier versions of the
language obsolete. The compatibility library is provided to help minimize the effort
in upgrading some of these features. For those features not available in the compat-
ibility library, Visual Basic .NET almost always offers the same functionality through
new objects and functions. This chapter has described the most common features of
Visual Basic 6.0 that are now obsolete, and how to replace these features in Visual
Basic .NET.

More Information
For more information about the different enumerated values available in the
RegularExpressions namespace, see “System.Text.RegularExpressions Namespace”
in the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html
/frlrfsystemtextregularexpressions.asp.
For more information about regular expressions, see “Regular Expression Language
Elements” in the .NET Framework General Reference on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpgenref/html
/cpconregularexpressionslanguageelements.asp.
 Chapter 11: Upgrading String and File Operations 321

For more information about the FileSystemObject model of file access, or to get tips
about how to choose between the different file access models available in Visual
Basic .NET, see “Accessing Files with FileSystemObject” and “Choosing Among File
I/O Options in Visual Basic .NET” in Visual Basic .NET Help or on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html
/vbconintroductiontofilesystemobjectmodel.asp
and:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html
/vatskchoosingamongfileiooptionsinvisualbasicnet.asp.
12
Upgrading Data Access
Almost every business application has some sort of data access. This is not surpris-
ing when you consider that conceptually most businesses are based around data.
Customers and orders, inventory and purchase information; all of this business
information needs to be stored in a way that it can easily be retrieved and updated.
Countless Visual Basic applications have been developed to provide a friendly face
for information stored in databases.
In Visual Basic, three data access interfaces are available to you: ActiveX Data
Objects (ADO), Remote Data Objects (RDO), and Data Access Objects (DAO). A data
access interface is an object model that represents various facets of accessing data.
Using Visual Basic, you can programmatically control the connection, statement
builders, and returned data for use in any application.
Each new version of Visual Basic has delivered enhancements to data access; Visual
Basic .NET is no exception. This newest version continues support for ActiveX Data
Objects (ADO) and data binding. It also supports DAO and RDO, although it does
not support data binding for these technologies. In terms of enhancement, Visual
Basic .NET introduces a new type of data model, ADO.NET.
This chapter looks at upgrading the three major data access technologies (ADO,
DAO, and RDO) and how you can convert your Data Reports in Visual Basic 6.0 to
Crystal Reports in Visual Basic .NET. Because this part of the guide assumes you are
achieving functional equivalence for your application, upgrading to ADO.NET is
not covered in this chapter. However, for more information about ADO.NET see
section “ADO to ADO.NET” in Chapter 20, “Common Technology Scenario Ad-
vancements.”
324 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

General Considerations
There are many Visual Basic applications that store their data in a database system
such as SQL Server or Microsoft Access. Each one uses different approaches to access
the data, such as ADO with data binding or RDO without data binding. Before
upgrading your data access code, you should analyze it to identify what type of data
access it is using. The process to upgrade data access code depends on the technol-
ogy used and whether data binding is used. This chapter examines the methods for
upgrading data access.

ActiveX Data Objects (ADO)

Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) was first introduced as the data access
interface in Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS). ADO is a simple, easy-to-
use interface to access data. As the need for an interface that spans many tools and
languages grows, ADO continues to be enhanced to combine the best features of,
and eventually replace the most widely used data access interfaces today; RDO and
DAO. ADO is similar to RDO and DAO in many ways. For example, it uses similar
language conventions. ADO provides simpler semantics that make it easy to learn
for today’s developers.
ADO is designed to be the application-level interface to OLE DB, Microsoft’s newest
and most powerful data access paradigm. OLE DB provides high-performance
access to any data source. Together ADO and OLE DB form the foundation of the
Universal Data Access strategy. OLE DB enables universal access to any data. ADO
makes it easy for developers to program data access. Because ADO is built on top of
OLE DB, it benefits from the rich universal data access infrastructure that OLE DB
provides.
The ADO object model defines a collection of programmable objects that you can
use in any platform that supports both COM and Automation, like Visual Basic.
The ADO object model is designed to expose the most commonly used features of
OLE DB.
With ADO you can manipulate data objects, data binding, and design-time tools
such as the ADO data environment. The users of your applications may regard the
run-time behavior as another component of data access, but in this instance you can
consider the run-time behavior as an element of each of the three components. The
following sections examine each of these three components and demonstrate where
they differ between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET.
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 325

Upgrading ADO Data Binding

Data binding is one of the most powerful uses of data access in Visual Basic 6.0.
Essentially, using data binding allows a property of a control to bind to a specific
field in a database. When the bound control property (such as the text box’s Text
property) is modified by the user of the control, the control notifies the database that
the value has changed. It then requests that the relevant field of the current record
be updated. This process takes place, and in return the database notifies the control
of the success or failure of the update. The main properties for data binding in a
control are: DataChanged, DataField, DataFormat, DataMember, and DataSource.
This upgrade scenario includes any application in which a reference to Microsoft
ActiveX Data Objects has been added to the project, and at least one form contains
an ADO Data Control, and one or more controls use data binding, using some of
the following properties: DataSource, DataMember, and DataField.
Normally, most ADO code is upgraded automatically by the upgrade wizard. With
minimal manual changes, your application and Data Access technology will work
the same way that it works in Visual Basic 6.0. For example, it may be necessary to
add a reference to the ADODB.NET assembly (Adodb.dll) instead of the
Interop.ADODB.dll that is automatically referenced by the upgrade wizard.
Visual Basic .NET only supports ADO data binding. DAO or RDO data binding are
not supported. ADO data binding is supported because it is built into the COM
library that manages ADO data binding in Visual Basic 6.0. Its equivalent is avail-
able in the compatibility library in Visual Basic .NET,
Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.Data. This library manages data binding in
Visual Basic .NET. As a result, the properties, methods, and events are compatible
between the two versions of the language, which allows ADO Control and Data
Environment to be automatically upgraded.
The upgrade wizard adds some support functions to maintain the same functional-
ity of Visual Basic 6.0. This is because of the need in Visual Basic .NET for all objects
referenced in the code to be instantiated before they are used. The code added by the
upgrade wizard ensures this happens. Also, when your code has data binding
created at design time, the upgrade wizard adds the binding variables and proce-
dures that are used to do the data binding with ADO.
Consider a form example that contains a TextBox with an ADO Data Control set as
the DataSource property of the TextBox control, and where the DataField property
of the TextControl is set to Title. When you use the upgrade wizard to upgrade such
a form, variables and procedures are added to the upgraded code to enable the data
326 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

binding to continue to work in Visual Basic .NET, as shown in the following code
example.
Private ADOBind_Adodc1 As VB6.MBindingCollection

Public Sub VB6_AddADODataBinding()

ADOBind_Adodc1 = New VB6.MBindingCollection()
ADOBind_Adodc1.DataSource = CType(Adodc1, msdatasrc.DataSource)
ADOBind_Adodc1.Add(Text1, "Text", "Title", Nothing, "Text1")
ADOBind_Adodc1.UpdateMode = VB6.UpdateMode.vbUpdateWhenPropertyChanges
ADOBind_Adodc1.UpdateControls()
End Sub
Public Sub VB6_RemoveADODataBinding()
ADOBind_Adodc1.Clear()
ADOBind_Adodc1.Dispose()
ADOBind_Adodc1 = Nothing
End Sub

However, there are problems with the upgrade of data binding in intrinsic controls
set at run time. These kinds of controls are upgraded to native Visual Basic .NET,
and the DataSource, DataMember, and DataField are not upgraded by the upgrade
wizard. Data binding at design time is also not supported, and the upgrade wizard
does not add any binding variable or procedures, requiring you to make changes to
the upgraded code.
To illustrate this situation, assume that you have a project with a form that contains
a Label control named labAuthor and an ADO Data Control named Adodc1.
Adodc1 is connected to the Microsoft Access database Northwind. At run time, you
set the ADO Data Control to the DataSource property and set EmployeeID as the
DataField, as shown in the following code example.
Private Sub Form_Load()
Set Me.labAuthor.DataSource = Adodc1
Me.labAuthor.DataField = "EmployeeID"
End Sub

When this code is upgraded, the resultant code has issues that you must fix. The
upgraded code is shown here.
Private Sub frmADO_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Label property labAuthor.DataSource was not upgraded.
Me.labAuthor.DataSource = Adodc1
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Label property labAuthor.DataField was not upgraded.
Me.labAuthor.DataField = "EmployeeID"
End Sub

The upgrade wizard does not automatically create the variables and procedures
needed for the data binding do function. Instead, you must add this code manually.
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 327

Later, you will have to add the Text property of the label control to binding, using
the ADO Data Control, and you will have to eliminate the instructions that have
issues. The modified code for the current example is shown here.
Private ADOBind_Adodc1 As VB6.MBindingCollection

Public Sub VB6_AddADODataBinding()

ADOBind_Adodc1 = New VB6.MBindingCollection
ADOBind_Adodc1.DataSource = CType(Adodc1, msdatasrc.DataSource)
ADOBind_Adodc1.Add(labAuthor, "Text", "EmployeeID", Nothing, "labAuthor")
ADOBind_Adodc1.UpdateMode = VB6.UpdateMode.vbUpdateWhenPropertyChanges
ADOBind_Adodc1.UpdateControls()
End Sub

Public Sub VB6_RemoveADODataBinding()

ADOBind_Adodc1.Clear()
ADOBind_Adodc1.Dispose()
ADOBind_Adodc1 = Nothing
End Sub

After these subroutines and variables are added, you have to invoke the appropriate
subroutines in the same place where the DataSource and DataField properties were
assigned in the original code. In the current example, these were assigned in the
Load Event code. The code following example shows the appropriate adjustments.
Private Sub frmADO_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _
ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
VB6_AddADODataBinding()
End Sub

After these changes are made, the upgraded code has the same behavior in Visual
Basic .NET as it did in Visual Basic 6.0.

Projects without ADO Data Binding

The previous section explains how to upgrade code with data binding and the
changes that are necessary to achieve the same behavior in Visual Basic .NET.
However, not all database access requires data binding.
An application falls into this upgrade scenario when its project references Microsoft
ActiveX Data Objects but does not contain an ADO Data Control. In this case, all
data access is managed directly at run time.
The automatic upgrade of a project that accesses a database without the use of data
binding does not require changes in the upgraded code. The upgrade wizard auto-
matically adds the reference to Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility library, which
contains ADO. All ADO code works without any modifications and has the same
behavior as in the original Visual Basic 6.0 project.
328 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

However, there is a difference between the upgraded code and the original source
code with respect to how a field in a recordset is accessed. In Visual Basic 6.0, it is
common to access fields using the shorthand coding convention
RecordsetName!FieldName. In Visual Basic .NET the code needs to be expanded to
resolve the default properties. The resulting code looks a little different after it is
upgraded. This is shown in the following code example.
Dim cn As New Connection
Dim rs As Recordset
cn.Open "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Temp\Northwind.mdb"
Set rs = cn.Execute("Select * From Products where ProductID = 1")
txtProduct.Text = rs!ProductName
txtCompany.Text = rs!SupplierID
rs.Close
cn.Close

This Visual Basic 6.0 code retrieves the product name and supplier ID for a specified
product. This information is assigned to two TextBox controls. When it is upgraded,
the new code looks like the following example.
Dim cn As New ADODB.Connection
Dim rs As ADODB.Recordset
cn.Open("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Temp\Northwind.mdb")
rs = cn.Execute("Select * From Products where ProductID = 1")
txtProduct.Text = rs.Fields("ProductName").Value
txtCompany.Text = rs.Fields("SupplierID").Value
rs.Close()
cn.Close()

Notice that the fields of the recordset are expanded when you use the upgrade
wizard.

Upgrading Data Environment

Data Environment is a Visual Basic 6.0 feature that provides an interactive, design
time environment for creating programmatic, run-time data access. Visual Basic
.NET provides an even more powerful environment for building database applica-
tions, but because the underlying data access library is conceptually different (Visual
Basic .NET uses ADO.NET while Visual Basic 6.0 uses ADO), there is no direct
mapping between Data Environment in Visual Basic 6.0 and data access features in
Visual Basic .NET.
With Data Environment, Visual Basic 6.0 developers can accomplish the following
tasks:
● Create ADO Connection objects.

● Create ADO Command objects that are based on stored procedures, tables, views,
synonyms and SQL statements.
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 329

● Create hierarchies of commands that are based on a grouping of Command

objects or by relating one or more Command objects together.
● Write and run code that reads and sets properties of objects hosted in Data
Environment.
● Execute commands included in Data Environment as programmatic, run-time
methods.
● Bind Form controls to commands hosted in Data Environment.
● Create aggregates that automatically calculate values within any command
hierarchy.
When you use the upgrade wizard to upgrade an application that uses Data Envi-
ronment, the following changes are made:
● For each Data Environment in your Visual Basic 6.0 project, a class with the name
DataEnvironment prefixed to the Data Environment’s name is created and a
variable named with Data Environment’s name is instanced in a module.
● For each connection and recordset hosted by a Data Environment object, a Public
WithEvents member variable with the same name is created.
● For each command, a public method with the same name is created. It will be
available in the same way that its respective command is available in Visual Basic
6.0.
For example, consider an application that has a Data Environment named DE with
one connection named Access and a Command named Orders. When it is upgraded
using the upgrade wizard, you obtain a class that looks like the following code
example.
Module DataEnvironment_test_Module
Friend DE As DataEnvironment_DE = New DataEnvironment_DE()
End Module

Friend Class DataEnvironment_DE

Inherits VB6.BaseDataEnvironment
Public WithEvents Access As ADODB.Connection
Public WithEvents rsOrders As ADODB.Recordset
Private m_Orders As ADODB.Command

Public Sub New()

MyBase.New()
Dim par As ADODB.Parameter
Dim connectStr as String

Access = New ADODB.Connection()

connectString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" & _
"Data Source=C:\Temp\Northwind.mdb;Persist Security Info=False;"
Access.ConnectionString = connectString
m_Connections.Add(Access, " Access")
m_Orders = New ADODB.Command()
330 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

rsOrders = New ADODB.Recordset()

m_Orders.Name = "Orders"
m_Orders.CommandText = "SELECT OrderID, OrderDate FROM Orders"
m_Orders.CommandType = ADODB.CommandTypeEnum.adCmdText
rsOrders.CursorLocation = ADODB.CursorLocationEnum.adUseClient
rsOrders.CursorType = ADODB.CursorTypeEnum.adOpenStatic
rsOrders.LockType = ADODB.LockTypeEnum.adLockReadOnly
rsOrders.Source = m_Orders
m_Commands.Add(m_Orders, "Orders")
m_Recordsets.Add(rsOrders, "Orders")
End Sub

Public Sub Orders()

If Access.State = ADODB.ObjectStateEnum.adStateClosed Then
Access.Open()
End If
If rsOrders.State = ADODB.ObjectStateEnum.adStateOpen Then
rsOrders.Close()
End If
m_Orders.ActiveConnection = Access
rsOrders.Open()
End Sub
End Class

All uses of Data Environment in the code are maintained with the same format and
the same behavior; however, there is a big difference between a Data Environment
object and this new class: you can not visually manipulate the new class as you can
in Visual Basic 6.0. So, what happens if your code uses Data Environment objects
with data binding? The data binding works fine, but you cannot add new com-
mands visually. The upgrade process is discussed in the following section.

Upgrading Data Environment with Data Binding

Visual Basic 6.0 Data Environment exposes a data source interface to enable the
binding of data-aware controls directly to a Data Environment object. This can be
accomplished by setting the DataSource property of the control to the Data Environ-
ment object name, the DataMember property to the name of the Command object
(hosted by a Data Environment object) that acts as a source of the recordset that
contains the desired data, and the DataField property to the name of the column
that the data should be fetched from. The Data Environment runtime detects that it
is used as a data source and initiates the following actions prior to displaying the
Visual Basic 6.0 form with bound controls:
● All database connections that are used by the commands that the user interface
controls are bound to are opened.
● All necessary commands are executed to build the recordsets.

● All user interface controls are bound to the recordsets that are obtained in the
previous task, according to the DataMember and DataField properties.
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 331

Because the WinForms library that is used by Visual Basic .NET is optimized for the
ADO.NET data access library, WinForms controls cannot be directly bound to ADO
Recordsets. To enable binding between WinForms and ADO, the upgrade wizard
uses the MBindingCollection and MBinding objects of the
Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.Data library. It adds two new procedures that
are used to add and remove the data binding of your controls. However, the visual
management of the commands of Data Environment is lost. If you want to manage
your data and data binding visually, you have to move your ADO code to
ADO.NET.

Data Access Objects and Remote Data Objects

This section focuses on upgrading projects with DAO or RDO technology to Visual
Basic .NET. However, before the upgrade process is defined, it is important to
explain why these technologies are used in Visual Basic 6.0.
DAO was the first object-oriented interface to expose the Microsoft Jet database
engine used by Microsoft Access. It allows Visual Basic developers to directly
connect to Access tables — as well as other databases — through ODBC. DAO is
suited best for either single-system applications or for small, local deployments.
RDO is an object-oriented data access interface to ODBC. It offers the easy-to-use
style of DAO to provide an interface that exposes virtually all of ODBCs low-level
power and flexibility. The limits of RDO are that it does not access Jet or ISAM
databases very well, and it can access relational databases only through existing
ODBC drivers. However, RDO has proven to be the favorite interface choice for a
large number of well-known relational database developers, such as SQL Server and
Oracle. RDO provides the objects, properties, and methods that are needed to access
the more complex aspects of stored procedures and complex result sets.
In most of the cases, the best strategy for converting DAO and RDO data access
technologies to .NET Framework is to first replace them with ADO and to then
upgrade them to ADO.NET. This way, the long term goal of upgrading DAO and
RDO technologies is broken into intermediate goals that provide various levels of
functionality along the way.

Data Binding Upgrade Considerations

DAO and RDO have both been around for some time. DAO data binding was
introduced in Visual Basic 3.0, and RDO data binding debuted in Visual Basic 4.0.
When the Visual Basic development team first implemented these forms of data
binding, they built them into the forms package. This implementation allowed for a
seamless integration, but it also tied the data binding technology to Visual Basic
Forms.
332 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

In Visual Basic .NET, Visual Basic Forms has been replaced with Windows Forms, a
redesigned forms package. The designers of Windows Forms decided not to build
DAO and RDO data binding into Windows Forms; therefore, DAO and RDO data
binding are not supported.
Because of this, you might wonder how you can upgrade an application that uses
these technologies, if you can upgrade your application without making changes, or
how to change your DAO-based or RDO-based code with ADO. The following
sections address these points.

DAO/RDO in Visual Basic .NET

It is possible to keep using DAO and RDO in Visual Basic .NET, as long as you do
not use data binding with these technologies. But given the effort that is required to
keep these technologies when you upgrade your application to Visual Basic .NET, it
is probably easier to replace them with ADO in Visual Basic 6.0 before you start the
upgrade. To do this, you must re-implement the data binding in your code. How-
ever, because these technologies are so similar to each other in Visual Basic 6.0, it
requires that you make only minimal changes to your original code base. After you
replace DAO and RDO with ADO in your original code, almost all of the remaining
upgrade work is done for you automatically by the upgrade wizard.
The upgrade process includes replacing the Data Controls with ADO Data Controls
and replacing the DAO/RDO technologies with ADO technology. These replace-
ments are detailed in the following sections.

Replacing the Data Control with ADO Data Control in Visual Basic 6.0
The intrinsic Data Control implements data access by using the Microsoft Jet Data-
base engine — the same database engine that powers Microsoft Access. This technol-
ogy gives you seamless access to many standard database formats and allows you to
create data-aware applications without having to write any code.
This control can be used in combination with DAO technologies to bind data to
controls in a form. However, the Data Control is not supported in Visual Basic .NET,
so this control is not upgraded automatically by the upgrade wizard. Instead, the
upgrade wizard replaces the Data Control with a label on the form. The label’s
BackColor property is set to red to indicate that an upgrade issue is present.
The best way to resolve this issue is to handle it before you use the upgrade wizard.
To do this, you replace the Data Control with an ADO Data Control by first adding
the ADO Data Control to your Visual Basic 6.0 project. After the ADO Data Control
is available to your Visual Basic 6.0 project, you need to replace each Data Control in
your code and form design with an ADO Data Control.
In the ConnectionString property of the ADO Data Control, set the database or data
provider as it is specified in the Connect and DatabaseName properties of the Data
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 333

Control. For example, if your Data Control has Access specified as its Connect
property and C:\Temp\Northwind.mdb specified as its DatabaseName, you
construct the connection string for your new ADO Data Control as shown in the
following procedure.

Constructing the connection string for an ADO Control
1. Open the property page for the ConnectionString property, and then click Build.
2. In the Data Link Properties of the Provider tab, select a Microsoft Jet provider
(3.51 or 4.0). The version you select will depend on the version of Microsoft Office
that you have installed on your computer. For example, if Microsoft Office 97 is
installed, you must select version 3.51, and for all other cases, you must select
version 4.0. After you select the correct provider, click the Next button.
3. On the Connection tab, navigate to your Microsoft Access database, or simply set
the path to the correct database. After you specify the database to connect to,
click the OK button in the Data Link Properties, and then click the OK button on
the Property Pages.
After you set the ConnectionString, set the value and the type of the RecordSource
that will be returned by the ADO Data Control. You can do this on the Property
Pages of the RecordSource property where you can choose the two values simulta-
neously. Figure 12.1 shows an example of the Property Pages.

Figure 12.1
PropertyPages for the RecordSource property of an ADO Data Control

After you complete this procedure, you can remove the original Data Control from
your form. At this point, you should rebuild and retest the application to ensure
everything functions correctly before you begin the upgrade process.
334 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Replacing DAO/RDO with ADO in Visual Basic 6.0

ADO is the successor to DAO/RDO. Functionally, ADO 2.0 is most similar to RDO,
and there is generally a direct mapping between the two models. ADO “flattens” the
object model used by DAO and RDO; this means that it contains fewer objects and
more properties, methods (and arguments), and events. For example, ADO has no
equivalent functionality to the rdoEngine and rdoEnvironment objects that exposed
the ODBC driver manager and the hEnv interfaces. It is also not possible to create
ODBC data sources from ADO, despite the fact that your interface might be through
the ODBC OLE DB service provider.
Much of the functionality contained in the DAO and RDO models is consolidated
into single objects, resulting in a much simpler object model. However, because of
this, you might initially find it difficult to find the appropriate ADO object, collec-
tion, property, method, or event to map to DAO/RDO. Also, unlike DAO and RDO,
it is possible to create ADO objects outside the scope of the ADO object hierarchy.
However, note that ADO does not currently support all of the functionality available
in DAO. Instead, ADO more closely supports RDO-style functionality to interact
with OLE DB data sources, remoting, and DHTML technology.
Because ADO does not currently support the data definition language (DDL), users,
or groups of DAO, you should not replace DAO with ADO. Two exceptions to this
rule are if your application uses ODBCDirect or it is only for client-server applica-
tions that do not rely on the Jet database engine or use DDL.

Upgrading DAO/RDO without Data Binding

Handling DAO and RDO code that does not use data binding is relatively straight-
forward in upgrade projects. DAO and RDO are implemented as COM libraries, so
most of the code will work exactly the same in Visual Basic .NET as it did in Visual
Basic 6.0. For example, the following DAO code opens the Biblio database and then
executes a Select statement that returns the list of Authors. The name of the Author
is then shown in a message box.
Dim dbsExample As Database
Dim rstExample As Recordset
Dim fldExample As Field

Set dbsExample = OpenDatabase("c:\temp\Biblio.mdb")

Set rstExample = dbsExample.OpenRecordset("Authors", dbOpenDynaset)
Set fldExample = rstExample.Fields("Author")
MsgBox CStr(fldExample.Value)
dbsExample.Close

This code is upgraded automatically by the upgrade wizard as shown in the follow-
ing example.
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 335

Dim dbsExample As DAO.Database

Dim rstExample As DAO.Recordset
Dim fldExample As DAO.Field

dbsExample = DAODBEngine_definst.OpenDatabase("c:\temp\Biblio.mdb")
rstExample = dbsExample.OpenRecordset("Authors",
DAO.RecordsetTypeEnum.dbOpenDynaset)
fldExample = rstExample.Fields("Author")
MsgBox(CStr(fldExample.Value))
dbsExample.Close()

After the code is upgraded with the upgrade wizard, it looks essentially the same as
it did in Visual Basic 6.0, but it is more explicit. The upgrade wizard also automati-
cally adds a reference to the Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility library, so the
resulting code works perfectly in Visual Basic .NET without any manual modifica-
tions.
One major difference between Visual Basic .NET and all of the other data access
technologies is how you access fields of a recordset (or result set for RDO). In Visual
Basic 6.0, it is common to access fields using the shorthand coding convention
RecordsetName!FieldName. In Visual Basic .NET, this code needs to be expanded to
resolve the default properties. The upgrade wizard does this for you, but in this case
the code looks a little different after upgrading. Consider the following Visual Basic
6.0 code example.
Dim rstExample As Recordset
Dim strExample As String
strExample = rstExample!Author

The code assigns the author’s name of the recordset rstExample to the field
fldExample. When the upgrade wizard is applied, the result is similar to the follow-
ing code example.
Dim rstExample As DAO.Recordset
Dim strExample As String
strExample = rstExample.Fields("Author").Value

Notice that rstExample!Author was expanded to

rstExample.Fields(“Author”).Value. The upgrade wizard will handle these types of
expansions for you.
However, keep in mind that data binding for RDO and DAO is not supported in
Visual Basic .NET. When your code uses this technology, you must research the
options that allow your code to run after you upgrade the application.

Upgrading Data Access Objects (DAO)

This section covers issues that are specific to upgrading DAO technology to ADO.
336 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

DAO with Data Binding

In the following scenario, an application’s project contains a reference to the Micro-
soft DAO library and at least one form that contains a data control. Furthermore, at
least one control on the form is bound to the data control through the DataSource
and DataField properties of the control.
When you upgrade these applications, you must make some manual changes in the
upgraded code because DAO data binding is not supported in Visual Basic .NET.
Code that uses DAO at run time is upgraded correctly by the upgrade wizard; it
uses a wrapper to the DAO library, but you must manually recode all of the data
control code if you want to maintain the data binding in your project.
The best strategy is to replace your data control with an ADO Data Control before
you upgrade your project to Visual Basic .NET. The ADO Data Control is similar to a
data control and is supported in Visual Basic .NET. Replacing this control minimizes
the changes that you need to make in your code. For more information about up-
grading a data control, see the “Replacing the RDO Remote Data Control with ADO
Data Control in Visual Basic 6.0” section later in this chapter.

DAO without Data Binding

The following scenario applies to your application if the project contains a reference
to the DAO library, but none of its forms contain a data control, and all of the data
access is managed directly at run time.
When an application like this is upgraded to Visual Basic .NET, the upgrade wizard
adds DAO library a wrapper to the new project. As a result, code that uses DAO
data objects does not require manual changes, and the behavior is the same as it is in
Visual Basic 6.0.

Upgrading Remote Data Objects (RDO)

This section covers issues that are specific for the upgrade of RDO technology to
ADO.

RDO with Data Binding

Applications that fall into this scenario have projects that reference the Microsoft
Remote Data Objects. In them, at least one form contains the Remote Data Control
for data binding and at least one control in the form uses data binding with Remote
Data Control that uses the properties, DataSource and DataField .
After you upgrade an application like this, the Remote Data Control appears to be
upgraded. However, the new control is read-only at run time, and you will not be
able to navigate between the results. You can correct this by changing the Remote
Data Control of the upgraded project to an ADODC control in the
Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.Data library. However, this approach might
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 337

require a significant amount of work. It is more efficient to replace the RDO technol-
ogy with ADO technology in the Visual Basic 6.0 application before you upgrade the
application. For more information on this approach see “Replacing the RDO Remote
Data Control with ADO Data Control in Visual Basic 6.0” later in this chapter.

RDO without Data Binding

In this scenario, your application must contain in its project a reference to Microsoft
Remote Data Objects. Additionally, it may not contain any RDO Data Controls; all of
the data access is managed at run time.
With an application like this the upgrade of the RDO code is automatic, because the
upgrade wizard creates a reference to the RDO library. Your application maintains
the same RDO instructions in its code, which results in the same Visual Basic 6.0
functionality.

Replacing RDO with ADO in Visual Basic 6.0

Because RDO maps closely to ADO, it is generally a good idea to replace RDO with
ADO before you upgrade your application. The following scenarios demonstrate
how RDO is used to resolve data access issues and how you can achieve the same
behavior with ADO. The examples assume that the application project has a refer-
ence to Microsoft ADO 2.0.
Establishing a Connection to a Database
To open a connection in RDO, you must supply a connection string with parameters.
A connection is not required by RDO to create an rdoQuery object, but it is required
to initially create an rdoResultset object. The following code example demonstrates
opening a connection using RDO.
Dim WithEvents cn As rdoConnection
Dim cnB As New rdoConnection
Const ConnectString = "uid=myname;pwd=mypw;driver={SQL Server};" & _
"server=myserver;database=pubs;dsn=''"

This connection string accesses a specific SQL Server and permits ODBC to open a
connection without a Data Source Name (DSN). This example represents a typical
ODBC connection string with all of the standard arguments.
To continue the example, consider the following form Load event code. The code
establishes the type of cursor driver and the login timeout. By default, RDO uses the
rdUseIfNeeded cursor type, which invokes server-side cursors on SQL Server.
However, this default is overridden in the following example by specifying
rdUseNone. The rdDriverNoPrompt flag means that the application generates an
error if the user ID and password do not match.
338 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Private Sub Form_Load()

Set cn = New rdoConnection
With cn
.Connect = ConnectString
.LoginTimeout = 10
.CursorDriver = rdUseNone
.EstablishConnection rdDriverNoPrompt
End With

Within the Load event, a second connection performs client-batch updates as shown
in this example.
With cnB
.Connect = ConnectString
.CursorDriver = rdUseClientBatch
.EstablishConnection
End With
End Sub

The last event occurs when the connection operation completes. It handles any
errors that occur when the connection is opened. With this event, you can test to see
if the connection was established before attempting to perform any actions. For
example, you can enable any buttons that rely on an open connection. This is dem-
onstrated in the following code example.
Private Sub cn_Connect(ByVal ErrorOccurred As Boolean)
If ErrorOccurred Then
MsgBox "Could not open connection", vbCritical
Else
RunOKFrame.Enabled = True
End If
End Sub

However, to establish a database connection in ADO, you must first create a set of
ADO objects that are referenced from the ADODB object. These are used later to set
specific properties that open connections and generate result sets. This is shown in
the following code.
Dim cn As New ADODB.Connection
Dim rs As New ADODB.Recordset
Dim cnB As New ADODB.Connection
Dim Qy As New ADODB.Command

The next line creates a connection string, just like the one that was created in the
previous RDO example. In both cases, the examples are using ODBCs “non-DSN”
connection strategy to save time and to increase performance.
Const ConnectString= "uid=myname;pwd=mypw;driver={SQL Server};" & _
"server=myserver;database=pubs;dsn=''"
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 339

Now that the variables and connection string have been created, you can open an
ADO connection to a database in the form Load event. This is demonstrated here.
Private Sub Form_Load()
With cn
' Establish DSN-less connection
.ConnectionString = ConnectString
.ConnectionTimeout = 10
.Properties("Prompt") = adPromptNever
' This is the default prompting mode in ADO.
.Open
End With
With cnB
.ConnectionString = ConnectString
.CursorLocation = adUseClient
.Open
End With
End Sub

Notice how this converted code is very similar to the RDO code except that the
constants are prefaced with ad instead of rd. For example, the rdDriverNoPrompt
was changed to adPromptNever. There is no need to specify the prompting behavior
because ADO defaults to no prompt. If you do elect to change this, use the ADO
Properties collection to establish the desired prompt behavior. In RDO, you can set
the behavior using the OpenConnection argument. In ADO, you must set the Prop-
erties (“Prompt”) property. Also, there is no need to specify a cursor driver if you do
not want to use one (such as the RDO CursorDriver = rdUseNone) because ADO
defaults to no cursor driver by default.
Running a Basic Query
In RDO, you can run queries using the method OpenResultset, which returns a
Resultset that allows you to access all results. The following example shows how to
return a Resultset based on a SQL statement. Notice that building a Resultset
requires an open connection.
…
Private Sub RunButton_Click()
Dim rs As rdoResultset
Set rs = cn.OpenResultset("select * from titles where title like '%h'")

' Perform operations on the Resultset obtained from the query here.

rs.Close
End Sub
…
340 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

To execute a query with ADO, you must use the Open method of a recordset, using
the database connection. The following event procedure is very similar to the previ-
ous RDO code example. However, in this case, you use the new ADO Open method
that takes the SQL query and the ADO Connection object as arguments, instead of
using the rdoConnection object’s OpenResultset method. You can also opt to use
the ADO Connection object’s Execute method, just as you could in RDO, as long as
it does not return a rowset.
Private Sub RunButton_Click()
Dim rs As New ADODB.Recordset
rs.Open "select * from titles where title like '%h'", cn
Set MyMSHFlexGrid.Recordset = rs
rs.Close
End Sub

You can run this query and process its recordset asynchronously in ADO. When you
specify the adFetchAsynch option on rs.Open, ADO causes the cursor provider to
automatically populate the recordset in the background.
Displaying a Result Set in a MSHFlexGrid Control
The following code example uses the ShowData method of a custom ActiveX
control to display data from a result set in an MSHFlexGrid control using RDO
technology. The code sets up the grid based on the names in the rdoColumns prop-
erty and initializes the grid, preparing it for the data. Notice the use of the
OrdinalPosition property to index the resultset’s rdoColumns property. The code
uses the GetClipString method of the rdoResultset object to add the rows to the
MSHFlexGrid control.
…
Public Function ShowData(Resultset As rdoResultset) As Variant
Dim cl As rdoColumn
Static GridSetup As Boolean
Dim MaxL As Integer
Dim rsl As rdoResultset
Dim Rows As Variant
On Error GoTo ShowDataEH
Set rsl = Resultset
If GridSetup = False Then
FGrid1.Rows = 51
FGrid1.Cols = rsl.rdoColumns.Count
FGrid1.Row = 0
For Each cl In rsl.rdoColumns
FGrid1.Col = cl.OrdinalPosition - 1
FGrid1 = cl.Name
If rsl.rdoColumns(cl.OrdinalPosition - 1).ChunkRequired Then
MaxL = 1
Else
MaxL = rsl.rdoColumns(cl.OrdinalPosition - 1).Size + 4
End If
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 341

If MaxL > 20 Then MaxL = 20

FGrid1.ColWidth(FGrid1.Col) = TextWidth(String(MaxL, "n"))
Next cl
GridSetup = True
End If
FGrid1.Rows = 1 'Clear Grid of data (except titles)
FGrid1.Rows = 51
FGrid1.Row = 1
FGrid1.Col = 0
FGrid1.RowSel = FGrid1.Rows - 1
FGrid1.ColSel = FGrid1.Cols - 1
FGrid1.Clip = rsl.GetClipString(50, , , "-")

ExitShowData:
FGrid1.RowSel = 1
FGrid1.ColSel = 0
Exit Function

ShowDataEH:
Select Case Err
Case 40022:
FGrid1.Clear
Resume ExitShowData
Case 13
FGrid1.Text = "< >"
Resume Next
Case Else
MsgBox "Could not display data: " & Err & vbCrLf & Error$
Resume ' ExitShowData
End Select
End Function
…

By way of comparison, the following code example implements the ShowData

method of a custom ActiveX control that is adapted from an RDO control, but it uses
ADO. Note that the RDO GetClipString method is superseded in ADO by the
GetString method. Because you then have to parse the resulting Variant array, the
routine is noticeably slower.
Notice how you can no longer use the OrdinalPosition as an index on the Fields
collection to pull out the column titles as you could in RDO. To resolve this issue,
you can substitute a new integer counter to address the column being manipulated.
Use the DefinedSize and ActualSize properties to find the TEXT and IMAGE data
type fields that do not fit in a column. These new properties make it easier to deter-
mine the details of specific field values.
The following example adds code to handle BLOB types if they are encountered
while working through the data columns.
Public Function ShowData(Resultset As Recordset) As Variant
Dim cl As Field
342 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Static GridSetup As Boolean

Dim MaxL As Integer
Dim Op As Integer
Dim rsl As Recordset
Dim rows As Variant
On Error GoTo ShowDataEH
Set rsl = Resultset

If GridSetup = False Then

FGrid1.rows = 51
FGrid1.Cols = rsl.Fields.Count
FGrid1.Row = 0
Op = 0
For Each cl In rsl.Fields
FGrid1.Col = Op
FGrid1 = cl.Name
If rsl.Fields(Op).DefinedSize > 255 Then
MaxL = 1
Else
MaxL = rsl.Fields(Op).ActualSize + 4
End If
If MaxL > 20 Then MaxL = 20
FGrid1.ColWidth(FGrid1.Col) = TextWidth(String(MaxL, "n"))
Op = Op + 1
Next cl
GridSetup = True
End If
FGrid1.rows = 1
FGrid1.rows = 51
FGrid1.Row = 1
FGrid1.Col = 0
FGrid1.RowSel = FGrid1.rows - 1
FGrid1.ColSel = FGrid1.Cols - 1
With FGrid1
' You can also use the ADO2 GetString method here in lieu of the
' following.
FGrid1.Clip = rsl.GetString(adClipString, 50, , , "-")
End With

ExitShowData:
FGrid1.RowSel = 1
FGrid1.ColSel = 0
Exit Function

ShowDataEH:
Select Case Err
Case 3021:
FGrid1.Clear
Resume ExitShowData
Case 13, Is < 0
rows(j, i) = "< >"
Resume 'Next
Case Else
MsgBox "Could not display data: " & Err & vbCrLf & Error$
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 343

Resume ' ExitShowData

End Select
End Function

For more information about converting RDO 2.0 to ADO 2.0, see “Visual Basic
Concepts: Converting from RDO 2.0 to ADO 2.0” on MSDN.

Replacing the RDO Remote Data Control with ADO Data Control in Visual Basic 6.0
If you upgrade an application that contains Remote Data Control technology, it
appears the controls are upgraded by the upgrade wizard; however, the new con-
trols are read-only at run time. In this case, you will not be able to navigate between
results. A better option is to replace the RDO technology with ADO technology in
the Visual Basic 6.0 application before you upgrade it.
The following example illustrates the process that you can use to upgrade a Remote
Data Control. The example contains a Remote Data Control named RDC1, and a
TextBox control named OrderId.
In this example, RDC1 receives all of the orders that are stored in the Orders table,
which is part of the Northwind Microsoft Access database that uses a DSN named
Access. The control’s properties are set as listed in Table 12.1.
Table 12.1: Remote Data Control Properties for the Upgrade Example
RemoteData Control properties Value
Connect DSN=Access
CursorDriver 0-rdUseIfNeeded
DataSourceName MS Access Database
Password <empty>
SQL Select * from Orders
UserName Admin

In the TextBox control, the DataSource property is set to RDC1 and the DataField
property is set to OrderID.
To use an ADO data control, perform the following procedure.

Using an ADO data control
1. Add the ADO reference to the project, as explained in the previous section,
“Replacing the Data Control with ADO Data Control in Visual Basic 6.0.”
2. Add an ADO data control to the form, and set its name with a representative
name. In the current example, it is ADORDC1.
344 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

3. In the ConnectionString property of the ADO data control, set the Access DSN
that is used in the RemoteData control. Figure 12.2 shows how to do this through
the Property Pages.

Figure 12.2
Setting the ConnectionString of an ADO data control through the property page.

4. Set the UserName property of the ADO data control to Admin.

5. In the RecordSource property of the ADO data control, set the query “select *
from Orders”.
6. Delete the RemoteData control.
7. Change the value of the DataSource property of the TextBox control to
ADORDC1.
After you have completed this procedure, rebuild and retest the application to
ensure everything functions correctly before you begin the upgrade process.
The next section discusses upgrading all DAO and RDO technology to ADO.

Custom Data Access Components

Custom data access components are those components that encapsulate data access
technologies such as ADO, DAO, or RDO inside a DLL or an OCX that your applica-
tion uses. These components may have been developed internally in a specific
language, or they may have been purchased from another company with or without
the source code. There are various alternatives for upgrading applications that use
custom data access components. The approach that you take will depend on
whether you have access to the source code of the component and the language that
was used to develop it.
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 345

One of these three scenarios might apply to your application:

● You do not have the source code for the custom component.

● You have the source code for the custom component and it was developed in
Visual Basic 6.0.
● You have the source code for the component, but it was not developed in Visual
Basic 6.0.

For all of these cases, you can choose from two upgrade options:
● Upgrade your application and use a wrapper for the component.
● Upgrade the application and the component separately, and replace the old
component with a new Visual Basic .NET based component.
The following section discusses each option.

Upgrading to a .NET Version of the Component

When you have the source code for the custom data access components that are in
your application and they are written in Visual Basic 6.0, you can often upgrade
them to Visual Basic .NET. Typically, you can do this apart from upgrading the rest
of the application. This is called a staged upgrade and is discussed in Chapter 2,
“Practices for Successful Upgrades.” However, the determining factor in how you
choose to upgrade these components depends heavily on the underlying data access
technology that was used to build them.
As discussed in previous sections, code that uses DAO/RDO is most easily up-
graded if you first replace the DAO/RDO with ADO in the Visual Basic 6.0 code.
On the other hand, if the component directly accesses custom database files, it might
make the most sense to replace the data access with a connection to a database
server, such as Microsoft SQL Server. In each of these scenarios, the disadvantage is
that you must spend the time and effort to prepare the code before you perform the
upgrade. There is also the possibility that your component’s behavior will change as
a result of the preparation. However, this could turn out to be an advantage because
as you resolve behavior issues you have the opportunity to add new data access
functionality. Another advantage to upgrading a data access component to Visual
Basic .NET is that you have the opportunity to use the newest data access technol-
ogy, ADO.NET. ADO.NET is entirely integrated with Visual Basic .NET and pro-
vides easy access to databases.
If the custom data access component you need to upgrade was purchased from a
third party, it is possible that a new version of the component has been released. In
this case, it is also possible that the new version was developed in Visual Basic .NET.
If that is the case, the amount of work you have to do to upgrade your application
may be considerably reduced.
346 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Using COM Interop with Custom Data Access Components

When you do not have the source code for the custom data access components in
your application, or the code is developed in a language that is not Visual Basic 6.0,
your best option is to upgrade your application with the upgrade wizard. The
upgrade wizard creates a wrapper to the data access component, which allows you
to use the existing statements and retain the same Visual Basic 6.0 functionality in
Visual Basic .NET through COM interop.
The advantage of this approach is that the changes that you need to make in the
upgraded code with respect to the data access component are minimal. At the same
time, your application retains the same functionality that it had in Visual Basic 6.0.
The disadvantages are that the component continues to use old technologies and
that the overhead of using COM interop will decrease the performance of the appli-
cation. For more information about COM interop, see Chapter 14, “Interop Between
Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET.”
Of course, you can use this strategy even if the custom component source code is
available and developed in Visual Basic 6.0, but the best method for this scenario is
to upgrade the component to Visual Basic .NET as discussed in the previous section,
“Upgrading to a .NET Version of the Component.”

Upgrading Mixed Data Access Technologies

When your application uses different technologies such as ADO, RDO, DAO and
custom data access, you should consolidate all of the data access into a single tech-
nology before beginning the upgrade. Your best option in this case is to use ADO
because it can be upgraded automatically by the upgrade wizard. This in turn, will
reduce the number of manual changes you will need to make in the upgraded code.
As an alternative, you can choose to upgrade each technology separately. This
requires that you create a new Visual Basic 6.0 project for each technology that your
application uses. Each project must be upgraded separately. After all of the projects
have been upgraded, you will have to integrate them into a single application in
Visual Basic .NET.

Converting Data Reports to Crystal Reports

Visual Basic 6.0 provides the Microsoft Data Report Designer, a versatile data report
generator that features the ability to created banded hierarchical reports. Used in
conjunction with a data source such as the Data Environment Designer, you can
create reports from several different relational tables. In addition to creating print-
able reports, you can also export the report to HTML or text files.
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 347

In Visual Basic .NET, the standard reporting tool is Crystal Reports. This tool allows
the creation of robust reports that adapt to an application’s needs. There are many
advantages to using Crystal Reports.
One of the advantages of Crystal Reports is the ability to convert a Microsoft Data
Report (.dsr file) to a Crystal Report (.rpt file) through a relatively easy automated
process. When a Data Report is converted, an equivalent Crystal Report is gener-
ated. The resulting report has the same design and data access as the original report.
Database connections and the general structure of the report are kept under a similar
model.
However, the Crystal Reports tool cannot convert Data Reports that contain a query
that uses parameters to retrieve data. For example, a Data Report with the following
query cannot be converted automatically:
SELECT Products.* FROM Products WHERE (ProductID = ?)

In these cases, your best option is to manually re-implement the reports in Crystal
Reports. For more information about how to create Crystal Reports, see:
● “Reports in Windows Applications” in Crystal Reports for Visual Studio .NET on
MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/crystlmn
/html/crconreportsinwindowsapplications.asp.
● “Add Professional Quality Reports to Your Application with Visual Studio .NET”
in MSDN Magazine at http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/05/Crystal/.
In cases where Crystal Reports can be used for automatic conversion, the process
consists of several phases:
1. You will first need to upgrade all of the associated Visual Basic 6.0 projects,
forms, and data access components to Visual Basic .NET.
2. Next, you will need to upgrade the Data Reports to Crystal Reports.
3. Finally, you will have to make some changes in the project to allow the upgraded
code to work with the converted Crystal Reports.
The following example shows you how to upgrade Data Reports. In the example, a
Visual Basic 6.0 project contains a report named ProductReport that is used to show
the information about products in the Northwind database, a sample database
included with Microsoft Office. A DataEnvironment object named DataBase con-
nects to the database, and a form is used to display the products. The form includes
two buttons that allow a user to either display (btnShow) or export (btnFile) the
report.
The Show Report button displays the report on the screen; the Export Report button
exports the report to a text file. The code for each of these events follows.
Private Sub btnFile_Click()
348 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

ProductReport.ExportReport rptKeyText, "c:\temp\Reports\Products.doc"

End Sub

Private Sub btnShow_Click()

ProductReport.Show
End Sub

When you use the upgrade wizard to upgrade the project, the DataReport is not
upgraded. Instead, it is copied into the new project unchanged. The code in the form
and the DataEnvironment are upgraded and now require the same amount of work
as a typical upgrade project.
After you upgrade the code base, the next phase is to convert the DataReport to a
Crystal Report. Use the following procedure to convert the DataReport.

Converting a DataReport to a Crystal Report
1. In the Solution Explorer pane of the Visual Studio IDE, click the Add New Item
option to add the Crystal Report to your upgraded project. When you add the
new report, the Crystal Report Gallery dialog box displays, as shown in Figure
12.3.

Figure 12.3
The Crystal Report gallery

2. In the Crystal Report Gallery dialog box, click the From an Existing Report
option.
3. In the Search dialog box, navigate to the DataReport file and select it. The
DataReport file is part of your Visual Basic 6.0 application’s source code. After
selecting the appropriate file, click OK.
 Chapter 12: Upgrading Data Access 349

After you complete these steps, the Crystal Report Engine automatically upgrades
your DataReport object. When the upgrade process is done, you can remove the
DataReport that was copied to your project by the upgrade wizard.
The final phase of converting a DataReport to a Crystal Report is to make changes in
the upgraded project that allow it to work with the newly created Crystal Report. To
do so, add the following references to your project:
● CrystalDecisions.Shared

● CrystalDecisions.ReportSource

● CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine

● CrystalDecisions.Windows.Forms

To replicate the behavior of the Show Report button, you have to add a new form to
the project. In this example, you can add a form named DataReport. You will need
to add Crystal Report Viewer to this form, and set its Dock property to Fill and its
Modifiers property to Public. Optionally, you can also set its name to Viewer. After
the form and the viewer are added, you will need to adjust the button event handler
code to display the report in the new form. After you apply the upgrade wizard to
the original code, the Show Report button code gives the following warning.
Dim ProductReport As Object
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Couldn't resolve default property of object ProductReport.Show.
ProductReport.Show()

To resolve this upgrade issue, you have to declare variables for the new report and
form. You then have to assign the report to ReportSource property of the Crystal
Report Viewer. The final modified code is shown here.
Dim ProductReport As New ProductReport
Dim report As New DataReport
report.Viewer.ReportSource = ProductReport
report.Show()

With these changes, the Crystal Report exhibits the same behavior as the original
Visual Basic 6.0 report when the Show Report button is clicked.
To replicate the behavior of the Export File button, you also have to manually adjust
the upgraded code. In this case, it is necessary to use the Export function of the
Crystal Report. The following code example shows the result of applying the up-
grade wizard to the original Visual Basic 6.0 event handler for the Export File
button.
Dim ProductReport As Object
'UPGRADE_WARNING: Couldn't resolve default property of object
ProductReport.ExportReport.
ProductReport.ExportReport(MSDataReportLib.ExportKeyConstants.rptKeyText,
"c:\temp\Reports\Products.doc")
350 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

To resolve this upgrade issue, you need to declare a variable for the Crystal Report.
To export the report to a text file, invoke the Export method of the Crystal Report in
place of the ExportReport function in the event handler, as shown in the following
code.
Dim ProductReport As New ProductReport
ProductReport.ExportToDisk(ExportFormatType.RichText, _
"c:\temp\Reports\Products.doc")

Summary
More than likely, you will need to upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 applications that use
some form of data access. This chapter provides the strategies that you can use to
upgrade your data access code.

More Information
For more information about how to create Crystal Reports, see:
● “Reports in Windows Applications” in Crystal Reports for Visual Studio .NET on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/crystlmn/html
/crconreportsinwindowsapplications.asp.
● “Add Professional Quality Reports to Your Application with Visual Studio .NET”
in MSDN Magazine:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/05/Crystal/.
For information about the ArtinSoft Visual Basic .NET Ready program, see the
ArtinSoft Web site:
http://www.artinsoft.com/iproducts/vb6todotnet/laboratories.asp.
For more information about converting RDO 2.0 to ADO 2.0, see “Converting from
RDO 2.0 to ADO 2.0” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon98/html
/vbconconvertingfromrdotoado.asp.
13
Working with the Windows API
The Windows API is the foundation that every Windows application is built on.
Visual Basic applications are no exception. Visual Basic, through the language and
forms package, abstracts the Windows API to a set of easy-to-use statements, com-
ponents, and controls. In many cases, you can build a Visual Basic application
without having to directly call a Windows API function. However, because the
Visual Basic language and forms packages do not represent every Windows API
function available, Visual Basic supports directly calling Windows API functions; it
has done this since version 1.0. This enables you to add capabilities to your applica-
tion that cannot be implemented by the Visual Basic runtime.
Visual Basic .NET moves forward with this capability by enabling you to declare
and call Windows API functions in the same way as before. Furthermore, access to
many of these APIs has been exposed through the more comprehensive .NET Frame-
work class library. You now have two options for upgrading these API function
calls.
The first option is to continue to use the Windows API. This option requires that you
use interoperability techniques to access the API. This option requires the least
amount of effort to upgrade API function calls, but results in a dependence on
unmanaged code. (For more information about managed code, see the “Increased
Productivity” section of Chapter 1, “Introduction.”)
The second option is to replace Windows API calls with Visual Basic .NET alterna-
tives. This option requires more effort to upgrade API function calls, but the result is
fully managed code that is not dependent on an unmanaged library.
This chapter demonstrates both approaches for working with the Windows API. It
focuses on the language changes that affect the way you create Declare statements
so that you can continue to use the Windows API functions. It also shows you how
to use classes and methods that are contained in the .NET Framework to comple-
ment or replace the Windows API calls you make in your application.
352 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Type Changes
Visual Basic .NET contains changes in the data types that affect several Windows
API functions. Some of these changes are related to the Integer and Long data types,
and others are related to fixed-length strings. You must use caution when upgrading
to Visual Basic .NET to ensure proper invocation of Windows API functions.

Changes to Integer and Long Data Types

The storage sizes for the Integer and Long data types have changed between Visual
Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET to maintain consistency with the .NET Framework.
These changes affect almost every Windows API function declaration that involves
the numeric types Integer and Long. In Visual Basic 6.0, an Integer is 16 bits and a
Long is 32 bits. In Visual Basic .NET, an Integer is 32 bits and a Long is 64 bits.
Visual Basic .NET adds a new type named Short, which, in terms of size, is the
replacement for the Visual Basic 6.0 Integer type. In Visual Basic .NET, when you
create a new Declare statement for a Windows API function, you need to be mindful
of this difference. Any parameter type or user-defined type member that was for-
merly a Long needs to be declared as Integer; any member formerly declared as
Integer needs to be declared as Short.
Take, for example, the following Visual Basic 6.0 Declare statement, which contains
a mix of Integer and Long parameters.
Declare Function GetKeyState Lib "user32" (ByVal nVirtKey As Long) _
As Integer

The equivalent Visual Basic .NET declaration is shown here.

Declare Function GetKeyState Lib "user32" (ByVal nVirtKey As Integer) _
As Short

The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard will automatically change all the variable declara-
tions in your code to use the correct size (changes in the code are marked in bold).
You need to consider the size of a type only when you are creating new Declare
statements or you are modifying existing statements.

Changes to Fixed-Length Strings

Visual Basic 6.0 has a fixed-length string data type that is not supported in Visual
Basic .NET. Any fixed-length string declarations in your code must be upgraded to a
fixed-length string wrapper class that is provided in Visual Basic .NET. Consider the
following Visual Basic 6.0 function declaration.
 Chapter 13: Working with the Windows API 353

Private Declare Function GetUserName Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias _

"GetUserNameA" (ByVal lpBuffer As String, ByRef nSize As Long) As Long
Function GetUser()
Dim Ret As Long
Dim UserName As String
Dim Buffer As String * 25
Ret = GetUserName(Buffer, 25)
UserName = Left$(Buffer, InStr(Buffer, Chr(0)) - 1)
MsgBox (UserName)
End Function

The upgrade wizard upgrades the code to the following.

Private Declare Function GetUserName Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias _
"GetUserNameA"(ByVal lpBuffer As String, ByRef nSize As Integer) As Integer
Function GetUser() As Object
Dim Ret As Integer
Dim UserName As String
Dim Buffer As New VB6.FixedLengthString(25)
Ret = GetUserName(Buffer.Value, 25)
UserName = Left(Buffer.Value, InStr(Buffer.Value, Chr(0)) - 1)
MsgBox(UserName)
End Function

The preceding code has the same behavior as the original Visual Basic 6.0 code,
but results in a dependency on the Visual Basic 6.0 compatibility runtime. Another
approach is to remove this dependency on the Visual Basic 6.0 compatibility
runtime. You can do this either by preparing your code prior to the upgrade or by
changing the Visual Basic .NET code that is produced by the upgrade wizard.
To prepare your Visual Basic 6.0 code prior to the upgrade, you can rewrite this code
by using a normal string explicitly set to length 25 instead of a fixed-length string, as
shown here.
Private Declare Function GetUserName Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias _
"GetUserNameA" (ByVal lpBuffer As String, ByRef nSize As Long) As Long
Function GetUser()
Dim Ret As Long
Dim UserName As String
Dim Buffer As String
Buffer = String$(25, " ")
Ret = GetUserName(Buffer, 25)
UserName = Left$(Buffer, InStr(Buffer, Chr(0)) - 1)
MsgBox (UserName)
End Function
354 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Alternatively, you can remove the Visual Basic 6.0 compatibility runtime depen-
dency by changing the upgraded Visual Basic .NET code to the following.
Private Declare Function GetUserName Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias _
"GetUserNameA"(ByVal lpBuffer As String, ByRef nSize As Integer) As Integer
Function GetUser() As Object
Dim Ret As Integer
Dim UserName As String
Dim Buffer As New String(" ", 25)
Ret = GetUserName(Buffer, 25)
UserName = Left(Buffer, InStr(Buffer, Chr(0)) - 1)
MsgBox(UserName)
End Function

Either option reduces your code’s dependence on the Visual Basic 6.0 compatibility
runtime.

Variable Type “As Any” Is No Longer Supported

Visual Basic 6.0 allows you to declare parameter types using the As Any variable
type. This declaration allows you to pass an argument of any type; Visual Basic 6.0
passes the correct information when the call is made. This gives you greater flexibil-
ity, but no type checking is performed on the argument when you call the API
function. Thus, if you pass an incompatible argument type, the application may
generate a run-time exception.
Visual Basic .NET does not support declaring Windows API parameters with the As
Any variable type. However, a similar effect can be achieved by declaring the same
API function multiple times, using different types for the same parameter in each
declaration.
The Windows API function SendMessage is an example of an instance where you
would use the As Any type in the API function declaration in Visual Basic 6.0 code.
Depending on the Windows message you are sending, the parameter types required
for the message will vary. For example, the WM_SETTEXT message requires you to
pass a string as the last parameter. By contrast, the WM_GETTEXTLENGTH mes-
sage requires you to pass 0, a numeric value, for the last parameter. To handle both
of these messages, you create the Visual Basic 6.0 Declare statement for
SendMessage as shown here.
Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" _
Alias "SendMessageA" _
(ByVal hwnd As Long, _
ByVal wMsg As Long, _
ByVal wParam As Long, _
ByVal lParam As Any) As Long
 Chapter 13: Working with the Windows API 355

Notice how the last parameter has been declared with the As Any type. The follow-
ing code demonstrates two different invocations of this function, passing a different
type for the last parameter in each invocation. This example uses SendMessage to
set the caption of the current form and then retrieve the length of the caption set.
Dim TextLen As Long
Const WM_SETTEXT = &HC
Const WM_GETTEXTLENGTH = &HE

' Invoke SendMessage using a String value for the last parameter.
SendMessage Me.hwnd, WM_SETTEXT, 0, "My text"
' Invoke SendMessage using a numeric value for the last parameter.
TextLen = SendMessage(Me.hwnd, WM_GETTEXTLENGTH, 0, 0&)

To implement the equivalent functionality in Visual Basic .NET, you create multiple
Declare statements for the SendMessage function. In the case of the SendMessage
API, you create two Declare statements, using two different types for the last pa-
rameter, String and Integer, as shown here.
Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias "SendMessageA" _
(ByVal hwnd As Integer, _
ByVal wMsg As Integer, _
ByVal wParam As Integer, _
ByVal lParam As String) As Integer

Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias "SendMessageA" _

(ByVal hwnd As Integer, _
ByVal wMsg As Integer, _
ByVal wParam As Integer, _
ByVal lParam As Integer) As Integer

Note: You also need to change the other parameter types from Long to Integer, as discussed
in the “Changes to Fixed-Length Strings” section earlier in this chapter.

For this example, the equivalent Visual Basic .NET code uses SendMessage to set
the caption of the current form and then retrieve the length of the caption set.
Dim TextLen As Integer
Const WM_SETTEXT = &HC
Const WM_GETTEXTLENGTH = &HE

' Invoke SendMessage using a String value for the last parameter
SendMessage(Me.Handle.ToInt32, WM_SETTEXT, 0, "My text")
' Invoke SendMessage using a numeric value for the last parameter
TextLen = SendMessage(Me.Handle.ToInt32, WM_GETTEXTLENGTH, 0, 0)
356 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Creating multiple Declare statements for the same function is more work than using
the As Any variable type, but you benefit by getting both the flexibility of using the
same function name and type checking when the call is made.

Passing User-Defined Types to API Functions

When you pass a Visual Basic 6.0 user-defined type to an API function, Visual Basic
passes a pointer to the memory that contains the user-defined type. The API func-
tion sees the members of the user-defined type in the same order that they were
declared in Visual Basic. However, this is not the case for Visual Basic .NET. If you
declare a user-defined type, the order of the members is not guaranteed to stay the
same in the code. The common language runtime (CLR) may reorganize the mem-
bers of a user-defined type in a way that is most efficient for the user-defined type to
be passed to a function. To guarantee that the members are passed exactly as de-
clared in the code, you need to use marshaling attributes.
For example, if your code is calling an API function named MyFunction (written in
C or C++), that takes a 2-byte Boolean type (VARIANT_BOOL) parameter, you can
use the MarshalAs attribute to specify the parameter type that the API function
expects. Usually, a Boolean parameter is passed using 4 bytes, but if you include
UnmanagedType.VariantBool as a parameter to the MarshalAs attribute, the
parameter is marshaled — or, passed — as a 2-byte VARIANT_BOOL argument.
The following code demonstrates how to apply the MarshalAs attribute to your API
function declarations.
Declare Sub MyFunction Lib "MyLibrary.dll" _
(<MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.VariantBool)> ByVal MyBool As Boolean)

The MarshalAs attribute is contained in the System.Run-time.InteropServices namespace. To

call MarshalAs without qualification, you need to add an Imports statement to the top of the
module for System.Runtime.InteropServices, as shown here.

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

For any structure passed to API functions, the structure should be declared using the
StructLayout attribute to ensure compatibility with the Windows API. The
StructLayout attribute takes a number of parameters, but the two most significant
attributes for ensuring compatibility are LayoutKind and CharSet. For example, to
specify that the structure members should be passed in the same order that they are
declared, set the LayoutKind attribute to LayoutKind.Sequential. To ensure that
string parameters are marshaled as ANSI strings, set the CharSet attribute to
CharSet.Ansi.
 Chapter 13: Working with the Windows API 357

Note: It is important to know that the .NET Framework uses Unicode strings when it communi-
cates with external APIs. It may be necessary to use different string marshaling options, such
as ANSI encoding, or an encoding that is determined by the underlying operating system.
The following code snippet shows a sample external function declaration that requires the ANSI
CharSet attribute because the function expects an ANSI string.

Declare Function CharUpperA Lib "user32" (<MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)> _

ByVal s As String) As String

This function receives one ANSI string and returns a corresponding string with all of the
characters converted to uppercase. However, if a Unicode version of the same function is
provided in the API, it is a better choice when it is accessed from the .NET Framework. It will
have better performance, because there are no conversions between encodings, and the
declaration is simplified because no marshaling is required, as shown in the following example.

Declare Unicode Function CharUpperW Lib "user32" (ByVal s As String) As String

In general, whenever possible, use Unicode versions of the API functions and use
<MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)> instead of <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)> for
string arguments. Apply the same reasoning to structure fields that are necessary for API
interaction. Whenever possible, use Unicode versions of structures and use
<StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet:= CharSet.Unicode)> instead of
<StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet:=CharSet.Ansi)> as the marshaling attributes
for structures and string fields.

Suppose you are calling an API function named EnumFontFamilies, in a DLL

named GDI32, that takes as a parameter a structure named LOGFONT. The
LOGFONT Structure contains several fields of integer and byte types and one
fixed-length array of byte type, declared in Visual Basic 6.0, as shown here.
Public Const LF_FACESIZE = 32
Type LOGFONT
lfHeight As Long
lfWidth As Long
lfEscapement As Long
lfOrientation As Long
lfWeight As Long
lfItalic As Byte
lfUnderline As Byte
lfStrikeOut As Byte
lfCharSet As Byte
lfOutPrecision As Byte
lfClipPrecision As Byte
lfQuality As Byte
lfPitchAndFamily As Byte
lfFaceName(LF_FACESIZE) As Byte
End Type
358 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The upgrade wizard would upgrade the declaration to this approximate equivalent.
Structure LOGFONT
Dim lfHeight As Integer
Dim lfWidth As Integer
Dim lfEscapement As Integer
Dim lfOrientation As Integer
Dim lfWeight As Integer
Dim lfItalic As Byte
Dim lfUnderline As Byte
Dim lfStrikeOut As Byte
Dim lfCharSet As Byte
Dim lfOutPrecision As Byte
Dim lfClipPrecision As Byte
Dim lfQuality As Byte
Dim lfPitchAndFamily As Byte
<VBFixedArray(LF_FACESIZE)> Dim lfFaceName() As Byte
Public Sub Initialize()
ReDim lfFaceName(LF_FACESIZE)
End Sub
End Structure

The preceding declaration is approximate because it is missing attributes to make it

fully equivalent with the Visual Basic 6.0 declaration. Specifically, it is missing
attributes in the structure to specify layout. It is also missing an attribute on
lfFaceName member to mark it as a fixed-length array.
There is no guarantee that the CLR will pass the members of the structure in the
same order that they were declared. For example, the CLR may reorganize the
structure in memory so that the lfFaceName member comes first. To ensure that the
order of the members is preserved, you need to add marshaling attributes to force
the CLR to use the declaration order when passing structures to functions. The
following code demonstrates how to accomplish this.
<StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet:=CharSet.Ansi)> _
Structure LOGFONT
Dim lfHeight As Integer
Dim lfWidth As Integer
Dim lfEscapement As Integer
Dim lfOrientation As Integer
Dim lfWeight As Integer
Dim lfItalic As Byte
Dim lfUnderline As Byte
Dim lfStrikeOut As Byte
Dim lfCharSet As Byte
Dim lfOutPrecision As Byte
Dim lfClipPrecision As Byte
Dim lfQuality As Byte
Dim lfPitchAndFamily As Byte
<VBFixedArray(LF_FACESIZE)> Dim lfFaceName() As Byte
Public Sub Initialize()
 Chapter 13: Working with the Windows API 359

ReDim lfFaceName(LF_FACESIZE)
End Sub
End Structure

Another issue arises with respect to the lfFaceName member. As mentioned earlier
in this chapter, Visual Basic .NET does not natively support fixed-length arrays.
However, when you pass a structure containing an array to an API function that
requires fixed-length strings, you can change the byte member to a character array
and include a MarshalAs attribute to tell the CLR to pass a byte array of a fixed size.
To do this, declare the structure member (in this case, lfFaceName) as a Char array
instead of a Byte array. It is necessary to include the UnmanagedType.ByValArray
and SizeConst arguments to the MarshalAs attribute. The modified structure
declaration is as follows.
<StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet:=CharSet.Ansi)> _
Structure LOGFONT
Dim lfHeight As Integer
Dim lfWidth As Integer
Dim lfEscapement As Integer
Dim lfOrientation As Integer
Dim lfWeight As Integer
Dim lfItalic As Byte
Dim lfUnderline As Byte
Dim lfStrikeOut As Byte
Dim lfCharSet As Byte
Dim lfOutPrecision As Byte
Dim lfClipPrecision As Byte
Dim lfQuality As Byte
Dim lfPitchAndFamily As Byte
<MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValArray, SizeConst:=32)> _
Dim lfFaceName() As Char
Public Sub Initialize()
ReDim lfFaceName(LF_FACESIZE)
End Sub
End Structure

With both the StructLayout and MarshalAs attributes in place, the structure will be
passed in memory to an API function in the same way the equivalent Visual Basic
6.0 Type…End Type structure is passed.

Note: The upgrade wizard incorrectly upgrades fixed-length arrays contained in structures.
Instead of declaring the arrays as a Char array, the wizard declares the upgraded fixed-length
arrays as a Byte. The wizard applies the VBFixedArray attribute instead of the ByValArray
attribute. You will have to manually correct any occurrences of this in your code.
360 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Changes to “AddressOf” Functionality

Certain Windows API functions, such as EnumFontsFamilies, require a pointer to a
callback function. When you call the API function, Windows invokes the callback
function that you provided. In the case of EnumFontsFamilies, Windows will call
the function for each available font.
Visual Basic 6.0 allows you to declare Windows API functions that take callback
function pointers by declaring the function pointer parameter as Long, to represent
a 32-bit pointer. Your code calls the API function and by qualifying the subroutine
name with the AddressOf keyword, it passes the subroutine to serve as the callback
function.
Visual Basic .NET still supports the AddressOf keyword, but instead of returning a
32-bit integer, it returns a delegate. A delegate is a new type in Visual Basic .NET that
allows you to declare pointers to functions or to class members. This means that you
can still create Declare statements for Windows API functions that take a callback
function pointer as a parameter. The difference is that instead of declaring the
parameter type as a 32-bit integer, you need to declare the function parameter as a
delegate type.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 code demonstrates how to use AddressOf to pass a
pointer to a callback function.
Public Const LF_FACESIZE = 32
Type LOGFONT
lfHeight As Long
lfWidth As Long
lfEscapement As Long
lfOrientation As Long
lfWeight As Long
lfItalic As Byte
lfUnderline As Byte
lfStrikeOut As Byte
lfCharSet As Byte
lfOutPrecision As Byte
lfClipPrecision As Byte
lfQuality As Byte
lfPitchAndFamily As Byte
lfFaceName(LF_FACESIZE) As Byte
End Type

Declare Function EnumFontFamilies Lib "gdi32" Alias "EnumFontFamiliesA" _

(ByVal hDC As Long, ByVal lpszFamily As String, _
ByVal lpEnumFontFamProc As Long, LParam As Integer) As Long
Declare Function GetDC Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long) As Long
Declare Function ReleaseDC Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long, _
ByVal hDC As Long) As Long

Dim FontList As New Collection

 Chapter 13: Working with the Windows API 361

Function EnumFontFamProc(lpNLF As LOGFONT, lpNTM As Long, _

ByVal FontType As Long, LParam As Integer) As Long
Dim FaceName As String
Dim FullName As String
FaceName = StrConv(lpNLF.lfFaceName, &H40)
FontList.Add Left$(FaceName, InStr(FaceName, vbNullChar) - 1)
EnumFontFamProc = 1
End Function

Sub FillListWithFonts(LB As ListBox)

Dim font As Variant
Dim hDC As Long
LB.Clear
hDC = GetDC(LB.hWnd)
EnumFontFamilies hDC, vbNullString, AddressOf EnumFontFamProc, 0
For Each font In FontList
LB.AddItem font
Next
ReleaseDC LB.hWnd, hDC
End Sub

The upgrade wizard upgrades the preceding code to the following code.
Public Const LF_FACESIZE As Short = 32
Structure LOGFONT
Dim lfHeight As Integer
Dim lfWidth As Integer
Dim lfEscapement As Integer
Dim lfOrientation As Integer
Dim lfWeight As Integer
Dim lfItalic As Byte
Dim lfUnderline As Byte
Dim lfStrikeOut As Byte
Dim lfCharSet As Byte
Dim lfOutPrecision As Byte
Dim lfClipPrecision As Byte
Dim lfQuality As Byte
Dim lfPitchAndFamily As Byte
<VBFixedArray(LF_FACESIZE)> Dim lfFaceName() As Byte

Public Sub Initialize()

ReDim lfFaceName(LF_FACESIZE)
End Sub
End Structure

Declare Function EnumFontFamilies Lib "gdi32" Alias _

"EnumFontFamiliesA"(ByVal hDC As Integer, ByVal lpszFamily As String, _
ByVal lpEnumFontFamProc As Integer, ByRef LParam As Short) As Integer
Declare Function GetDC Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Integer) As Integer
Declare Function ReleaseDC Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Integer, _
ByVal hDC As Integer) As Integer

Dim FontList As New Collection

362 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Function EnumFontFamProc(ByRef lpNLF As LOGFONT, ByRef lpNTM As Integer, _

ByVal FontType As Integer, ByRef LParam As Short) As Integer
Dim FaceName As String
Dim FullName As String
FaceName = _
StrConv(System.Text.UnicodeEncoding.Unicode.GetString(lpNLF.lfFaceName), _
&H40s)
FontList.Add(Left(FaceName, InStr(FaceName, vbNullChar) - 1))
EnumFontFamProc = 1
End Function

Sub FillListWithFonts(ByRef LB As System.Windows.Forms.ListBox)

Dim font As Object
Dim hDC As Integer
LB.Items.Clear()
hDC = GetDC(LB.Handle.ToInt32)
'UPGRADE_WARNING: Add a delegate for AddressOf EnumFontFamProc
EnumFontFamilies(hDC, vbNullString, AddressOf EnumFontFamProc, 0)
For Each font In FontList
LB.Items.Add(font)
Next font
ReleaseDC(LB.Handle.ToInt32, hDC)
End Sub

The upgraded code has several issues that must be fixed before it will compile and
run without error. The first issue relates to the structure LOGFONT. This structure
requires that you attach marshaling attributes to the structure to specify how it is
stored in memory and passed to the API function. For information about attaching
marshaling attributes, see “Passing User-Defined Types to API Functions” earlier in
this chapter.
The second issue relates to the conversion of the fixed-byte array to a string. The
error occurs in the following line.
FaceName = _
StrConv(System.Text.UnicodeEncoding.Unicode.GetString(lpNLF.lfFaceName), _
&H40S)

Change the preceding line to the following line.

FaceName = New String(lpNLF.lfFaceName)

The final issue is associated with the AddressOf expression. This compile error
occurs because the AddressOf expression cannot be converted to Integer because
Integer is not a delegate type. The error occurs in the following statement.
EnumFontFamilies(hDC, vbNullString, AddressOf EnumFontFamProc, 0)
 Chapter 13: Working with the Windows API 363

To fix the error, you have to change the Declare declaration for EnumFontFamilies
to accept a delegate type for the EnumFontFamProc parameter instead of an Integer
type. The easiest way to create a delegate declaration for the EnumFontFamProc
function is to perform the following steps:
1. Copy and paste the subroutine declaration in your code that will serve as the
callback function.
2. Insert the Delegate keyword at the beginning of the declaration.
3. Change the function name by appending the word Delegate to it. The delegate
name must be unique.
Using the preceding example, we can create the delegate declaration by copying and
pasting the following function signature to the section of code containing the De-
clare statements.
Function EnumFontFamProc(ByRef lpNLF As LOGFONT, ByRef lpNTM As Integer, _
ByVal FontType As Integer, ByRef LParam As Short) As Integer

Insert the keyword Delegate at the beginning of the function declaration and change
the name by appending Delegate to the original function name; EnumFontFamProc
becomes EnumFontFamProcDelegate. You end up with a delegate declaration for a
function with the structure, name, and parameters of EnumFontFamProc, as shown
here.
Delegate Function EnumFontFamProcDelegate(ByRef lpNLF As LOGFONT, _
ByRef lpNTM As Integer, ByVal FontType As Integer, _
ByRef LParam As Short) As Integer

Now that the delegate declaration for the callback function is in place, you have to
change the parameter type for the EnumFontFamilies Declare statement from
Integer to the delegate type EnumFontFamProcDelegate, as shown here.
Declare Function EnumFontFamilies Lib "gdi32" Alias "EnumFontFamiliesA" _
(ByVal hDC As Integer, ByVal lpszFamily As String, _
ByVal lpEnumFontFamProc As EnumFontFamProcDelegate, _
ByRef LParam As Short) As Integer

With these changes, the code will compile and run without error, and it will produce
the same results as the original Visual Basic 6.0 code.

Functions ObjPtr, StrPtr, and VarPtr Are No Longer Supported

In Visual Basic 6.0, it is possible to obtain the 32-bit address of an object, a string, or
a variable or user-defined value through the undocumented helper functions ObjPtr,
StrPtr, and VarPtr, respectively. Visual Basic .NET does not support these functions,
364 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

nor does it allow you to obtain the memory address for any type. At first, this may
seem overly restrictive. However, the benefits of this restriction are significant.
Leaving memory management to the CLR frees you from having to worry about
allocating and freeing memory resources; this lets you concentrate on application
and business logic. Also, this restriction increases application reliability and security.
Managed application memory spaces are isolated from one another. No longer can
an application accidentally (or maliciously) use pointers to access another
application’s memory space.
In cases where you must have control over underlying memory, the .NET Frame-
work provides a pointer type named System.IntPtr. System.IntPtr is a platform-
specific type that is used to represent a pointer or handle. This type can be used in
conjunction with the System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal class, which con-
tains methods for unmanaged memory operations, to obtain a pointer for a given
type. For example, the functions AllocHGlobal, GetComInterfaceForObject, and
OffSetOf all return pointers to memory. You can also use the GCHandle structure to
obtain a handle to an element that is contained in garbage collector – managed
memory. In addition, you can obtain a pointer to the memory by having the garbage
collector pin the object to a single memory location to prevent it from being moved.
Consider the following Visual Basic 6.0 example module named “Module1.” It calls
CopyMemory to copy a source user structure to a destination structure by using
VarPtr to obtain the memory addresses of the source and destination variables.
Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" _
(ByVal lpDest As Long, ByVal lpSource As Long, ByVal cbCopy As Long)

Type MyType
valid As Boolean
x As Long
y As Long
End Type

Sub Test()
Dim source As MyType
Dim dest As MyType

source.valid = True
source.x = 10
source.y = 10

CopyMemory ByVal VarPtr(dest), _

ByVal VarPtr(source), LenB(source)

MsgBox "Valid = " & dest.valid & ": X = " & dest.x & " - Y = " & dest.y
End Sub

The following code is the output of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard.
 Chapter 13: Working with the Windows API 365

Option Strict Off

Option Explicit On
Module Module1
Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory"(ByVal lpDest As
Integer, ByVal lpSource As Integer, ByVal cbCopy As Integer)

Structure MyType
Dim valid As Boolean
Dim x As Integer
Dim y As Integer
End Structure

Sub Test()
Dim source As MyType
Dim dest As MyType

source.valid = True
source.x = 10
source.y = 10

' UPGRADE_ISSUE: LenB function is not supported.

' UPGRADE_ISSUE: VarPtr function is not supported.
CopyMemory(VarPtr(dest), VarPtr(source), LenB(source))

MsgBox("Valid = " & dest.valid & ": X = " & dest.x & " - Y = " & _
dest.y)
End Sub
End Module

To perform a complete upgrade

1. Import the InteropServices namespace so that you can use the Marshal class to
work with unmanaged memory.
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

2. Create and initialize the following variables.

Dim addressOfSource As IntPtr
Dim addressOfDest As IntPtr
Dim MyStrucSize As Integer

MyStrucSize = Marshal.SizeOf(GetType(MyType))
addressOfSource = IntPtr.Zero
addressOfDest = IntPtr.Zero

addressOfDest = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(MyStrucSize)
addressOfSource = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(MyStrucSize)
366 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The addressOfSource and addressOfDest variables are used to store the ad-
dresses of two MyType instances. MyStrucSize variable is used to store the size
of the MyType structure. IntPtr.Zero is a read-only field that represents a pointer
or handle that has been initialized to zero. The Marshal.AllocHGlobal method
allocates a block of memory from the unmanaged memory of the process by
using GlobalAlloc.
3. Marshal the data from the source MyType instance to the unmanaged block of
memory that is represented by the address variable.
Marshal.StructureToPtr(source, addressOfSource, True)

4. Copy the data from source to dest using unmanaged memory.

CopyMemory(addressOfDest.ToInt32, addressOfSource.ToInt32, MyStrucSize)

5. Marshal the data from the unmanaged block of memory addressOfDest to the
managed object dest.
dest = Marshal.PtrToStructure(addressOfDest, GetType(MyType))

6. Free the allocated memory as shown in this code example.

Marshal.FreeHGlobal(addressOfSource)
Marshal.FreeHGlobal(addressOfDest)

Here is the equivalent Visual Basic .NET code for the Visual Basic 6.0 code.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Module Module1
Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" (ByVal lpDest As
Integer, ByVal lpSource As Integer, ByVal cbCopy As Integer)

Structure MyType
Dim valid As Boolean
Dim x As Integer
Dim y As Integer
End Structure

Sub Test()
Dim source As MyType
Dim dest As MyType

Dim addressOfSource As IntPtr

Dim addressOfDest As IntPtr
Dim MyStrucSize As Integer
 Chapter 13: Working with the Windows API 367

MyStrucSize = Marshal.SizeOf(GetType(MyType))
addressOfSource = IntPtr.Zero
addressOfDest = IntPtr.Zero

source.valid = True
source.x = 10
source.y = 10

addressOfDest = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(MyStrucSize)
addressOfSource = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(MyStrucSize)

Marshal.StructureToPtr(source, addressOfSource, True)

CopyMemory(addressOfDest.ToInt32, addressOfSource.ToInt32, MyStrucSize)

dest = Marshal.PtrToStructure(addressOfDest, GetType(MyType))

MsgBox("Valid = " & dest.valid & ": X = " & dest.x & " - Y = " & dest.y)

Marshal.FreeHGlobal(addressOfSource)
Marshal.FreeHGlobal(addressOfDest)
End Sub
End Module

You can use the same approach with other similar Visual Basic 6.0 functions, such as
ObjPtr and VarPtrArray.

Note: If you choose to use unmanaged memory operations, be aware that you are responsible
for manually allocating and freeing memory resources. For information about using managed
memory operations, see the next section, “Moving API Calls to Visual Basic .NET.”

Moving API Calls to Visual Basic .NET

Another option when upgrading API calls from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET
is to use Visual Basic .NET alternatives instead of the Declare statement. An advan-
tage of this approach is that all the Visual Basic .NET alternatives result in fully
managed code even when the APIs are unmanaged. Many of the APIs have equiva-
lents in Visual Basic .NET or the .NET Framework.
The replacement of API functions by Visual Basic .NET alternatives should be done
on a case-by-case basis. The following example illustrates how some API calls can be
upgraded to equivalent Visual Basic .NET operations. This example uses the
FindFirstFile and FindNextFile API functions to list the files of a specific directory.
The Visual Basic 6.0 Declare statements of these API functions are shown here.
Private Const MAX_PATH = 260
Private Const ERROR_NO_MORE_FILES = 18&
368 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Private Type FILETIME

dwLowDateTime As Long
dwHighDateTime As Long
End Type

Private Type WIN32_FIND_DATA

dwFileAttributes As Long
ftCreationTime As FILETIME
ftLastAccessTime As FILETIME
ftLastWriteTime As FILETIME
nFileSizeHigh As Long
nFileSizeLow As Long
dwReserved0 As Long
dwReserved1 As Long
cFileName As String * MAX_PATH
cAlternate As String * 14
End Type

Private Declare Function FindFirstFile Lib "kernel32" _

Alias "FindFirstFileA" (ByVal lpFileName As String, _
lpFindFileData As WIN32_FIND_DATA) As Long
Private Declare Function FindNextFile Lib "kernel32" Alias _
"FindNextFileA" (ByVal hFindFile As Long, _
lpFindFileData As WIN32_FIND_DATA) As Long

The following code demonstrates how these functions might be used in a Visual
Basic 6.0 application. The ListFilesAndDirs procedure receives a directory path as a
parameter and lists all the directories and files contained in the path. Here is the
Visual Basic 6.0 code for the procedure ListFilesAndDirs.
Public Sub ListFilesAndDirs(ByVal DirPath As String)
Dim FirstFile As Long
Dim NextFile As Long
Dim FileData As WIN32_FIND_DATA
Dim pos As Integer

DirPath = DirPath & "*.*"

FirstFile = FindFirstFile(DirPath, FileData)
If FirstFile <> -1 Then
NextFile = FindNextFile(FirstFile, FileData)
While (NextFile <> ERROR_NO_MORE_FILES) And (NextFile <> 0)
pos = InStr(FileData.cFileName, vbNullChar)
If pos = 0 Then
Debug.Print FileData.cFileName
Else
If pos > 1 Then
Debug.Print Left$(FileData.cFileName, pos - 1)
End If
End If
NextFile = FindNextFile(FirstFile, FileData)
Wend
End If
End Sub
 Chapter 13: Working with the Windows API 369

After the Visual Basic 6.0 code is converted by the upgrade wizard, you should
perform several steps to eliminate the dependencies on the API calls and to replace
them with Visual Basic .NET equivalents. The first step removes all the Declare
statements and structures because you are not using API calls.
The second step is to substitute the call to the FindFirstFile and FindNextFile API
functions with the .NET Framework functions System.IO.Directory.GetFiles and
System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories. Because the Visual Basic .NET functions
return a string array, the new Visual Basic .NET function is the following.
Dim List As String() = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(DirPath, "*.*")
Dim ListofDirs As String() = _
System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories(DirPath, "*.*")
pos = List.Length
ReDim Preserve List(List.Length + ListofDirs.Length - 2)
ListofDirs.CopyTo(List, pos - 1)

Notice that the Visual Basic .NET functions receive the Path and the Search pattern
parameters. As a result, the following Visual Basic 6.0 line should be removed from
the code.
DirPath = DirPath & "*.*"

And because the Visual Basic .NET functions return an array of strings, you can
replace the first If and While statements with a For statement, as shown here.
For i = 0 To list.Length – 1

As a final step, you should change the code that retrieves and prints the file name,
because you are not using structures. Here is the Visual Basic 6.0 code.
FileName = list(i)
pos = FileName.LastIndexOf("\\")
If pos > 1 Then
FileName = FileName.Substring(pos + 2, FileName.Length-pos-2)
End If
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(FileName)

The equivalent Visual Basic .NET code is shown here.

Public Function ListFiles(ByVal DirPath As String) As String()
Dim pos As Short
Dim i As Integer
Dim FileName As String

Dim List As String() = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(DirPath, "*.*")

Dim ListofDirs As String() = _
System.IO.Directory.GetDirectories(DirPath, "*.*")
pos = List.Length
ReDim Preserve List(List.Length + ListofDirs.Length - 2)
370 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

ListofDirs.CopyTo(List, pos - 1)

For i = 0 To List.Length - 1
FileName = List(i)
pos = FileName.LastIndexOf("\\")
If pos > 1 Then
FileName = FileName.Substring(pos + 2, FileName.Length-pos-2)
End If
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(FileName)
Next
End Function

The preceding example shows only a fraction of the possible API replacements that
you can use to remove dependence on the Windows API. For a list of the Microsoft
.NET Framework version 1.0 or 1.1 APIs that provide similar functionality to Win32
functions, see “Microsoft Win32 to Microsoft .NET Framework API Map” on MSDN.

Summary
This chapter demonstrates how you can upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 applications that
are built on the Windows API to Visual Basic .NET, using two different methods.
The first method involves the continued use of the Windows API from within Visual
Basic .NET code. When you apply this approach, you must take care to appropri-
ately update data types and apply marshaling attributes to ensure the proper opera-
tion of API calls.
The second method is to replace Windows API calls with equivalent Visual Basic
.NET function calls. This approach requires that you apply more effort during the
upgrade process than with the first method, but it reduces an application’s depen-
dence on an older, unmanaged API.
Using either method, you will be able to achieve the functional equivalence in Visual
Basic .NET for Visual Basic 6.0 applications built on the Windows API.

More Information
For more information about preparing your application before you begin the up-
grade process, see “Preparing Your Visual Basic 6.0 Applications for the Upgrade to
Visual Basic .NET” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvb600/html/
vb6tovbdotnet.asp.
For a list of the Microsoft .NET Framework version 1.0 or 1.1 APIs that provide
functionality that is similar to Win32 functions, see “Microsoft Win32 to Microsoft
.NET Framework API Map” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html/
win32map.asp.
14
Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and
Visual Basic .NET
In Chapter 1, “Introduction,” you were introduced to the options available when
you decide to upgrade an application to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET. The challenges
and risks of each approach were outlined, and guidelines were provided to help you
choose the upgrade strategy that would be best for your particular application. As
discussed in that chapter, you can mitigate risk and reduce the magnitude of up-
grade challenges by approaching the upgrade process incrementally, or by perform-
ing a partial upgrade. With these types of upgrades, Visual Basic 6.0 modules must
interoperate with Microsoft .NET Framework assemblies. It may also be necessary
for Visual Basic .NET modules to interoperate with Visual Basic 6.0 modules. There
are many differences between the traditional Visual Basic 6.0 execution environment
and the managed execution environment used by Visual Basic .NET. These differ-
ences make it impossible to achieve direct invocation of .NET assemblies from
Visual Basic 6.0 code modules. Therefore, a mechanism must be used to allow .NET
assemblies to continue to execute within the common language runtime (CLR)-
managed context, yet still be accessible to Visual Basic 6.0 code modules.
Be sure to always perform an adequate functional analysis of your application prior
to an upgrade. This will enable you to identify the functional components of the
application, and to build a more effective plan for the overall upgrade process. This
also helps you improve your application by identifying redundant or unused code
modules that should be eliminated to reduce the amount of work that will be re-
quired for the upgrade. After you identify the components that must be upgraded to
Visual Basic .NET and those that can remain in Visual Basic 6.0 (either temporarily
or permanently), you can begin to create an effective interoperability between
components.
This chapter provides information about how to achieve interoperability between
Visual Basic 6.0 code modules and .NET assemblies. Interoperability can be achieved
372 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

for assemblies written in any .NET language, but this chapter focuses only on Visual
Basic .NET.

Note: The Visual Basic 6.0 code samples in this chapter require that the Microsoft Service
Pack 6 for Visual Basic 6.0 is installed and functioning properly. You can download this service
pack from MSDN.

Calling .NET Assemblies from Visual Basic 6.0 Clients

The .NET Framework was designed from the ground up to interoperate with COM.
COM components can call .NET assemblies, and vice versa. Furthermore, .NET
assemblies can be built to be referenced just like COM components are referenced.
To do this, you build your assembly so that it is COM-callable, and your code will be
able to reference the assembly’s functionality and interfaces.
COM-callable assemblies can be referenced from Visual Basic 6.0 applications as if
they were ordinary COM components. In this case, interoperability may be as simple
as referencing the correct assembly’s type library (.tlb file) and accessing the desired
functionality. However, there is a drawback to using this approach; it will be covered
later in this chapter.

Calling Visual Basic 6.0 Libraries from Visual Basic .NET Clients
As already mentioned, Visual Basic .NET applications are able to communicate
with COM components. This ability includes COM components created with Visual
Basic 6.0.
To access Visual Basic 6.0 code from Visual Basic .NET clients, you must expose the
Visual Basic 6.0 code as a COM component, and then reference it as such from the
Visual Basic .NET client.

How to Achieve Interoperability

Achieving interoperability between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET is not a
difficult process. There are two approaches you can take.
The first approach is to use direct access through COM. This approach requires that
the .NET assembly to be referenced is created as a COM-callable assembly.
The second approach is an extension of the first. Instead of creating a COM-callable
assembly, you create a COM-callable wrapper using a .NET language for the func-
tionality you want to access. With this approach, there is no special build require-
ment for the assemblies you want to access, but the wrapper itself must be built as
COM-callable.
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 373

There are some requirements that must be fulfilled to achieve interoperability. These
will be presented next, followed by a discussion of the different approaches to
achieving interop mentioned in the preceding paragraphs.

Access Requirements
Every .NET component that is going to be accessed from Visual Basic 6.0 must be
registered for interoperability in the system. Registration takes place at a global level
and will make the component available to all Visual Basic 6.0 applications. An
assembly is the primary building block of a .NET application and it can contain
different classes that are available to COM clients. Registering an assembly will
make the classes in a registered assembly available to all Visual Basic 6.0 applica-
tions on the system. For more information on native dynamic link libraries and
assemblies see Chapter 4, “Common Application Types.”
The process to register a .NET assembly and make it COM-callable involves creating
a type library (.tlb) and including the corresponding entries in the system registry.
Fortunately, this is easily accomplished from within the Visual Studio .NET IDE by
setting the appropriate build configuration option.

To register a component for COM interop
1. Open the Visual Basic .NET project that contains the classes you want to make
COM-callable.
2. From the Project menu, choose Properties.
3. Under the Configuration Properties folder, click Build.
4. Select the Register for COM Interop check box, and then click OK.
5. On the File menu, click Save to save your project with the configuration changes.
6. On the Build menu, choose Build Solution.
Following the steps of this procedure will create the Visual Basic .NET DLL and
register it for COM interoperability. The assembly’s AssemblyName property value
will be the name with which it is registered under COM. This property can be
modified by performing the following procedure.

To change they AssemblyName property of an assembly
1. Right-click the project name in Solution Explorer, and then click Properties.
2. In the Common Properties folder, click General.
3. In the Assembly name text box, specify the name for the assembly.
4. Click OK to save your changes.
An assembly can also be registered at a Windows command line by using the As-
sembly Registration tool (Regasm.exe) distributed with the .NET Framework. This
would typically only be necessary during deployment, because the steps outlined
374 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

above can be used to register an assembly during the build. The command for
registering an assembly with the Regasm.exe utility is as follows:
regasm Assembly.dll /tlb: Assembly.tlb
This command will register an assembly and generate a type library so that it
appears as a regular COM object. Items in italics should be replaced with the appro-
priate names for your project. The /tlb option is used to specify that a type library
file should be generated.

Note: Be careful of naming conflicts between assemblies. Be sure to unregister any older
versions of the same assembly before registering the new one.

Should it be necessary to unregister the assembly, this can be achieved by using the
following regasm command:
regasm /u Assembly.dll
For the Visual Basic 6.0 application to find the .NET assembly at run time, the
assembly must be in either the global assembly cache, or in the application’s execut-
able folder. If you wish to install the assembly to another location, and still have it
globally accessible to Visual Basic 6.0 applications, you can use the /codebase option
with the Regasm.exe utility. This option allows the user to specify a file path that
will be used by the common language runtime to locate the corresponding assembly.
However, the details of the /codebase option are beyond the scope of this guide, and
it is recommended that COM-callable assemblies be placed in the global assembly
cache when applications are deployed.

Requirements for Interoperability with COM

For a .NET managed type (such as a class, interface, structure, or enumeration) to be
exposed to COM clients, it must meet the following requirements:
● Managed types must be public. Only public types in an assembly are registered
and exported to the type library. As a result, only public types are visible to COM.
Managed types expose features to other managed code that might not be exposed
to COM. For instance, parameterized constructors, static methods, and constant
fields are not exposed to COM clients. Also, be aware that interop marshaling can
introduce behavior differences.
● Methods, properties, fields, and events must be public. Members of public
types must also be public if they are to be visible to COM. You can restrict the
visibility of an assembly, a public type, or public members of a public type by
applying the ComVisibleAttribute. By default, all public types and members are
visible.
● Types must have a public default constructor to be activated from COM.
Managed public types are visible to COM. However, without a public default
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 375

constructor (a constructor with no arguments), COM clients cannot create the

type. COM clients can still use the type if it is activated by some other means, for
example if it is indirectly created by other class methods.
● Types cannot be abstract. Neither COM clients nor .NET clients can create
abstract types.
● Certain Visual Basic .NET features will prevent a method from being COM
callable. Shared (static) Visual Basic .NET methods cannot be called from COM
objects. Also, methods should take and return simple data types such as Integer
or String. If a method takes or returns a type that was not designed for COM
interop, the method will not be callable from Visual Basic 6.0. Visual Basic .NET
methods should also not be overloaded. COM does not support method over-
loading, and as a result, each overload will appear in Visual Basic 6.0 with an
automatically-generated name different from the original name. It is better to
give the methods unique names when building the .NET wrapper class.
Also, note that when exported to COM, the inheritance hierarchy of a managed type
is flattened; as a result, derived classes will expose their base class members as if
they were declared in the derived class.

Accessing .NET Assemblies Directly from Visual Basic 6.0

The process for calling .NET assemblies from Visual Basic 6.0 is fairly straightfor-
ward. The general process is as follows:
1. Determine the assembly you want to access.
2. Locate the assembly’s type library.

Note: The assembly must be registered using the Assembly Registration utility
(regasm.exe) to be accessed from COM clients. For more information about registering
assemblies, see the “Access Requirements” section earlier in this chapter.

3. In your Visual Basic 6.0 application, add the reference to the assembly’s desired
type library.
4. Invoke the required functionality from the assembly.
A drawback to this approach is that you might have access to only a limited percent-
age of the Visual Basic .NET and .NET Framework functionality. The reasons for this
are as follows:
● Not all .NET assemblies are COM-callable. The ComVisible attribute controls the
accessibility of the members of an assembly to COM clients. If this attribute is set
to False for an assembly, all public types within the assembly will be hidden,
making them inaccessible to COM clients. The ComVisible attribute can be set
for assemblies, interfaces, classes, and contained members in an individual way.
376 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● There are Visual Basic 6.0 limitations to the object-oriented programming para-
digm used by Visual Basic .NET. For example, some .NET classes may be abstract
and require subclassing to use, and this is not possible in Visual Basic 6.0.
● There is limited Visual Basic 6.0 support of .NET exceptions. The .NET assemblies
can be built to use exceptions as the mechanism to signal error conditions, but
Visual Basic 6.0 does not support them as structured object-oriented exceptions.
This means that to detect error conditions after a call to the .NET component, it is
necessary to specifically check for the occurrence of an exception immediately
after the call or to use On Error Goto statements, just as with any Visual Basic 6.0
component. This diminishes the advantages obtained from .NET error manage-
ment mechanisms.
Despite this drawback, this approach might still be the best alternative to a complete
upgrade that would be overly complex and costly.
The process for accessing .NET assemblies from Visual Basic 6.0 is detailed in the
following procedure. In this example, the project will reference the .NET System
type library that contains the fundamental and base classes used by .NET code. This
example assumes that Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Studio .NET (or a version of the
.NET Framework) are installed on the same system.

To access a .NET assembly from a Visual Basic 6.0 application
1. Register the assembly to be accessed. This allows Visual Basic 6.0 to instantiate
and access the .NET assembly. Use the following steps to register an assembly:
a. In Windows, open a command prompt. By default, the shortcut for the com-
mand prompt is in the Accessories category of the Programs or All Programs
(depending on your version of Windows) submenu of the Start menu.
b. Change the current directory to the .NET Framework directory where the
System.dll file is located. To do this, enter the following at the command
prompt: cd DriveLetter:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322.

Note: DriveLetter represents the drive that the .NET Framework is installed on, and the
name v1.1.4322 corresponds to the .NET Framework version that is installed. The
actual name may be different on your system. If you are not sure where your installation
resides, search the file system for the Microsoft.NET\Framework folder.

c. Register the System.dll file by entering the following command at the com-
mand prompt: regasm System.dll.
2. Start Visual Basic 6.0.
3. In the New Project dialog box, click Standard.exe to create the new project.
4. On the Project menu, click References. This displays the References dialog box
where you can select the COM components and the registered COM-callable
.NET assemblies that your application will reference.
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 377

5. In the References dialog box, click Browse.

6. In the Add Reference dialog box, navigate to the directory where the System.tlb
file is located. This should be the same directory that you identified in step 1.b.
7. Click the .tlb file for the assembly you want to reference, and then click Open. In
this example, you would click System.tlb.
8. In the Available References list, select the check box for the Visual Basic .NET
library you want to reference, and then click OK. For this example, select the
System.dll check box.
After completing these steps, you can reference any interface and public class
contained within the assembly from your Visual Basic 6.0 project. For example, by
referencing the System type library, you can create an instance of the
System.WebClient class. You can then call any System.WebClient methods through
that object, such as the downloadFile method, as shown in the following sample
program.
Dim downloader As System.WebClient
Dim targetFile As String
Dim localFile As String

targetFile = _
"http://www.msdn.com/library/toolbar/3.0/images/banners/" & _
"msdn_masthead_ltr.gif"
Set downloader = New System.WebClient
downloader.downloadFile targetFile, App.Path & "\msdnLogo.gif"

Note: To run this sample program inside the Visual Basic 6.0 development environment, the
Visual Studio 6.0 Service Pack 6 must be installed on the system. If the service pack is not
installed and the sample program is executed within the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE, an automation
runtime error will be generated. In this case, the sample program can only successfully be run
outside the development environment by running the application’s .exe file. You can download
this service pack from MSDN.

Invoking .NET functionality from your Visual Basic 6.0 applications is fairly
straightforward. If the assemblies you want to reference are COM-callable, accessing
their functionality from Visual Basic 6.0 is greatly simplified.
Despite the ease of referencing .NET assemblies in Visual Basic 6.0 projects, there is a
price to be paid in terms of application performance. The COM interoperability that
takes place between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET requires additional steps
that are not executed in components that do not interoperate. These steps include
data marshaling, calling convention adjustment, register protection, thread han-
dling, and exception-handling frame management. Because of this, the overhead of
a Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET call is higher than the overhead for a direct
Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic 6.0 call. You may want to minimize the number and
378 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

frequency of calls that your application makes; this reduces the impact of this
additional overhead. For more information about performance improvement, see
Chapter 7, “Improving Interop Performance,” of Improving .NET Application Perfor-
mance and Scalability on MSDN.

Creating Interoperability Wrappers in .NET

Directly accessing the .NET Framework Class Library (FCL) may limit what you can
do in terms of functionality. Recall that Visual Basic 6.0 is not object-oriented: there-
fore you might not be able to customize the behavior of the classes that you import
through this method. This is especially true if the class you want to utilize is an
abstract class, and you are required to subclass it to be able to use it. In addition, not
all .NET assemblies are built to be COM-callable. This will limit the classes you can
access directly from your Visual Basic 6.0 code without additional steps. In such
cases, there is an alternate approach that you can use: create a COM-callable wrap-
per object in Visual Basic .NET, and reference the wrapper object from Visual Basic
6.0. Creating a wrapper involves several steps, including creating a type library (.tlb)
file for the wrapper class and registering the class for COM interoperability.
You can easily create a Visual Basic .NET wrapper for the System.Text.StringBuilder
class to perform the necessary string handling operations for you. A wrapper will
also minimize the parameters that you must enter from Visual Basic 6.0 to success-
fully use the .NET functionality. The following code is an example of a Visual Basic
.NET wrapper class. (The name of the file where this class is defined should be
named wrappers to be consistent with the Visual Basic 6.0 code that will be presented
after this code example.)
Imports System.text

<ComClass(StringBuilderWrapper.ClassId, _
StringBuilderWrapper.InterfaceId, StringBuilderWrapper.EventsId)> _
Public Class StringBuilderWrapper

#Region "COM GUIDs"

Public Const ClassId As String = "963BBA03-8FA9-45F3-94FC-2E68D4940515"
Public Const InterfaceId As String = "E7B75972-6A52-4E7D-96E1-9E7DBBBACBC7"
Public Const EventsId As String = "48760051-DD7F-4EA1-B612-9CD7F2F1BAD3"
#End Region
Private stringb As StringBuilder
Public Sub New()
stringb = New StringBuilder
End Sub
Public Sub SetValue(ByVal s As String)
stringb = New StringBuilder(s)
End Sub
Public Sub Append(ByVal s As String)
stringb.Append(s)
End Sub
Public Overrides Function ToString() As String
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 379

Return stringb.ToString()
End Function
End Class

After the class is compiled and registered for COM interop, you can import the
corresponding .tlb file into your Visual Basic 6.0 project references. The following
Visual Basic 6.0 code example shows how the wrapper class functionality can be
accessed. Notice that only a very limited functionality of the StringBuilder class is
supported by the wrapper, it offers just what is needed by the Visual Basic 6.0 client.
Private Sub TestStringOperations()
Dim s As New wrappers.StringBuilderWrapper
s.SetValue "This is "
s.Append "a test"
MsgBox s.ToString
End Sub

To make a Visual Basic .NET assembly COM-callable, it must be registered for COM
interop. This process involves creating a .tlb file and including the corresponding
entries in the system registry. Fortunately, this is easily accomplished from within
the Visual Studio .NET IDE by setting the appropriate build configuration option.
The following procedure details the steps for registering a component for COM
interop.

To register a Visual Basic .NET component for COM interop
1. Open the project for your Visual Basic .NET wrapper class.
2. On the Project menu, click Properties.
3. In the Configuration Properties folder, click Build.
4. Select the Register for COM Interop check box, and then click OK.
5. On the File menu, click Save to save your project with the configuration changes.
6. On the Build menu, choose Build Solution.
Using this procedure will create the Visual Basic .NET DLL and register it for COM
interoperability. The assembly’s AssemblyName property value will be the name
that it is registered with under COM. This property can be modified by accessing the
corresponding project properties (by right-clicking the project name in Solution
Explorer) and then clicking Properties. In the Common Properties folder, click
General.

Note: You must use care to avoid creating name conflicts when registering wrapper classes. Be
sure that each assembly’s name is unique, and unregister any earlier versions of the same
assembly before registering the new one.
380 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Creating Visual Basic .NET wrappers for use by Visual Basic 6.0 is probably your
best option if you want to access a Visual Basic .NET assembly from Visual Basic 6.0
without limiting yourself to those that are built as COM-callable. Using wrappers
gives you access to the full range of available .NET assemblies through Visual Basic
.NET. Using wrappers also allows you to better modularize your code by avoiding
granular invocations of the .NET assemblies where they’re not necessary. You can
also mask FCL functionality by using your own classes, and even replace the imple-
mentation of the wrappers while keeping the interfaces the same. This allows you to
evolve your wrapper code without worrying about compatibility with the client
code.
As with any interoperability procedure, there are caveats to be aware of when
developing .NET wrapper classes. Aside from the drawback listed in the previous
section (you may have limited access to the functionality in the assembly), there are
a few additional issues to be mindful of:
● Additional effort may be required to implement wrappers if your code is not well
modularized.
● Refactoring code can be time-consuming, though potentially well worth the
investment.
● Wrapper design and planning becomes critical. You do not want to wrap around
too much or too little functionality. Both cases will increase your risk and the
amount of work required to create a functional wrapper.

Command Line Registration

As previously stated, you must register your wrapper component within the system
after you create it so that it is globally accessible to all of your Visual Basic 6.0
applications. The process for registering a component from within the Visual Studio
.NET IDE was shown in the previous section. However, an assembly can also be
registered at a Windows command line by using the Assembly Registration tool
(regasm.exe) that is distributed with the .NET Framework. The procedure for this
approach is outlined here.
In this example, artificial module names are used for illustrative purposes only.
Items in italics should be replaced with the appropriate names for your project.

To register a .NET assembly using command-line tools
1. Compile the wrapper class using the Visual Basic .NET compile command
vbc.exe.
vbc assemblyinfo.vb sourcecode.vb /r:System.dll
/target:library /out:wrappers.dll
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 381

The /r option specifies that the compilation should reference the System.dll. The /
target option specifies that a library (.dll) should be generated. The /out option
specifies the name of the output file.
2. Register the assembly and generate a type library so that it appears as a regular
COM object.
regasm wrappers.dll /tlb:wrappers.tlb

The /tlb option is used to specify that a type library file should be generated.

Note: You must use care to avoid creating name conflicts when registering assemblies. Be
sure that each assembly’s name is unique, and unregister any earlier versions of the same
assembly before registering the new one.

If it is necessary to remove the .tlb file information that corresponds to an assembly

from the system registry, you can do so by using the following regasm command.
regasm /u wrappers.dll

Data Type Marshaling

Marshaling is the process of packing and unpacking parameters and return values in
a way that enables the execution of a cross platform invocation. As mentioned
earlier, COM is the key to achieving interoperability between Visual Basic 6.0 and
Visual Basic .NET. It is because of the presence of COM that data type marshaling
becomes a non-issue in cases where components in different thread apartments
interact. The .NET interoperability marshaling enables the interaction between
different data types in managed and unmanaged memory. Interop marshaling is
performed at run time by the CLR’s marshaling service when functions are invoked
within the same COM apartment. When the interaction takes place between man-
aged code and unmanaged code in a different COM apartment or a different pro-
cess, both the interop marshaler and the COM marshaler are executed.
Most Visual Basic data types have similar representations in both managed and
unmanaged memory. The interop marshaler automatically handles these types.
Other types can have significant differences when upgraded to Visual Basic .NET.
An ambiguous data type can have different unmanaged representations that map to
a single managed type, or unavailable type information, such as the size of a string
or an array.
382 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Custom Marshaling
Assumptions or dependences about the internal characteristics of a data type can
lead to the need for custom marshaling. Characteristics that are commonly taken for
granted are internal representation, element size, and element position. When
upgrading a part of a Visual Basic 6.0 application that depends on a piece of code
that has special assumptions about a data type, it may be necessary to make the two
pieces of code interact through .NET interoperability. In this type of scenario, the
part of the application that was upgraded to Visual Basic .NET needs to stay com-
patible with the component that is not upgraded. This will require the use of user-
defined marshaling for some of the data types involved in the interaction between
both components.
The recommended approach to do the necessary data conversions in this kind of
situation is to write a wrapper class that includes all the code to perform these
conversions. This class, called a marshaling wrapper class, will provide a bridge
between an old and a new interface. It allows clients that expect a particular inter-
face to work with components that implement a different interface.
In most cases, a marshaling wrapper class will be enough to handle all interaction
and compatibility issues. In the cases where a declarative, low level technique is
necessary to handle marshaling you can use custom marshalers.
The MarshalAsAttribute attribute can be used to apply a custom marshaler to a
parameter or function return value. The custom marshaler is identified by this
attribute and implements the ICustomMarshaler interface to provide the appropri-
ate wrappers to the .NET CLR. It will call the MarshalNativeToManaged and
MarshalManagedToNative methods on the custom marshaler to activate the correct
wrapper for handling calls between interoperating components. For more informa-
tion, see “Custom Marshaling” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN.
The following example demonstrates when the custom interop marshaling must be
used to stay compatible with a component that is not upgraded to Visual Basic 6.0.
The original application has a COM class named Converter that defines the function
ConvertCurrency that receives and returns values with the Currency Visual Basic
6.0 data type. This function is used by the rest of the application to perform financial
calculations. The original declaration of ConvertCurrency is shown here.
Public Function ConvertCurrency(amount As Currency, curFrom As String, _
curTo As String) As Currency
ConvertCurrency = amount * GetConversionFactor(curFrom, curTo)
End Function

The Converter class is used in the client code as shown here.

Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim converter As New Utils.Converter
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 383

Dim res As Currency

Dim amount As Currency
amount = GetInitialAmount()
res = converter.ConvertCurrency(amount, "DOL", "EUR")
End Sub

The following class is based on the result obtained from an automatic upgrade of the
Converter class to Visual Basic .NET.
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("Converter_NET.Converter"), _
ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.AutoDual)> Public Class Converter
Public Function ConvertCurrency(ByRef amount As Decimal, _
ByRef curFrom As String, ByRef curTo As String) As Decimal
ConvertCurrency = amount * _
GetConversionFactor(curFrom, curTo)
End Function
End Class

Notice that the class attribute ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.AutoDual) has

been manually included to make the class member declarations available to Visual
Basic 6.0. The resulting project is also automatically registered for COM interop.
Note that in order to expose this class to COM clients, the ComClassAttribute
attribute may also have been used; the preceding example uses the
ClassInterfaceType.AutoDual attribute only to simplify the example.
Assume that the application’s upgrade plan determined that the new Converter
class will be accessed by unmanaged COM clients, as shown in the previous
Form_Load example. According to this plan, the references to the original Converter
class must be replaced by the new managed one. However, when the resulting
application is compiled the following error message is shown for the invocation of
ConvertCurrency: “Compile error: Function or interface marked as restricted, or the
function uses an Automation type not supported in Visual Basic.”
The problem is that the COM client identifies the Decimal data type as an unsup-
ported Variant type. The solution to this problem requires the use of custom mar-
shaling in the definition of the Visual Basic .NET component, as shown here.
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("Converter_NET.Converter"), _
ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.AutoDual)> Public Class Converter
Public Function ConvertCurrency( _
<MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Currency)> ByRef amount As Decimal _
ByRef curFrom As String, ByRef curTo As String) _
As <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Currency)> Decimal
ConvertCurrency = amount * _
GetConversionFactor(curFrom, curTo)
End Function
End Class
384 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The MarshalAsAttribute attribute indicates that one of the function parameters and
the function return value must be marshaled as a COM currency data type instead of
Decimal. With this adjustment, the component can still be used from Visual Basic 6.0
clients.

Error Management
As mentioned previously, .NET uses a structured exception handling approach for
indicating, and reacting to, both anticipated and unanticipated error conditions. This
is not the case in Visual Basic 6.0. (Although the OnError handler provides a process
that can be considered similar to exception handling, it does not behave the same
way.)
Because interoperability between Visual Basic .NET and Visual Basic 6.0 is achieved
using COM-based mechanisms, there is an inherent value, named HRESULT, which
is passed back and forth between the Visual Basic 6.0 code and the .NET assembly.
Even though this happens behind the scenes, it is still there. Examining the value of
HRESULT for the existence of an error condition is done by the CLR itself — thus,
the value is never directly exposed to the client code in either side. In Visual Basic
6.0, this value can be accessed through the Err.Number property. In Visual Basic
.NET, this value is treated differently depending on whether or not the original
exception is a standard exception. When it is a standard exception, Visual Basic .NET
clients will receive a standard .NET exception. If it is a custom exception, the Visual
Basic .NET client will receive a generic exception with the ErrorCode property set in
accordance with the HRESULT value.

Catching .NET Exceptions in Visual Basic 6.0

When HRESULT signals that an exception has been raised by the .NET assembly,
the On Error clause is invoked in Visual Basic 6.0 if it has been declared and defined.
The actual error condition can be examined by using the Visual Basic 6.0 intrinsic Err
object and by inspecting its Description and Number properties.

Note: There is a well-defined mapping of common .NET exceptions to Visual Basic 6.0 error
codes that can be used to determine the type of system error encountered. For more informa-
tion about the particulars of the mapping mechanism, see “HRESULTs and Exceptions” on
MSDN.

For example, assume you want to use the following assembly that performs a
mathematical division between its two arguments.
Visual Basic .NET component
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

<ComClass(DivisorTool.ClassId, DivisorTool.InterfaceId, DivisorTool.EventsId)> _

 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 385

Public Class DivisorTool

#Region "COM GUIDs"

Public Const ClassId As String = "D45B5767-62C9-4871-90DA-EFB56E2F8860"
Public Const InterfaceId As String = "AA43EC7A-54B0-4E82-BC54-00087E27645C"
Public Const EventsId As String = "9C4D24A8-F325-409F-8A00-62DE8B938F1D"
#End Region

Public Sub New()

MyBase.New()
End Sub
Public Function Divide(ByVal term As Double, _
ByVal divisor As Double) As Double
Dim res As Decimal
res = (term / divisor)
Return res
End Function
End Class

After the assembly is built, registered, and referenced within your Visual Basic 6.0
project, you can access the exception information using Visual Basic 6.0 code similar
to the example shown here.
Visual Basic 6.0 client
Private Function Perform_Division() As Double
On Error GoTo Error_Handler
Dim div As New DivisorTool
Perform_Division = div.Divide(10, 0)
Exit Function

Error_Handler:
MsgBox "Error : " & Err.Description, _
vbOKOnly, "(code = " & CStr(Err.Number) & ")"
End Function

If the Divisor.Divide() function was called with a divisor value of 0, a

System.OverflowException would be raised from the .NET component, and propa-
gated to the Visual Basic 6.0 client code. You could then check for it as you would
normally check for an overflow error condition within Visual Basic 6.0. The internal
exception-to-error-code mapping mechanism ensures that the error will remain
consistent from one code tier to the other, because this is a well-known system error.
Application-defined exceptions are slightly different. To handle application errors
that are raised in the form of .NET exceptions in a granular fashion, you must in-
spect the Number property of the Visual Basic 6.0 Err object, and to select an execu-
tion path based on its value. This technique can also be applied to standard
exceptions like overflow or divide-by-zero exceptions and will be explained in the
forthcoming examples.
386 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The previous example is repeated here to illustrate how different error conditions
can be detected using simple code modifications. Imagine that for specific business
logic reasons, all divisors are acceptable except the value 3, and all terms are accept-
able, except the value 3. Thus, the routine is coded to raise different exceptions if the
divisor is 3 or the term is 3. The following code example demonstrates this.
Visual Basic .NET component
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

<ComClass(DivisorTool.ClassId, DivisorTool.InterfaceId, DivisorTool.EventsId)> _

Public Class DivisorTool

#Region "COM GUIDs"

Public Const ClassId As String = "D45B5767-62C9-4871-90DA-EFB56E2F8860"
Public Const InterfaceId As String = "AA43EC7A-54B0-4E82-BC54-00087E27645C"
Public Const EventsId As String = "9C4D24A8-F325-409F-8A00-62DE8B938F1D"
#End Region

Public Sub New()

MyBase.New()
End Sub
Public Function Divide(ByVal term As Double, _
ByVal divisor As Double) As Double
If divisor = 3 Then
Dim e As System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException = _
New System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException( _
"Bad Divisor", &H80000001)
Throw e
ElseIf term = 3 Then
Dim e As System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException = _
New System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException( _
"Bad Term", &H80000002)
Throw e
Else
Return (term / divisor)
End If
End Function
End Class

The hex values &H80000001 and &H80000002 correspond to the HRESULT error
codes that will be received in Visual Basic 6.0 as exceptions. The lower 16 bits of
these values correspond to the specific error code that was detected; in this case, the
error codes are 1 and 2.

Note: For a description of the fields contained in a HRESULT value, see “HRESULT” on MSDN.
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 387

If a Visual Basic 6.0 client application referenced this class and invoked the Divide
function, the error handler would have to determine the correct error that was raised
to decide how to handle it. This is demonstrated in the following code example.
Visual Basic 6.0 client
Private Function Perform_Division() As Double
On Error GoTo Error_Handler
Dim div As New DivisorTool
Perform_Division = div.Divide(10, 0)
Exit Function

Error_Handler:
If (Err.Number And &H7FFF) = 1 Then
' Handle the "bad divisor" error
ElseIf (Err.Number And &H7FFF) = 2 Then
' Handle the "bad term" error
Else
' There is another, unknown error…
MsgBox "Error : " & Err.Description, _
vbOKOnly, "(code = " & CStr(Err.Number) & ")"
End If
End Function

It is necessary to extract the original error code by doing a bitwise And operation
between Err.Number and the hex value &H7FFF. The .NET interoperability turns on
the first bit of the error code that is going to be sent to the COM client, and the And
operation turns off this bit to obtain the original error code.
As demonstrated in the previous code example, this approach can increase the
amount of code needed for interoperability, and the complexity of the overall code.
Error handlers will likely grow in complexity, and it may become difficult to debug
exactly which error conditions are producing which unexpected results.
There is additional risk if the documentation for the .NET assembly does not indi-
cate which error codes (such as Err.Number values) correspond to which error
conditions. This can complicate effective handling of some exceptions raised from
the .NET component in your Visual Basic 6.0 client code.

Catching OnError Conditions Raised from Visual Basic 6.0 in Visual Basic .NET
The converse case must also be analyzed: how would a .NET assembly detect and
react to an error condition raised from a Visual Basic 6.0 code module? COM is also
involved, so there are some advantages in terms of handling common system errors.
For common system errors, the marshaling layer automatically translates these error
conditions to appropriate .NET exceptions. This means that you can call a Visual
Basic 6.0 subroutine from .NET, and use try/catch/finally blocks to detect normal
system errors raised by the code module.
388 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For example, consider a Visual Basic 6.0 version of the DivisorTool as shown in the
previous section. If such a component was used in a .NET assembly and the Divide
function invoked with a divisor value of 0, a divide-by-zero error would be raised
by the Visual Basic 6.0 component. This error would be automatically translated to a
System.DivideByZeroException on the .NET side, so you could easily check for that
system exception and handle the error gracefully in your client code.
The following code example illustrates this approach.
Visual Basic 6.0 component
Public Function Divide(ByVal term As Double, ByVal divisor As Double) As Double
Divide = term / divisor
End Function

Visual Basic .NET client

Private Function Perform_Division( _
ByVal term As Double, _
ByVal divisor As Double) As Double

Dim x As Double
Dim div As VB6Module.DivisorTool
div = New VB6Module.DivisorTool
Try
Return div.Divide(term, divisor)
Catch e As System.DivideByZeroException
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Division by 0")
Return 0
End Try
End Function

As shown in the Visual Basic .NET code example, the invocation of the Visual Basic
6.0 function Divide is enclosed in a try/catch block, with a Catch clause for the
System.DivideByZeroException.
As mentioned before, application-specific errors are a little more complicated than
just dealing with general errors. Visual Basic 6.0 application errors are raised as an
InteropServices.COMException in Visual Basic .NET code. This code example
expands the previous example, adding an application exception when the specified
divisor, or the specified term is 3.
Visual Basic 6.0 component
Public Function Divide(ByVal term As Double, ByVal divisor As Double) As Double
If divisor = 3 Then
Err.Raise 1, "Project1", "Bad divisor", "", ""
ElseIf term = 3 Then
Err.Raise 2, "Project1", "Bad term", "", ""
Else
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 389

Divide = term / divisor

End If
End Function

Visual Basic .NET client

Private Function Perform_Division( _
ByVal term As Double, _
ByVal divisor As Double) As Double

Dim x As Double
Dim div As VB6Module.DivisorTool
div = New VB6Module.DivisorTool
Try
Return div.Divide(term, divisor)
Catch e As System.DivideByZeroException
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Division by 0")
Return 0
Catch e As System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("App Error")
End Try
End Function

In the previous code example, the Visual Basic .NET client code does not distinguish
between the two Visual Basic 6.0 application errors; therefore, it cannot gracefully
handle the error condition. In the previous example, it would be impossible to tell
whether it was a “bad divisor error” (Error #1) or a “bad term error” (Error #2).
The differentiation between error conditions can be achieved by using the
COMException.ErrorCode value. Thus, a mechanism is provided that will allow
Visual Basic .NET client code to differentiate error conditions by their error code
values, as specified in the Err.Raise statements in the Visual Basic 6.0 component
code.
The following code example shows an enhanced version of the Visual Basic .NET
client code. It inspects the error code value to appropriately react to application-
specific error conditions.
Visual Basic .NET client (with specific error handling)
Private Function Perform_Division( _
ByVal term As Double, _
ByVal divisor As Double) As Double

Dim x As Double
Dim div As VB6Module.DivisorTool
div = New VB6Module.DivisorTool
Try
Return div.Divide(term, divisor)
Catch e As System.DivideByZeroException
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Division by 0")
390 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Return 0
Catch e As System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException
If (e.ErrorCode And &HFFFF) = 1 Then
'Handle the "Bad Divisor" error
ElseIf (e.ErrorCode And &HFFFF) = 2 Then
'Handle the "Bad Term" error
Else
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("App Error")
End If
End Try
End Function

As shown in the previous code example, a bit operation must be performed to

extract the actual error code from the exception object. A bitwise And operation
between the ErrorCode and the hexadecimal value FFFF (&HFFFF) checks the lower
16 bits of the ErrorCode value. These bits contain the actual error code raised from
Visual Basic 6.0's Err.Raise call. By examining the lower 16 bits, you can determine
the exact error that was raised in the Visual Basic 6.0 component and react appropri-
ately to application-specific error conditions. This way, you can keep your business
logic consistent across the .NET boundary, even in regard to error handling.

Sinking COM Events

Sinking events for COM client consumption from Visual Basic 6.0 is done through
the RaiseEvent statement. These events can also be caught and handled by .NET
code as if they were originating from a COM component.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 code example illustrates how to raise an event and the
subsequent Visual Basic .NET code example shows how that event would be caught
and processed. The Visual Basic 6.0 event producer code raises a Divide event
whenever the DoDivide function is invoked and raises a Multiply event when the
DoMultiply function is invoked. The consumer code, written in Visual Basic .NET,
provides the event handlers OnDivide and OnMultiply to catch and handle each
event whenever they occur.
Visual Basic 6.0 event producer
Option Explicit

Public Event Divide(ByVal x As Double, ByVal y As Double)

Public Event Multiply(ByVal x As Double, ByVal y As Double)

Public Function DoDivide(x As Double, y As Double) As Double

RaiseEvent Divide(x, y)
DoDivide = x / y
End Function

Public Function DoMultiply(x As Double, y As Double) As Double

RaiseEvent Multiply(x, y)
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 391

DoMultiply = x * y
End Function

Visual Basic .NET event consumer

Option Explicit
Option Strict

Imports System
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Namespace EventConsumer

Public Class Consumer

Dim WithEvents myProducer As New VB6Module.Producer

Private Sub ConsumeTest()

myProducer.DoDivide(1,3)
myProducer.DoMultiply(5,7)
End Sub

Private Sub OnDivide(x As Double, y As Double) _

Handles myProducer.Divide
Console.WriteLine("Division: {0}", x / y)
End Sub

Private Sub OnMultiply(x As Double, y As Double) _

Handles myProducer.Multiply
Console.WriteLine("Multiplication: {0}", x * y)
End Sub

End Class
End Namespace

Similarly, it is possible to raise events in Visual Basic .NET components using the
Delegate directive. These events can be caught in Visual Basic 6.0 client code using
the WithEvents directive. The following code example demonstrates this. In this
code example, the producer code is the Visual Basic .NET version of the event
producer in the previous example, and the consumer code is the Visual Basic 6.0
version of the consumer in the previous example.
Visual Basic .NET event producer
Option Explicit On
Option Strict On

Namespace EventProducer
<ComClass(Producer.ClassId, Producer.InterfaceId, Producer.EventsId)> _
Public Class Producer
392 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

#Region "COM GUIDs"

Public Const ClassId As String = "591AC4AC-949A-45E6-AE5F-FFB5B7635E9B"
Public Const InterfaceId As String = _
"D3DC65BE-F49E-4356-8308-80B9B6198139"
Public Const EventsId As String = "58D8EC7F-821A-453A-BFC0-6AF8A8D43D1A"
#End Region

Public Event Divide(ByVal x As Double, ByVal y As Double)

Public Event Multiply(ByVal x As Double, ByVal y As Double)

Public Sub New()

MyBase.New()
End Sub

Public Sub SendDivide(ByVal x As Double, ByVal y As Double)

RaiseEvent Divide(x, y)
End Sub

Public Sub SendMultiply(ByVal x As Double, ByVal y As Double)

RaiseEvent Multiply(x, y)
End Sub

' Add more custom functions to this class, which then

' send the event notifications by calling SendXXXX.
End Class
End Namespace

Visual Basic 6.0 event consumer

Public WithEvents myProd As Producer

Private Sub Class_Initialize()

Set myProd = New Producer
End Sub

' Events and methods are matched by event name and signature.
Private Sub myProd_Divide(ByVal x As Double, ByVal y As Double)
MsgBox "Division: " & (x / y)
End Sub

Private Sub myProd_Multiply(ByVal x As Double, ByVal y As Double)

MsgBox "Multiplication: " & (x * y)
End Sub

Public Sub ProducerTest()

myProd.SendDivide 1, 2
myProd.SendMultiply 3, 5
End Sub

As shown in the previous code example, after the SendMultiply and SendDivide
functions are defined, you can raise events, when necessary, to any COM client that
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 393

is listening. This also applies to Visual Basic 6.0 clients because they would connect
to the Visual Basic .NET event producer through COM interop.
Because the CLR is present between the components written in Visual Basic 6.0 and
Visual Basic .NET, event handling between each run time environment is transparent
to the other. It does not matter to the component catching the event if it was raised
from a managed .NET component or an unmanaged Visual Basic 6.0 component.
The CLR’s COM interop layer handles the details, and this simplifies the upgrade
process.

OLE Automation Call Synchronization

The Visual Basic 6.0 App object provides a group of properties that can be used to
specify parameters for the interaction and synchronization with an OLE Automation
server during the invocation of one of its methods.
The first set of properties is related to the time that the application will retry a failed
automation call request. After the specified time elapses, a customizable dialog box
automatically displays in the application. This dialog box informs the user about the
busy state of the OLE server. This behavior is controlled with the properties:
OleServerBusyMsgText, OleServerBusyMsgTitle, OleServerBusyRaiseError, and
OleServerBusyTimeout.
The second set of properties is related to the time an application will wait for an
OLE Automation request to be completed. This group of properties works in a
similar way to the previous group and includes: OleRequestPendingMsgText,
OleRequestPendingMsgTitle, and OleRequestPendingTimeout.
The functionality provided by these properties does not have an equivalent in Visual
Basic .NET and requires reimplementation using the currently available mecha-
nisms.
The objective of this functionality is to produce a responsive application that allows
the user to be aware of the state of the application. One way to provide similar
functionality with Visual Basic .NET is to use the .NET multithreading capabilities.
The following code example shows how to use Visual Basic .NET to make an asyn-
chronous call to an OLE Automation server; this allows the application to wait and
then provide useful information to the user about the state of the application and
pending requests.
Visual Basic 6.0 component
Private Sub Form_Load()
App.OleRequestPendingMsgText = "Pending"
App.OleRequestPendingTimeout = 500
App.OleServerBusyMsgText = "Busy"
App.OleServerBusyRaiseError = False
End Sub
394 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Dim c As New ComponentExe.ClassComExe
' This method takes a lot of time.
c.myMethod
MsgBox "myMethod ComExe finished"
End Sub

The previous Form_Load method sets custom parameters that affect the dialog box
that is displayed when the application is waiting for the ClassComExe.myMethod
method to execute. In Visual Basic .NET, this functionality needs to be
reimplemented in a different way to let the user know whether the application is
still running.
The following code example invokes the ClassComExe.myMethod method using an
intermediary class that is executed in a different thread and allows the main applica-
tion to remain responsive to the user. Notice how the auxiliary class for asynchro-
nous calls notifies the application about the process completion; this raises an event
that is handled by the main application.
Visual Basic .NET component
Dim WithEvents AsynchCallerObj As AsynchCaller

Class AsynchCaller
Public Event ThreadDone()
Sub DoCall()
Dim c As New ComponentExe.ClassComExe
c.foo()
RaiseEvent ThreadDone()
End Sub
End Class

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
' Code removed by the user because it is not supported.
End Sub

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _

ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
AsynchCallerObj = New AsynchCaller
Dim Thread As New System.Threading.Thread(AddressOf AsynchCallerObj.DoCall)
Thread.Start()
' Here a progress monitor could be started to let the user know about the
' process state.
End Sub

Sub AsynchCallerDone() Handles AsynchCallerObj.ThreadDone

MsgBox("foo ComExe finished")
End Sub
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 395

Resource Handling
The Common Language Runtime (CLR) provides a resource handling mechanism
that frees programmers from the burden of manual memory management. This
mechanism is known as garbage collection and is an essential part of .NET.
Visual Basic .NET objects and Visual Basic 6.0 objects are created with the New
keyword. Usually, before an object can be used it requires an initialization stage.
This initialization can include tasks such as opening files, connecting to a database,
or acquiring other system resources like memory for internal structures. Visual Basic
.NET controls the initialization of new objects using procedures called constructors.
Objects end life after they leave scope and are released by the CLR. Visual Basic
.NET controls the release of system resources using procedures called destructors.
Together, constructors and destructors support the creation of robust and predictable
classes that use the system resources in an efficient manner.

Constructors and Destructors in Visual Basic .NET

The Sub New and Sub Finalize procedures in Visual Basic .NET are the constructor
and destructor methods respectively; they replace the Class_Initialize and
Class_Terminate methods used in Visual Basic 6.0. As opposed to Class_Initialize,
the Sub New constructor can run only once when a class is created, and it cannot be
called explicitly anywhere other than in the first line of code in another constructor
from either the same class or from a derived class.
Before releasing objects, the CLR automatically calls the Finalize method for objects
that define a Sub Finalize procedure. The Finalize method can contain code that
needs to execute just before an object is destroyed, such as closing files and saving
state information or releasing unmanaged components (for example, COM compo-
nents created with Visual Basic 6.0). The execution of the Sub Finalize will consume
time, so you should define a Sub Finalize method only when you need to release
objects explicitly, as in the case of contained COM components. Unlike the Visual
Basic 6.0 Class_Terminate, which is executed as soon as an object reference is set to
Nothing, there is usually a delay between when an object loses scope and when
Visual Basic .NET invokes the Finalize destructor.
Visual Basic .NET allows for a second kind of destructor, named Dispose, which
must be explicitly called whenever allocated resources need to be released immedi-
ately. Any .NET classes can implement the IDisposable interface in order to release
allocated unmanaged resources. This interface defines the Dispose method that
users of the component should call when a component’s instance is no longer
needed. The implementation of Dispose can contain code to immediately release
limited system resources like allocated memory, file handles, and database connec-
tions.
396 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Garbage Collection
In .NET, the garbage collection mechanism is responsible for the invocation of
component’s destructors when the component cannot be accessed by any executing
code. This condition is reached when all references to the component have been
released or belong to objects that are isolated from all running code.
The .NET Framework uses a technique called reference-tracing garbage collection to
periodically release resources that will no longer be used. (For information about
garbage collection, see “Object Lifetime: How Objects Are Created and Destroyed”
on MSDN.) Visual Basic 6.0 used a different system called reference counting with
the same purpose. These systems have the following main differences that must be
considered in order to achieve successful interoperation:
● Non-deterministic object lifetime. The CLR destroys objects more quickly when
system resources decrease to a certain level; on the other hand, objects are de-
stroyed slower when system resources abound. The result of this scheme is that it
is impossible to determine in advance when an object will actually be destroyed
and its resources freed under Visual Basic .NET. In this case, .NET objects are said
to have a non-deterministic lifetime. This behavior does not affect the develop-
ment process, as long as it is understood that the Finalize destructor may not
execute immediately when an object goes out of scope under Visual Basic .NET.
● Assignment of the Nothing value. In Visual Basic 6.0, programmers can affect
the reference count for an object by assigning Nothing to one of the correspond-
ing object variables. When the reference count reaches zero, the object resources
are immediately released. In Visual Basic .NET, an assignment with a Nothing
value will never produce an immediate release; if this is necessary, the Dispose
method must be implemented and explicitly invoked at the desired time.

Note: The System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal class provides methods to manipulate

the reference count associated with COM objects and manually determine an object’s lifetime.
These methods include: AddRef, Release and ReleaseComObject. The ReleaseComObject
method is often used to release unmanaged resources that are allocated in a .NET component.
This will force the release of the COM object without waiting for the garbage collector to clean
resources.

Summary
Partial and staged upgrade strategies can help minimize the risks of upgrading an
application while still allowing it to benefit from new language features and tech-
nologies. A key necessity in these strategies is the ability to have Visual Basic 6.0
components interact with new Visual Basic .NET components.
 Chapter 14: Interop Between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET 397

With COM interop in Visual Basic .NET, partial upgrades can be painlessly achieved.
Visual Basic 6.0 components that are complex or otherwise costly to upgrade can
remain in Visual Basic 6.0, while more straightforward components can be upgraded
to Visual Basic .NET. Through COM interop, the older and newer components can
seamlessly interact with each other, leveraging your Visual Basic 6.0 components
with new Visual Basic .NET features. The techniques presented in this chapter can
help you achieve this interoperability.

More Information
To download the Microsoft Service Pack 6 for Visual Basic 6.0 from MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/updates/sp/vs6/sp6/default.aspx.
For more information about performance improvement, see Chapter 7, “Improving
Interop Performance,” of Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html
/scalenetchapt07.asp.
For more information on custom marshals, see “Custom Marshaling” in the .NET
Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html
/cpconCustomMarshaling.asp.
For more information about mapping common .NET exceptions to Visual Basic 6.0
error codes, see “HRESULTs and Exceptions” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html
/cpconhresultsexceptions.asp.
For a description of the fields contained in a HRESULT value, see “HRESULT” on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/APISP/html
/sp__mapi1book_c_type_hresult.asp.
For information about garbage collection, see “Object Lifetime: How Objects Are
Created and Destroyed” in Visual Basic Language Concepts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html
/vaconFinalizeDestructors.asp.
15
Upgrading MTS and COM+
Applications
Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) is a technology primarily intended for multi-
user server applications. In addition to supporting distributed transactions, MTS
extends COM’s security model and provides scalability services, connection man-
agement, thread pooling, and an administration structure. This environment pro-
vides an easy way to build and deploy scalable server applications, making
available a suitable distributed-enabled atmosphere for COM objects running in the
middle tier. When Microsoft Transaction Server is installed, middle-tier components
and objects should be run inside the MTS environment whether or not they are
involved in transactions.
COM+ is an extension to the Component Object Model (COM) and the MTS infra-
structure. The consolidation of these two programming models makes it easier to
develop distributed applications by unifying the development, deployment, debug-
ging, and maintenance of an application that would formerly have relied on COM
for certain services and MTS for others.
This chapter examines how to upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 COM+ and MTS applications
to Visual Basic .NET.

Using MTS/COM+ in Visual Basic 6.0

Visual Basic 6.0 can be used with MTS to build n-tier applications. Using Visual
Basic 6.0, you develop COM DLL components that run on middle-tiered servers
under the control of MTS. When clients call these COM DLLs, the Windows operat-
ing system routes the requests to MTS automatically. Other services provided by
MTS that are relevant to upgrade efforts include:
● Component transactions.

● Object brokering.
400 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Resource pooling.
● Just-in-time activation.
● Administration.
A possible upgrade strategy is to use proxy COM classes that are accessed through
interoperability. While this strategy is adequate in some scenarios, using proxy
classes is not always possible or appropriate. In some cases you need to re-imple-
ment the MTS and COM+ services using the .NET Framework instead.
The System.EnterpriseServices namespace in the .NET Framework contains classes
that offer similar functionality and provide an interface to mechanisms used by
COM+. This makes it possible to build enterprise applications using .NET objects
while retaining access to COM+ services.
The following is a code example of a COM+ component written using Visual Basic
6.0 that has the MTSTransactionMode property set to RequiresTransaction:
Public Sub transferfunds(acc1 As String, acc2 As String, _
amount As Long)

On Error GoTo ErrHandler

withdrawFunds acc1, amount

depositFunds acc2, amount
GetObjectContext.SetComplete

Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
GetObjectContext.SetAbort
Err.Raise Err.Number, Err.Source, Err.Description, _
Err.HelpFile, Err.HelpContext
End Sub

Private Sub withdrawFunds(acc As String, amount As Long)

' Perform withdrawal...
End Sub

Private Sub depositFunds(acc As String, amount As Long)

' Perform deposit...
End Sub

Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET

The .NET Framework relies on COM+ to provide it with distributed transactions,
component instance management, role-based security, queued components and
events. The System.EnterpriseServices namespace makes COM+ part of the .NET
Framework, in essence, by supplying all the types, classes, and objects necessary to
use COM+ services.
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 401

A .NET component that uses COM+ services is referred to as a serviced component.

The following code example shows a serviced component as a class in Visual Basic
.NET that transfers funds between two bank accounts. Please note that although it
appears similar to the preceding example, it is not yet functionally equivalent
because the transaction services are not being used. These will be added a little later.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

Public Class MyComponent

Inherits ServicedComponent

Public Sub transferfunds(ByRef acc1 As String, _

ByRef acc2 As String, ByRef amount As Integer)

On Error GoTo ErrHandler

withdrawFunds(acc1, amount)
depositFunds(acc2, amount)

Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
Err.Raise(Err.Number, Err.Source, Err.Description, _
Err.HelpFile, Err.HelpContext)
End Sub

Private Sub withdrawFunds(ByRef acc As String, _

ByRef amount As Integer)
' Perform withdrawal...
End Sub

Private Sub depositFunds(ByRef acc As String, _

ByRef amount As Integer)
' Perform deposit...
End Sub

End Class

Notice that building this class requires that you add a reference to the
System.EnterpriseServices namespace.
Consider the follow information when you create serviced components:
● When an instance of a serviced component is no longer needed, the client should
call the Dispose() method to free the resources used by the component.
● The serviced component must contain a default constructor (a constructor with
no arguments).
● Static methods are not remotable and are not associated with a particular instance
of a class; therefore, they cannot take advantage of any of the COM+ services
such as transactions and object pooling.
402 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Those services that flow between computers, such as transactions and Windows
authentication, only do so when DCOM is used.
● At run time, the user executing the COM+ application must have permission to
run unmanaged code.
The following code example is a slightly more complex version of the Visual Basic
6.0 code example from the previous section. In this example, the code was upgraded
to a .NET serviced component.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<Transaction(TransactionOption.Required), EventTrackingEnabled()> _
Public Class Account
Inherits ServicedComponent

Public Sub transferfunds(ByRef acc1 As String, _

ByRef acc2 As String, ByRef amount As Integer)
On Error GoTo ErrHandler

withdrawFunds(acc1, amount)
depositFunds(acc2, amount)
ContextUtil.SetComplete()

Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
ContextUtil.SetAbort()
Err.Raise(Err.Number, Err.Source, Err.Description, _
Err.HelpFile, Err.HelpContext)
End Sub

Private Sub withdrawFunds(ByRef acc As String, _

ByRef amount As Integer)
' Perform withdrawal...
End Sub

Private Sub depositFunds(ByRef acc As String, _

ByRef amount As Integer)
' Perform deposit...
End Sub
End Class

The first important instruction here is the reference to the System.EnterpriseServices

namespace. It supplies the infrastructure for enterprise applications and provides
.NET objects with access to COM+ services.
Next, the class extends the ServiceComponent class, which enables it to be used as a
COM+ application. The ServiceComponent class, in the System.EnterpriseServices
namespace, is the base object of all classes using COM+ services.
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 403

Finally, the Transaction and the EventTrackingEnabled attributes denote the type of
transaction that is available to the Account class (in this example the transaction is
Required) and enable event tracking for the Account class, respectively.
To deploy and use a ServicedComponent object it is necessary to sign the corre-
sponding component with a strong name, consisting of the assembly’s identity (its
simple text name and version number, which are required, and the culture informa-
tion if it is provided) plus a public key and a digital signature. This task can be
accomplished by using the Strong Name tool (Sn.exe), a command-line tool distrib-
uted with the .NET Framework to create a key pair file with the file name extension
.snk. The generated file must be copied to the component’s source code folder. This
important step is included in the procedures within this chapter that require it but
for more information about the Strong Name tool, see “Strong Name Tool (Sn.exe)”
in .NET Framework Tools on MSDN.
When using ServicedComponent classes it is necessary to specify additional configu-
ration options by using assembly attributes like the following code example:
<Assembly: AssemblyKeyFile("MyAssembly.snk")>

The AssemblyKeyFileAttribute class is used to specify the file that is generated with
the Strong Name Tool (Sn.exe) and contains a key pair that is used to generate a
strong name. These attributes can be added to a class file, but the recommended
place to include these assembly attributes is the AssemblyInfo.vb file that is in-
cluded in all Visual Basic .NET projects.

General Considerations
This section explores some of the common issues concerning COM+, such as ser-
vices, applications, and deployment and how they are affected by the upgrade to
Visual Basic .NET.

For Visual Basic 2005:

The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard included in Visual Studio 2005 upgrades
Visual Basic 6.0 Microsoft Transaction Server and COM+ Services projects into
EnterpriseServices projects in Visual Basic 2005. Most of the tasks described in
this chapter are performed automatically by the upgrade wizard, with the
exception of the tasks described in the “COM+ Events” and “Message Queuing
and Queued Components” sections of this chapter. These tasks still require a
manual upgrade.
In addition, the manual tasks for deploying and configuring an application are
still required after you use the Visual Basic 2005 Upgrade Wizard.
404 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

COM+ Application Types

The following list describes the four basic types of COM+ applications:
● Library applications. A library application runs in the process of the client that
creates it. Library applications can use role-based security but do not support
remote access or queued components.
● Server applications. A server application runs in a dedicated process that COM+
creates. Cross-process communication is the major factor that affects performance
differences and limitations between library and server applications. Server
applications can support all COM+ services.
● Application proxies. An application proxy is a set of files that contains registra-
tion information that allows a client to remotely access a server application.
● COM+ preinstalled applications. COM+ includes a set of preinstalled applica-
tions that handle internal functions. The preinstalled applications are listed in the
COM+ Applications folder in the Component Services administrative tool, but
they cannot be modified or deleted. The following applications are included:
● .NET Utilities

● Analyzer Control Publisher Application

● COM+ Explorer

● COM+ QC Dead Letter Queue Listener

● COM+ Utilities

● IIS In-Process Applications

● IIS Out-Of-Process Pooled Applications

● System Application

These applications belong to the COM+ infrastructure and are not bound to any
specific languages, so there are no special factors to consider when you upgrade
Visual Basic 6.0 code.

Using SOAP Services

It is often useful for a client application to be able to call a method that is imple-
mented on a remote server. Sometimes the method uses volatile information that is
stored on the remote server (for example, a method that returns the current currency
exchange that corresponds to a given currency). At other times, the developer wants
to be able to upgrade the methods implementation without having to redeploy all
the applications that use it.
XML Web services are published on Web servers, such as IIS, and accessed using
HTTP. These HTTP packets contain the input and output parameters of calls to a
method that is implemented on the server and are encoded in SOAP. To use an XML
Web service, you need to know the URL where the service is exposed and the name
of the method you want to call, and you must provide the input parameters to the
method.
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 405

Note: The SOAP services functionality is supported in the following operating systems: Micro-
soft Windows 2003, Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows XP. SOAP services are
not supported in Microsoft Windows NT.

SOAP
While it is helpful to have some understanding of the infrastructure that underlies
XML Web services, COM+ makes it easy to create and use them.
Any COM+ application can be exposed as an XML Web service. Clients can then
make remote calls to the methods in the default interfaces of the application’s
configured components. You can use the Component Services administrative tool to
create an IIS virtual root directory that calls the component methods by using SOAP.
You do not need to do any special programming when writing the components,
except that the methods that you want to expose must be in the default interface and
the component must be configured in the server’s COM+ catalog. You do not need
to write code to communicate through a network interface or to parse SOAP.
When you expose a COM+ application as an XML Web service, detailed information
about the syntax of all the methods that are available from an XML Web service is
published automatically, using the Web Services Description Language (WSDL).
Clients use this information to communicate with the XML Web service.
COM+ provides the following two ways to access and use a remote XML Web
service:
● The well-known object (WKO) mode can be used to access any XML Web service
that publishes its syntax using WSDL, even if that XML Web service was not
created using COM+ or even using Microsoft Windows.
● The client-activated object (CAO) mode can be used only to access XML Web
services created by exposing COM+ applications. CAO mode increases perfor-
mance by using persistent connections, which is a feature that is not supported
by the current SOAP standard.
Both methods allow client applications to call the methods of XML Web services
without having to write code to communicate through a network interface or to
parse SOAP.
The following code is a COM+ and SOAP example. It shows how to use the
ApplicationActivation attribute with the SoapVRoot element to automatically
publish the components as a Web service.
To use COM+ in Visual Basic .NET, it is necessary to sign the component with a
strong name. To generate the keys required for the strong name you must use the
following command. (For more information about strong names, see the “Using
COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter).
sn -k SOAPServices.snk
406 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The following code is a COM+/SOAP example.

Imports System
Imports System.Reflection
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

Namespace SOAPServices

Public Interface ICalc

Function Add(ByVal Value1 As Integer, ByVal Value2 As Integer)
As Integer
End Interface

Public Class Calc

Inherits ServicedComponent
Implements ICalc

Public Function Add(ByVal Value1 As Integer, _

ByVal Value2 As Integer) As Integer Implements ICalc.Add

Return (Value1 + Value2)

End Function
End Class
End Namespace

For this example, you must include the following lines in the AssemblyInfo.vb file.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices
<Assembly: ApplicationName("SOAP Services")>
<Assembly: ApplicationActivation(ActivationOption.Server, SoapVRoot := _
"SOAPServices")>
<Assembly: AssemblyKeyFile("SOAPServices.snk")>

COM+ Application Proxies in .NET

To access a COM+ server application remotely from another computer, the client
computer must have a subset of the attributes of the server application installed,
including proxy/stub DLLs and type libraries for DCOM interface remoting. This
subset is called an application proxy.
You do not have to write special code to create an application proxy when you create
a serviced component and register it on the server; the ServicedComponent class
contains MarshalByRefObject in its inheritance tree and can therefore be accessed
from remote clients. However, to prevent the data included in the COM+ application
proxy from being included in the actual server code, you should make it a practice
to separate the interface definitions from the class implementations.
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 407

Upgrading MTS/COM+ Services

Using the upgrade wizard and manual modifications to upgrade a COM+ compo-
nent is mostly a straightforward process, but there are a few issues to bear in mind.
The code samples in this chapter explore these issues in detail. Each scenario lists a
Visual Basic 6.0 component, the output of the upgrade wizard after it is applied to
the component, and the manual changes that you must make to complete the up-
grade to Visual Basic .NET.

Note: To try the .NET component code samples that are used in this chapter, you need to first
register them for COM interop. For information about how to register .NET components, see the
“Creating Interoperability Wrappers in .NET” section in Chapter 14, “Interop between Visual
Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET.”

COM+ Example Scenario

In this scenario, a Visual Basic 6.0 server component exposes a function. This compo-
nent is added to the Component Services as a COM+ application, which is used by a
client application. First, the upgrade wizard is used to upgrade the server compo-
nent, and then the necessary manual changes to create an equivalent component in
Visual Basic .NET are made. The scenario is completed by upgrading the client
component.
The following highly simplified code sample contains a server component in Visual
Basic 6.0 named COMTest. The component in this example does not require or use
any transaction.
Private OpCounter As Integer

Public Sub Init()

OpCounter = 0
End Sub

Public Function Add(ByVal value1 As Long, ByVal value2 As Long) _

As Long

Dim SumResult As Long

SumResult = value1 + value2
OpCounter = OpCounter + 1
add = SumResult
End Function

The core of the component is an addition function that receives two parameters of
type Long; the component also exposes an initialization method (Init).
408 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The following code sample lists the Visual Basic 6.0 application that instantiates the
server component that resides within a COM+ application.
Public Sub Execute()
Dim MyCOM As Object
Dim result As Long

Set MyCOM = CreateObject("Test.COMTest")

MyCOM.Init
result = MyCOM.Add(10, 5)

End Sub

In this scenario, the name of the server component module is COMTest, and the
name of the dynamic link library is Test. To instantiate the object in a COM+ applica-
tion, CreateObject is called with Test.COMTest as the parameter

Upgrading the Server Component

When you upgrade the server component with the upgrade wizard, the process
results in the following output.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")>
Public Class COMTest
Private OpCounter As Short

Public Sub Init()

OpCounter = 0
End Sub

Public Function Add(ByVal value1 As Integer, ByVal value2 As Integer) _

As Integer

Dim SumResult As Integer

SumResult = value1 + value2
OpCounter = OpCounter + 1
add = SumResult
End Function
End Class

The upgrade wizard upgrades most of the module’s functionality correctly, but there
are several minor changes that you must make before you have a fully functional
and accurate server component.

To make a functionally equivalent component
1. Add the System.EnterpriseServices reference to the project and specify the Im-
ports statement.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 409

2. Change the class so that it inherits from the ServicedComponent class.

Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent

3. Create a strong name for the COMTest component: (For more information about
strong names, see the “Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this
chapter.)
sn -k COMKey.snk

4. Link the server component with the key pair file that you just created. To do this,
add the AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file.
<Assembly: AssemblyKeyFile("COMKey.snk")>

These changes result in the following listing.

Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")>
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent

Private OpCounter As Short

Public Sub Init()
OpCounter = 0
End Sub

Public Function Add(ByVal value1 As Integer, ByVal value2 As Integer) _

As Integer

Dim SumResult As Integer

SumResult = value1 + value2
OpCounter = OpCounter + 1
add = SumResult
End Function
End Class

After completing all of the manual changes, you can build the component, create a
new COM+ application, and add the DLL to the application.
Keep in mind this very important detail: In the Visual Basic 6.0 component, the
Instancing attribute is set to Multiuse, which allows other applications to create
objects from the class. One instance of your component can provide any number of
objects that are created in this fashion. An out-of-process component can supply
410 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

multiple objects to multiple clients; an in-process component can supply multiple

objects to the client and to any other components in its process. This behavior is
code-independent, which means that you can switch the COM+ application activa-
tion mechanism without modifying the component or the client source code.
In contrast, Visual Basic .NET components use the library activation type by default.
This means that if you specify that the COM+ application should be activated as a
server, the .NET client application will crash when you try to create the component.
To specify how the .NET component will be activated you need to modify the
component’s source code by using the ApplicationActivation attribute with the
AssemblyInfo.vb file:
● For a server component, use it as shown here.

<Assembly: System.EnterpriseServices.ApplicationActivation _
(System.EnterpriseServices.ActivationOption.Server)>

● For a library component, use it as shown here.

<Assembly: System.EnterpriseServices.ApplicationActivation _
(System.EnterpriseServices.ActivationOption.Library)>

Upgrading the Client Application

Upgrading the client application is more straightforward than upgrading the server
component. The following code example shows the output that is produced by the
upgrade wizard.

Note: In the following code example and throughout this chapter, some of the longer code lines
and comments that are automatically produced by the upgrade wizard are reformatted to make
them easier to read and understand. Your output may differ slightly from the code shown in
this chapter.

Public Sub Execute()

Dim COM As Object
Dim result As Integer

COM = CreateObject("Test.COMTest")
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of
' object COM.init
COM.Init()
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of
' object COM.Add
result = COM.Add(10, 5)
End Sub
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 411

The following statement is the only one that requires modification.

COM = CreateObject("Test.COMTest")

The parameter used with the CreateObject method must match the name of the
.NET component inside the COM+ application. Refer to the ProgID attribute in the
Server Component for the correct name to use.
COM = CreateObject("COMTest_NET.COMTest")

The final client application is as follows.

Public Sub Execute()
Dim COM As Object
Dim result As Integer

COM = CreateObject("COMTest_NET.COMTest")
COM.Init()
result = COM.Add(10, 5)
End Sub

For Visual Basic 2005:

The version of the Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard that ships with Visual
Studio 2005 will automatically perform most of the manual changes described
in this chapter.

COM+ Compensating Resource Manager

The COM+ Compensating Resource Manager (CRM) Services can be used to inte-
grate application resources with Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator
(DTC) transactions.
There are some classes and interfaces provided by the COM+ Services Library that
allow developers to take advantage of CRM Services, such as CRMClerk,
CRMRecoveryClerk, ICrmFormatLogRecords, ICrmMonitorLogRecords and
tagCrmLogRecordRead. These services are also provided in the .NET Framework in
the System.EnterpriseServices.CompensatingResourceManager namespace.
Developers can use the CRMClerk class to handle log-related operations. The
equivalent of this class in the .NET Framework is
System.EnterpriseServices.CompensatingResourceManager.Clerk.
Visual Basic 6.0 developers can implement ICrmCompensatorVariants interface to
handle log-related issues. To get similar functionality in Visual Basic .NET, the class
supporting ICrmCompensatorVariants must inherit from
System.EnterpriseServices.CompensatingResourceManager.Compensator.
412 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

A CRM consists of two separate COM co-classes, Worker and Compensator, which
must be implemented. The Worker class initiates changes, and the Compensator
class either commits the changes or rolls them back.

Upgrading a Worker Component

The following code example shows a CRM Worker component that is defined inside
a Visual Basic 6.0 class named COMTest.
Public Clerk As CRMClerk

Public Sub Register()

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
Set Clerk = New CRMClerk

Clerk.RegisterCompensator "MyCompensator.Comp", _
"This is my Compensator", CRMREGFLAG_ALLPHASES
Exit Sub

ErrorHandler:
' Error handling code goes here.
End Sub

The following example shows the code after it is upgraded.

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Public Clerk As COMSVCSLib.CRMClerk

Public Sub Register()

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
Clerk = New COMSVCSLib.CRMClerk

Clerk.RegisterCompensator("MyCompensator.Comp", _
"This is my Compensator", _
COMSVCSLib.tagCRMREGFLAGS.CRMREGFLAG_ALLPHASES)
Exit Sub

ErrorHandler:
' Error handling code goes here.
End Sub
End Class

To create a functionally equivalent component

1. Add the EnterprisesServices reference to the project and a corresponding Imports
statement to the class.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 413

2. Change the class so that it inherits from the ServicedComponent class.

Inherits ServicedComponent

3. Delete all the COMSVCSLib.CRMClerk references because .NET Framework

equivalent classes now replace those references.
4. Replace the Visual Basic 6.0 Clerk object with the .NET
CompensatingResourceManager.Clerk object.
5. Remove the call to the COMSVCSLib.CRMClerk constructor and the call to the
RegisterCompensator method and replace them with just a single call to the Clerk
class constructor. The Clerk constructor has the following signature.
Public Sub New( _
ByVal compensator As String, _
ByVal description As String, _
ByVal flags As CompensatorOptions _
)

6. Sign the component with a strong name by adding the corresponding

AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file. Generate the key file with
the following command. (For more information about strong names, see the
“Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k MyKey.snk

These changes result in the following, cleanly upgraded component.

Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent

Public Clerk As CompensatingResourceManager.Clerk

Public Sub Register()

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
Clerk = New CompensatingResourceManager.Clerk("", "", _
CompensatingResourceManager.CompensatorOptions.AllPhases)
Exit Sub

ErrorHandler:
' Error handling code goes here.
End Sub
End Class
414 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Upgrading a Compensator Component

The following code example shows a CRM Compensator component in Visual
Basic 6.0.
Option Explicit

Implements ICrmCompensatorVariants

Dim CrmLogControl As ICrmLogControl

Private Function ICrmCompensatorVariants_AbortRecordVariants( _

pLogRecord As Variant) As Boolean

End Function

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_BeginAbortVariants( _

ByVal bRecovery As Boolean)

End Sub

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_BeginCommitVariants( _

ByVal bRecovery As Boolean)

End Sub

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_BeginPrepareVariants()

End Sub

Private Function ICrmCompensatorVariants_CommitRecordVariants( _

pLogRecord As Variant) As Boolean

ICrmCompensatorVariants_CommitRecordVariants = False
End Function

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_EndAbortVariants()

End Sub

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_EndCommitVariants()

End Sub

Private Function ICrmCompensatorVariants_EndPrepareVariants() _

As Boolean

ICrmCompensatorVariants_EndPrepareVariants = True
End Function

Private Function ICrmCompensatorVariants_PrepareRecordVariants( _

pLogRecord As Variant) As Boolean

End Function

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_SetLogControlVariants( _

 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 415

ByVal pLogControl As COMSVCSLib.ICrmLogControl)

Set CrmLogControl = pLogControl
End Sub

Upgrading this component with the upgrade wizard results in the following Visual
Basic .NET code.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest Implements COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants

Dim CrmLogControl As COMSVCSLib.ICrmLogControl

Private Function ICrmCompensatorVariants_AbortRecordVariants( _

ByRef pLogRecord As Object) As Boolean Implements _
COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants.AbortRecordVariants
End Function

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_BeginAbortVariants(_

ByVal bRecovery As Boolean) Implements _
COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants.BeginAbortVariants

End Sub

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_BeginCommitVariants(_

ByVal bRecovery As Boolean) Implements _
COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants.BeginCommitVariants

End Sub

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_BeginPrepareVariants() _

Implements _
COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants.BeginPrepareVariants

End Sub

Private Function ICrmCompensatorVariants_CommitRecordVariants( _

ByRef pLogRecord As Object) As Boolean Implements _
COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants.CommitRecordVariants

ICrmCompensatorVariants_CommitRecordVariants = False
End Function

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_EndAbortVariants() Implements _

COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants.EndAbortVariants
End Sub

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_EndCommitVariants() _

Implements COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants.EndCommitVariants
End Sub

Private Function ICrmCompensatorVariants_EndPrepareVariants() _

416 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

As Boolean Implements _
COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants.EndPrepareVariants

ICrmCompensatorVariants_EndPrepareVariants = True
End Function

Private Function ICrmCompensatorVariants_PrepareRecordVariants( _

ByRef pLogRecord As Object) As Boolean Implements _
COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants.PrepareRecordVariants
End Function

Private Sub ICrmCompensatorVariants_SetLogControlVariants( _

ByVal pLogControl As COMSVCSLib.ICrmLogControl) Implements _
COMSVCSLib.ICrmCompensatorVariants.SetLogControlVariants

CrmLogControl = pLogControl
End Sub
End Class

To complete the upgrade

1. Add the EnterpriseServices reference to the project and the following Imports
statement to the class.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices.CompensatingResourceManager

2. Next, change the class to inherit from the Compensator class.

Inherits Compensator

The Compensator class is the base class for all Compensating Resource Manager
(CRM) Compensators.
3. Delete all of the COMSVCSLib references from the project.
4. Replace methods according to Table 15.1.
Table 15.1: Visual Basic 6.0 Method Equivalents in the
System.EnterpriseServices.CompensatingResourceManger Namespace
Visual Basic 6.0 Methods Equivalent .NET System.EnterpriseServices.
CompensatingResourceManager Methods
ICrmCompensatorVariants_ Compensator.AbortRecord
AbortRecordVariants
ICrmCompensatorVariants_ Compensator.BeginAbort
BeginAbortVariants
ICrmCompensatorVariants_ Compensator.BeginCommit
BeginCommitVariants
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 417

Visual Basic 6.0 Methods Equivalent .NET System.EnterpriseServices.

CompensatingResourceManager Methods
ICrmCompensatorVariants_ Compensator.BeginPrepare
BeginPrepareVariants
ICrmCompensatorVariants_ Compensator.CommitRecord
CommitRecordVariants
ICrmCompensatorVariants_ Compensator.EndAbort
EndAbortVariants
ICrmCompensatorVariants_ Compensator.EndCommit
EndCommitVariants
ICrmCompensatorVariants_ Compensator.EndPrepare
EndPrepareVariants
ICrmCompensatorVariants_ Compensator.PrepareRecord
PrepareRecordVariants
ICrmCompensatorVariants_ Not supported; use the Compensator read-only property
SetLogControlVariants Clerk.
COMSVCSLib.ICrmLogControl No need to upgrade; use the Compensator read-only
property Clerk

5. Sign the component with a strong name by adding the corresponding

AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file. Generate the key file with
the following command. (For more information about strong names, see the
“Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k MyKey.snk

The following code is the final Visual Basic .NET Compensator.

Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

Imports System.EnterpriseServices.CompensatingResourceManager

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits Compensator

Public Overrides Function AbortRecord(ByVal rec As LogRecord) _

As Boolean

End Function

Public Overrides Sub BeginAbort(ByVal fRecovery As Boolean)

End Sub
418 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Public Overrides Sub BeginCommit(ByVal fRecovery As Boolean)

End Sub

Public Overrides Sub BeginPrepare()

End Sub

Public Overrides Function CommitRecord(ByVal rec As LogRecord) _

As Boolean

CommitRecord = False
End Function

Public Overrides Sub EndAbort()

End Sub

Public Overrides Sub EndCommit()

End Sub

Public Overrides Function EndPrepare() As Boolean

EndPrepare = True
End Function

Public Overrides Function PrepareRecord(ByVal rec As LogRecord) _

As Boolean

End Function
End Class

COM+ Object Pooling

Components that are developed using Visual Basic 6.0 cannot be pooled because
COM+ object pooling requires multi-threaded apartment (MTA) components, and
Visual Basic 6.0 components use the single-threaded apartment model. However, a
Visual Basic 6.0 application can detect whether an object can be pooled or not, using
the IObjectControl interface.
In Visual Basic 6.0, the ObjectControl class provides the same functionality as
IObjectControl. In Visual Basic .NET, the ServicedComponent class in the
System.EnterpriseServices namespace provides similar functionality. Therefore, a
Visual Basic .NET class that inherits from ServicesComponent is capable of pooling.
To make an object poolable, decorate the class with the ObjectPooling attribute and
add a reference to the System.EnterpriseServices namespace. Also, pooled objects
may only run in server applications — they may not be configured to run as a
library. In the following Visual Basic .NET class, the object pooling minimal size is 2
and the maximum size is 4.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices
Imports System.Windows.Forms
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 419

<ObjectPooling(2, 4), _
System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent
Public counter As Integer = 0

<AutoComplete()> Public Sub IncrementCounter() As Integer

counter = counter + 1
IncrementCounter = counter
End Sub

Protected Overrides Function CanBePooled() As Boolean

Return True
End Function
End Class

Under normal circumstances, an object that was not pooled in Visual Basic 6.0 does
not need to be pooled in Visual Basic .NET. Doing this should be considered a new
feature over and above that required for functional equivalence and should be tested
thoroughly.

COM+ Application Security

COM+ applications can provide controlled access to resources. Using roles, develop-
ers can administratively construct an authorization policy for an application, choos-
ing which users can access which resources, even down to the method level, if
necessary. Additionally, roles provide a framework for enforcing security-checking
within code if an application requires finer-grained access control.
Role-based security is built on a general mechanism that enables developers to
retrieve security information that is related to all upstream callers in the chain of
calls to one particular component.
Visual Basic 6.0 developers can handle user-role information using the
SecurityCallContext class. In Visual Basic 6.0, developers can access the members of
SecurityCallContext without declaring a specific instance of this type, by using the
GetSecurityCallContext global function provided by the IGetSecurityCallContext
interface and accessing the object returned.
Visual Basic .NET developers can get similar functionality from
GetSecurityCallContext through the CurrentCall property of a static instance of
System.EnterpriseServices.SecurityCallContext.
Visual Basic 6.0 developers can use SecurityCallers and SecurityIdentity to manipu-
late information about a caller in a secured application. In Visual Basic .NET, the
SecurityCallers and SecurityIdentity classes are included in the
System.EnterpriseServices namespace and provide similar functionality.
420 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Upgrading a Visual Basic 6.0 component that uses security objects is a fairly straight-
forward procedure. The following code example lists a Visual Basic 6.0 component
that checks whether the security feature is enabled or disabled.
Public Function SecurityEnabled(ByVal caller As String) As Boolean
Dim SecContext As SecurityCallContext

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler

Set SecContext = GetSecurityCallContext

SecurityEnabled = SecContext.IsSecurityEnabled
Exit Function

ErrorHandler:
' Error handling code goes here.
End Function

Upgrading this component with the upgrade wizard results in the following Visual
Basic .NET code.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Public Function SecurityEnabled(ByVal caller As String) _
As Boolean

Dim SecContext As COMSVCSLib.SecurityCallContext

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler

SecContext = _
COMSVCSLibGetSecurityCallContextAppObject_definst. _
GetSecurityCallContext
SecurityEnabled = SecContext.IsSecurityEnabled
Exit Function

ErrorHandler:
' Error handling code goes here.
End Function
End Class

To complete the upgrade

1. Add the EnterpriseServices reference to the project and a corresponding Imports
statement to the class.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

2. Change the class to inherit from the ServicedComponent class.

Inherits ServicedComponent
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 421

3. Delete all COMSVCSLib references from the project.

4. Replace the Visual Basic 6.0 SecurityCallContext object with the .NET
System.EnterpriseServices.SecurityCallContext.
5. Replace the Visual Basic 6.0 GetSecurityCallContext method with the .NET static
method SecurityCallContext.CurrentCall.
System.EnterpriseServices.SecurityCallContext.CurrentCall()

6. Sign the component with a strong name by adding the corresponding

AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file. Generate the key file with
the following command. (For more information about strong names, see the
“Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k MyKey.snk

The following example shows the final code.

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent
Public Function SecurityEnabled(ByVal caller As String) As Boolean

Dim SecContext As System.EnterpriseServices.SecurityCallContext

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler

SecContext =
System.EnterpriseServices.SecurityCallContext.CurrentCall()
SecurityEnabled = SecContext.IsSecurityEnabled
Exit Function

ErrorHandler:
' Error handling code goes here.
End Function
End Class

COM+ Shared Property Manager

The COM+ Shared Property Manager (SPM) can be used to manage shared transient
state for objects. Global variables cannot be used in a distributed environment
because of concurrency and name collision issues. The SPM eliminates name colli-
sions by providing shared property groups, which establish unique namespaces for
the shared properties they contain. It also implements locks and semaphores as
synchronization mechanisms.
On single processor servers with small numbers of clients, the Shared Property
Manager works quite well as a mechanism for storing state. However, it should be
422 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

noted that it does not scale well and applications that expect frequent concurrent
users should instead use a database to store state information.
In Visual Basic 6.0, the classes for implementing SPM-related functionality are the
SharedPropertyManager, SharedPropertyGroup, and SharedProperty classes from
the COM+ Services Type Library. Visual Basic .NET counterparts for these classes
can be clearly identified with the same names, and are included in the
System.EnterpriseServices namespace.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 component uses SPM objects.
Public Function SPMTest(ByVal strGrpName As String, _
ByVal strPrpName As String, ByVal vntPrpValue As String, _
ByRef blnExists As Boolean)

Dim spmMgr As COMSVCSLib.SharedPropertyGroupManager

Dim spmGrp As COMSVCSLib.SharedPropertyGroup
Dim spmPrp As COMSVCSLib.SharedProperty

Set spmMgr = New COMSVCSLib.SharedPropertyGroupManager

Set spmGrp = spmMgr.CreatePropertyGroup(strGrpName, LockSetGet, _
Process, blnExists)
Set spmMgr = Nothing
Set spmPrp = spmGrp.CreateProperty(strPrpName, blnExists)

spmPrp.Value = vntPrpValue
SPMTest = spmPrp.Value

Set spmPrp = Nothing

Set spmGrp = Nothing
End Function

After you upgrade the component, the class contains several statements that need to
be resolved using the Security classes provided by the .NET Framework inside the
System.EnterpriseServices namespace.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Public Function SPMTest(ByVal strGrpName As String, _
ByVal strPrpName As String, ByVal vntPrpValue As String, _
ByRef blnExists As Boolean) As Object

Dim spmMgr As COMSVCSLib.SharedPropertyGroupManager

Dim spmGrp As COMSVCSLib.SharedPropertyGroup
Dim spmPrp As COMSVCSLib.SharedProperty

spmMgr = New COMSVCSLib.SharedPropertyGroupManager

spmGrp = spmMgr.CreatePropertyGroup(strGrpName, _
COMSVCSLib.__MIDL___MIDL_itf_autosvcs_0408_0002.LockSetGet, _
COMSVCSLib.__MIDL___MIDL_itf_autosvcs_0408_0003.Process, _
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 423

blnExists)

' UPGRADE_NOTE: Object spmMgr may not be destroyed until it is

' garbage collected.
spmMgr = Nothing

spmPrp = spmGrp.CreateProperty(strPrpName, blnExists)

spmPrp.Value = vntPrpValue

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of

' object SPMTest
SPMTest = spmPrp.Value

' UPGRADE_NOTE: Object spmPrp may not be destroyed until it is

' garbage collected.
spmPrp = Nothing

' UPGRADE_NOTE: Object spmGrp may not be destroyed until it is

' garbage collected.
spmGrp = Nothing
End Function
End Class

As mentioned earlier, the name of the classes used in the SPM infrastructure are the
same in .NET.

To complete the upgrade
1. Add the EnterpriseServices reference to the project and a corresponding Imports
statement to the class.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

2. Change the class to inherit from the ServicedComponent class.

Inherits ServicedComponent

3. Delete all of the COMSVCSLib references from the project.

4. Replace the Visual Basic 6.0 LockSetGet constant with its .NET equivalent,
PropertyLockMode.SetGet.
System.EnterpriseServices.PropertyLockMode.SetGet

5. Replace the Visual Basic 6 Process constant with its .NET equivalent,
PropertyReleaseMode.Process.
System.EnterpriseServices.PropertyReleaseMode.Process
424 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

6. Sign the component with a strong name by adding the corresponding

AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file. Generate the key file with
the following command. (For more information about strong names, see the
“Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k MyKey.snk

The following example shows the final code.

Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent

Public Function SPMTest(ByVal strGrpName As String, _

ByVal strPrpName As String, ByVal vntPrpValue As String, _
ByRef blnExists As Boolean) As Object

Dim spmMgr As SharedPropertyGroupManager

Dim spmGrp As SharedPropertyGroup
Dim spmPrp As SharedProperty

spmMgr = New SharedPropertyGroupManager

spmGrp = spmMgr.CreatePropertyGroup(strGrpName, _
PropertyLockMode.SetGet, PropertyReleaseMode.Process, _
blnExists)
spmMgr = Nothing
spmPrp = spmGrp.CreateProperty(strPrpName, blnExists)
spmPrp.Value = vntPrpValue

SPMTest = spmPrp.Value

spmPrp = Nothing
spmGrp = Nothing
End Function
End Class

COM+ Object Constructor Strings

COM+ object constructor strings are initialization strings that are administratively
specified for a component. These object constructor strings can be used to write a
single component with a degree of generality that allows it to be later customized
for a particular task; in other words, it allows you to create parameterized object
constructors.
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 425

Visual Basic 6.0 developers can use this COM+ feature by implementing the
IObjectConstruct and IObjectConstructString interfaces. In Visual Basic .NET, the
ServicedComponent class in the System.EnterpriseServices namespace provides the
Construct method, which provides a similar functionality. A Visual Basic .NET class
that supports construction strings must inherit from
System.EnterpriseServices.ServicedComponent. You can emulate the Construct
method from IObjectConstruct by overriding the Construct method from the
ServicedComponent class.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 component implements the IObjectConstruct inter-
face.
Implements COMSVCSLib.IObjectConstruct

Private MyConnString As String

Private Sub IObjectConstruct_Construct(ByVal objConstructor As Object)

Dim cs As COMSVCSLib.IObjectConstructString
Set cs = objConstructor
MyConnString = cs.ConstructString

End Sub

Upgrading this component with the upgrade wizard results in the following Visual
Basic .NET code.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest_
Implements COMSVCSLib.IObjectConstruct

Private MyConnString As String

Private Sub IObjectConstruct_Construct(ByVal objConstructor _

As Object) Implements COMSVCSLib.IObjectConstruct.Construct

Dim cs As COMSVCSLib.IObjectConstructString
cs = objConstructor
MyConnString = cs.ConstructString

End Sub
End Class

To complete the upgrade

1. Add the EnterpriseServices reference to the project and a corresponding Imports
statement to the class.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices
426 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

2. Change the class to inherit from the ServicedComponent class.

Inherits ServicedComponent

3. Sign the component with a strong name by adding the corresponding

AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file. Generate the key file with
the following command. (For more information about strong names, see the
“Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k MyKey.snk

4. Follow either the construct approach or the attribute approach, or both, as ex-
plained in the next section.

Construct Approach
The ServicedComponent class implements the IObjectConstruct interface as a virtual
method. Your derived serviced component can override the Construct method, as
shown in this code example.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent

Private MyConnString As String

Protected Overrides Sub Construct(ByVal objConstructor As String)

MyConnString = objConstructor
End Sub

End Class

If the Enable object construction check box on the component Activation tab is
selected, the Construct method is called after the component’s constructor is called.
This provides the component with the configured construction string.

Attribute Approach
You can also enable construction string support and provide a default construction
string using the ConstructionEnabled attribute.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 427

Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest"), _
ConstructionEnabled(True, [Default]:="My string")> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent

End Class

The ConstructionEnabled attribute has two public properties: Enabled, which

enables construction string support for your serviced component in the Component
Services Explorer after the component is registered, and Default, which provides an
initial string value.

COM+ Transactions
In Visual Basic 6.0, you can use the MTSTransactionMode property to set the trans-
actional behavior of a user class. This property is only used by components that are
running in the Microsoft Transaction Server, and has no effect if the component is
run outside of the MTS.
In Visual Basic .NET, developers can use System.EnterpriseServices namespace to
get transactional functionality for their .NET classes. To be treated as a transactional
class, a Visual Basic .NET class should inherit from ServicedComponent and include
the proper transaction attribute. Transactional Visual Basic 6.0 classes should be
upgraded to serviced components.
The MTSTransactionMode values correspond to the
System.EnterpriseServices.TransactionOption .NET Framework enumeration that
contains the automatic transaction type requested by a COM+ component. The
MTSTransactionMode property can be set to any of the constant values specified in
Table 15.2, which presents the equivalences between both groups of values.
Table 15.2: MTSTransactionMode Value Equivalents in the
System.EnterpriseServices.TransactionOption Namespace
MTSTransactionMode value System.EnterpriseServices.TransactionOption equivalent
NotAnMTSObject (0) Disabled
NoTransactions (1) NotSupported
RequiresTransaction (2) Required
UsesTransaction (3) Supported
RequiresNewTransaction (4) RequiresNew
428 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Use the following information to create a Visual Basic .NET project that references
transactional classes:
● Have transactional classes inherit from ServicedComponent.

● Include transactional attributes in transactional classes.

● Eliminate calls to GetObjectContext; instead use the ContextUtil class.

The Visual Basic 6.0 MTSTransactionMode attribute controls whether transactions

are required for a class. This attribute should be mapped to the corresponding value
from System.EnterpriseServices.TransactionOption.
All COM+ transaction related classes are supported by Visual Basic 6.0, and almost
every class has an equivalent class in the .NET Framework. The only exception is the
ITransaction interface, which does not have a semantic equivalent in Visual Basic
.NET.
Adding transaction support to the simple COM+ server component as described in
the “Using MTS/COM+ in Visual Basic 6.0” section earlier in this chapter results in
the following Visual Basic 6.0 code:
Notice that the MTSTransactionMode property value is set to RequiresTransaction
and that the name of the Server is COMTest.
Private Sub transferfunds(acc1 As String, acc2 As String, _
amount As Long)
On Error GoTo ErrHandler

withdrawFunds acc1, amount

depositFunds acc2, amount
GetObjectContext.SetComplete

Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
GetObjectContext.SetAbort
Err.Raise Err.Number, Err.Source, Err.Description, _
Err.HelpFile, Err.HelpContext
End Sub

Private Sub withdrawFunds(acc As String, amount As Long)

' Perform withdrawal...
End Sub

Private Sub depositFunds(acc As String, amount As Long)

' Perform deposit...
End Sub
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 429

Upgrading this server component with the upgrade wizard results in the following
Visual Basic .NET code.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Public Sub transferfunds(ByRef acc1 As String, _
ByRef acc2 As String, ByRef amount As Integer)
On Error GoTo ErrHandler

withdrawFunds(acc1, amount)
depositFunds(acc2, amount)
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of
' object GetObjectContext.SetComplete.
GetObjectContext.SetComplete()

Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of
' object GetObjectContext.SetAbort.
GetObjectContext.SetAbort()
Err.Raise(Err.Number, Err.Source, Err.Description, _
Err.HelpFile, Err.HelpContext)
End Sub

Private Sub withdrawFunds(ByRef acc As String, _

ByRef amount As Integer)
' Perform withdrawal...
End Sub

Private Sub depositFunds(ByRef acc As String, _

ByRef amount As Integer)
' Perform deposit...
End Sub
End Class

To complete the upgrade

1. Add the EnterpriseServices reference to the project and a corresponding Imports
statement to the class.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

2. Change the class to inherit from the ServicedComponent class.

Inherits ServicedComponent
430 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

3. Use one of the following two approaches to resolve the GetObjectContext

warnings:
a. The first approach is to use the System.EnterpriseServices.ContextUtil class,
which is the .NET Framework equivalent of GetObjectContext. The
ContextUtil class obtains information about the COM+ object context.
ContextUtil.SetComplete()
ContextUtil.SetAbort()

b. The second approach is to use

System.EnterpriseServices.AutoCompleteAttribute. This attribute marks the
attributed method as an AutoComplete object. The transaction automatically
calls SetComplete if the method call returns normally. If the method call
throws an exception, the transaction is aborted.
4. Add the TransactionOption.Supported attribute to the .NET class. You do this
because the Visual Basic 6.0 server component has the MTSTransactionMode
property set to RequiresTransaction.
System.EnterpriseServices.Transaction(TransactionOption.Supported)

5. Sign the component with a strong name by adding the corresponding

AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file. Generate the key file with
the following command. (For more information about strong names, see the
“Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k COMKey.snk

The final Visual Basic .NET code, shown here, lists a solution that uses the
ContextUtil class.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest"), _
System.EnterpriseServices.Transaction(TransactionOption.Supported)> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent

Public Sub transferfunds(ByRef acc1 As String, _

ByRef acc2 As String, ByRef amount As Integer)
On Error GoTo ErrHandler

withdrawFunds(acc1, amount)
depositFunds(acc2, amount)
ContextUtil.SetComplete()
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 431

Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
ContextUtil.SetAbort()
Err.Raise(Err.Number, Err.Source, Err.Description, _
Err.HelpFile, Err.HelpContext)
End Sub

Private Sub withdrawFunds(ByRef acc As String, _

ByRef amount As Integer)
' Perform withdrawal...
End Sub

Private Sub depositFunds(ByRef acc As String, _

ByRef amount As Integer)
' Perform deposit...
End Sub
End Class

The following code example lists a solution that uses the AutoComplete attribute.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest"), _
System.EnterpriseServices.Transaction(TransactionOption.Supported)> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent

<AutoComplete()> Public Sub transferfunds(ByRef acc1 As String, _

ByRef acc2 As String, ByRef amount As Integer)
On Error GoTo ErrHandler

withdrawFunds(acc1, amount)
depositFunds(acc1, amount)

Exit Sub
ErrHandler:
Err.Raise(Err.Number, Err.Source, Err.Description, _
Err.HelpFile, Err.HelpContext)
End Sub

Private Sub withdrawFunds(ByRef acc As String, _

ByRef amount As Integer)
' Perform withdrawal...
End Sub

Private Sub depositFunds(ByRef acc As String, ByRef amount As Integer)

' Perform deposit...
End Sub
End Class
432 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Additional COM+ Functionality

Some features of COM+ in Visual Basic 6.0 are not supported by the upgrade wiz-
ard. When these features are encountered by the upgrade wizard, they are not
automatically upgraded and instead require manual effort to upgrade.
Table 15.3 lists Visual Basic 6.0 COM+ objects that have equivalent objects in Visual
Basic .NET that you can use to upgrade them. Other objects require more extensive
modification than an object replacement.
Table 15.3: Visual Basic .NET Equivalents for Visual Basic 6.0 COM+ Objects
Visual Basic 6.0 object Visual Basic .NET equivalent
Service Configuration: CserviceConfig System.EnterpriseServices.ServiceConfig
Context: IMTxAS System.EnterpriseServices.ContextUtil
Exceptions and Errors: Error_Constants Use these classes from the
System.EnterpriseServices namespace:
RegistrationErrorInfo
RegistrationException
ServicedComponentException
COM+ Application Types: System.Runtime.InteropServices.IMoniker
tagCOMPLUS_APPTYPE

Table 15.4 provides pointers on where to find information about how to upgrade
these objects.
Table 15.4: Pointers to Information for Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 COM+ Objects
To upgrade these Visual Basic 6.0 objects: See the following sections in this chapter:
COM+ Events: COMEvents, “COM+ Events” later in this chapter.
ComServiceEvents,
COMSVCSEVENTINFO,
ComSystemAppEventData,
IEventServerTrace, IMtsEventInfo,
CoMTSLocator, MtsGrp
Compensating Resource Manager (CRM): “COM+ Compensating Resource Manager”
ICrmFormatLogRecords, earlier in this chapter
ICrmMonitorLogRecords,
CRMRecoveryC!lerk
Security: IsecurityProperty, “COM+ Application Security” earlier in this
SecurityCertificate, SecurityIdentity, chapter and “COM+ Security” following this
SecurityProperty section.
SOAP: SoapMoniker “Using SOAP Services” earlier in this chapter.
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 433

To upgrade these Visual Basic 6.0 objects: See the following sections in this chapter:
Transactions: TransactionContext, “Context Components” later in this chapter
TransactionContextEx
MSMQ: MessageMover “Message Queuing and Queued Components”
later in this chapter
Pooling: PoolMgr “COM+ Object Pooling” earlier in this chapter

COM+ Security
COM+ provides several security features that you can use to help protect COM+
applications. The following Visual Basic 6.0 component uses the SecurityCallContext
and SecurityIdentity objects to obtain information about the direct component caller.
The method GetSecurityCallContext returns the current security context that is used
to obtain the direct caller.
Public Function DirectCallerInfo() As String
Dim ctx As SecurityCallContext
Dim idx As SecurityIdentity
Dim AccName, AuServ, ImpL, AuLev As String

Set ctx = GetSecurityCallContext

Set idx = ctx.Item("DirectCaller")

AccName = "Account Name: " & idx("AccountName") & " — "

AuServ = "Authentication Service: " & CLng(idx("AuthenticationService")) & _
" -- "
ImpL = "Impersonation Level: " & CLng(idx("ImpersonationLevel")) & " — "
AuLev = "Authentication Level: " & CLng(idx("AuthenticationLevel"))

DirectCallerInfo = AccName & AuServ & ImpL & AuLev

End Function

The upgraded Visual Basic .NET code has several warnings and references to the
COMSVCSLib library. You must resolve these issues to obtain a functional .NET
assembly that can be exported as a COM+ application.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> Public Class
COMTest
Public Function DirectCallerInfo() As String
Dim ctx As COMSVCSLib.SecurityCallContext
Dim idx As COMSVCSLib.SecurityIdentity
Dim AuServ, AccName, ImpL As Object
Dim AuLev As String
434 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

ctx = _
COMSVCSLibGetSecurityCallContextAppObject_definst.GetSecurityCallContext
idx = ctx.Item("DirectCaller")

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object idx().

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object AccName.
AccName = "Account Name: " & idx("AccountName") & " — "
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object idx().
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object AuServ.
AuServ = "Authentication Service: " & CInt(idx("AuthenticationService")) &
_
" — "
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object idx().
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object ImpL.
ImpL = "Impersonation Level: " & CInt(idx("ImpersonationLevel")) & " — "
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object idx().
AuLev = "Authentication Level: " & CInt(idx("AuthenticationLevel"))

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object ImpL.

' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object AuServ.
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object AccName.
DirectCallerInfo = AccName & AuServ & ImpL & AuLev
End Function
End Class

To create a functionally equivalent component

1. Add the EnterpriseServices reference to the project and a corresponding Imports
statement to the class.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

2. Change the class to inherit from the ServicedComponent class.

Inherits ServicedComponent

3. Sign the component with a strong name by adding the corresponding

AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file. Generate the key file with
the following command. (For more information about strong names, see the
“Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k MyKey.snk

5. Remove all references to COMSVCSLib. (Because the names of the COMSVCSLib

security classes are the same inside the EnterpriseServices namespace, you do not
need to modify them.)
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 435

6. Use the SecurityCallContext.CurrentCall static method to obtain the current

security context.
System.EnterpriseServices.SecurityCallContext.CurrentCall

7. Use the DirectCaller to return an instance of that object.

SecurityCallContext.DirectCaller

8. Obtain the account name, authentication service, impersonation level, and au-
thentication level values from their respective properties inside the
SecurityIdentity class.
SecurityIdentity.AccountName
SecurityIdentity.AuthenticationService
SecurityIdentity.ImpersonationLevel
SecurityIdentity.AuthenticationLevel

After applying these steps to the example, the code should appear similar to the
following.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent
Public Function DirectCallerInfo() As String
Dim ctx As SecurityCallContext
Dim idx As SecurityIdentity
Dim AuServ, AccName, ImpL, AuLev As String

ctx = SecurityCallContext.CurrentCall
idx = ctx.DirectCaller

AccName = "Account Name: " & idx.AccountName & " — "

AuServ = "Authentication Service: " & idx.AuthenticationService.ToString()
_
& " — "
ImpL = "Impersonation Level: " & idx.ImpersonationLevel.ToString & " — "
AuLev = "Authentication Level: " & idx.AuthenticationLevel.ToString

DirectCallerInfo = AccName & AuServ & ImpL & AuLev

End Function
End Class
436 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Context Components
This section explains the transaction context object, and how to upgrade the Commit
and Abort methods to use in Visual Basic .NET.
This Visual Basic 6.0 component uses the TransactionContext object to create an
instance of the .NET security component whose upgrade was discussed in the
previous section, “COM+ Security.” If no errors occur during the transaction, the
changes will be committed. Otherwise, the transaction will be aborted.
Public Function TestTC() As String
Dim ctx As TransactionContext
Dim Com As Object
Dim str As String

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler

Set ctx = New TransactionContext

Set Com = ctx.CreateInstance("COMTest_NET.COMTest")
str = Com.DirectCallerInfo
ctx.Commit
TestTC = str
Exit Function

ErrorHandler:
ctx.Abort
End Function

Using the upgrade wizard to upgrade this server component results in the following
Visual Basic .NET code.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> Public Class
COMTest
Public Function TestTC() As String
Dim ctx As COMSVCSLib.TransactionContext
Dim Com As Object
' UPGRADE_NOTE: str was upgraded to str_Renamed.
Dim str_Renamed As String

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler

ctx = New COMSVCSLib.TransactionContext

Com = ctx.CreateInstance("COMTest_NET.COMTest")
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object
' Com.DirectCallerInfo.
str_Renamed = Com.DirectCallerInfo
ctx.Commit()
TestTC = str_Renamed
Exit Function
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 437

ErrorHandler:
ctx.Abort()
End Function
End Class

To complete the upgrade

1. Add the EnterpriseServices reference to the project and a corresponding Imports
statement to the class.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

2. Change the class to inherit from the ServicedComponent class.

Inherits ServicedComponent

3. Sign the component with a strong name by adding the corresponding

AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file. Generate the key file with
the following command. (For more information about strong names, see the
“Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k MyKey.snk

5. Remove all references to COMSVCSLib.

6. Remove the following statements.

Dim ctx As COMSVCSLib.TransactionContext

ctx = New COMSVCSLib.TransactionContext

7. Use the CreateObject method to instantiate the Visual Basic 6.0 Security compo-
nent that was created in the previous section, “COM+ Security.”
CreateObject("Test.COMTest")

8. Replace the TransactionContext Commit and Abort methods with the

System.EnterpriseServices.ContextUtil SetComplete and SetAbort methods
respectively.
ContextUtil.SetComplete()
ContextUtil.SetAbort()

The final Visual Basic .NET code is shown here.

Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

Imports System.EnterpriseServices
438 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("COMTest_NET.COMTest")> _
Public Class COMTest
Inherits ServicedComponent

Public Function TestTC() As String

Dim Com As Object
Dim str_Renamed As String

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler

Com = CreateObject("Test.COMTest")
str_Renamed = Com.DirectCallerInfo
ContextUtil.SetComplete()
TestTC = str_Renamed
Exit Function

ErrorHandler:
ContextUtil.SetAbort()
End Function
End Class

COM+ Events
The COM+ event system introduces Visual Basic programmers to the concept of a
loosely coupled event (LCE) system in which event consumers (called subscribers)
do not have to declare a variable against the event provider (called a publisher).
Instead, the subscriber and publisher both rely on an interface definition in the form
of a COM+ event class.
Figure 15.1 illustrates a COM+ event system concept.

COM+ Event System Subscriber

Publisher Event Class Subscriber

Subscriber

Figure 15.1
COM+ event system conceptual diagram
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 439

As event classes define the interface that the publisher calls and the subscriber
implements they form the primary mechanism for decoupling the event. You must
install the event component inside the Component Services dialog box by selecting
the Install new event class(es) option.
After you install the event class, you must create a subscriber to receive the new
event and implement the interface defined by the event class.
The publisher (the object that performs the event publication) can be a standard
module, dynamic link library, or a regular COM+ application, which is a COM+
application that you create by selecting the Install new class(es) option inside the
Component Service dialog box. The user application in the client tier is the sub-
scriber that will capture the event later.
The following scenario illustrates the upgrade process of a Visual Basic 6.0 COM+
event.

The Event Component

You define an event class in Visual Basic as you would any other interface: simply
define the function signature for the events you want to raise. In fact, event classes
are nothing more than interfaces built into an abstract class. The module must
contain a reference to COM+ Services Type Library, as shown in this code example.
Public Sub ContactInfoUpdated(name As String)
End Sub

The Event Publisher

Creating a publisher is also a simple process. To raise an event, the publisher creates
an instance of the event class and calls the exposed method. You must add to the
project references to EventComponent and the COM+ Services Type Library. You
must also be sure the publisher is hosted inside the COM+ catalog as a COM+
application.
Public Sub UpdateContact(name As String)
' Update ContactInfo
' ...

Dim e As EventComponent.EventClass
Set e = CreateObject("EventComponent.EventClass")
e.ContactInfoUpdated (name)
End Sub
440 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The Event Subscriber and Test

After the event class is installed, you must create a subscriber to receive the new
event and implement the interface defined by the event class. In this implementa-
tion, the subscriber defines the actions for the event.
In addition to the subscriber, the following code contains statements to test the
event. The project must be an EXE application with two buttons.

To make the project and EXE application with two buttons
1. Use the following code to subscribe to the event.
Private Sub Command2_Click()
Subscribe
End Sub

2. Use the following code to test the event.

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Update "joe"
End Sub

3. Use the following code to add to the project references to EventComponent,

PublisherComponent, COM+ Services Type Library, and COM+ Admin Type
Library.
Implements EventComponent.EventClass

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Update "joe"
End Sub

Private Sub Command2_Click()

Subscribe
End Sub

Public Sub Update(name As String)

Dim COM As Object
Set COM = CreateObject("PublisherComponent.Publisher")
COM.UpdateContact (name)
End Sub

Public Sub Subscribe()

Dim subscriptions As ICatalogCollection
Dim s As ICatalogObject
Dim comAdm As COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog

Set comAdm = New COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog

Set subscriptions = comAdm.GetCollection("TransientSubscriptions")
Set s = subscriptions.Add
' For illustrative purposes the CLSID value is hard coded in this example.
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 441

' This CLSID value is generated when the library that contains the Event
' class is registered. After the value is generated it can be read
' from the registry.
s.Value("EventCLSID") = "{2D080D19-C950-4B0A-9009-67C30CF5DCEA}"
s.Value("Name") = "Form subscription"
s.Value("SubscriberInterface") = Me
subscriptions.SaveChanges
End Sub

Private Sub EventClass_ContactInfoUpdated(name As String)

MsgBox name
End Sub

Upgrading each module with the upgrade wizard results in the following Visual
Basic .NET code.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("EventClass_NET.EventClass")> Public Class
EventClass
Public Sub ContactInfoUpdated(ByRef name As String)
End Sub
End Class

The code for the event publisher is shown here.

Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId("Business_NET.Business")> Public Class _
Business
Public Sub UpdateContact(ByRef name As String)
Dim EventComponent As Object
' Update ContactInfo
' ...

Dim e As EventComponent.EventClass
e = CreateObject("EventComponent.EventClass")
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object
' e.ContactInfoUpdated. Click for more: 'ms-
' help://MS.VSCC.2003/commoner/redir/redirect.htm?keyword="vbup1037"'
e.ContactInfoUpdated(name)
End Sub
End Class

Finally, the code for the event subscriber and test is shown here.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

Friend Class Form1

Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
442 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Implements EventComponent.EventClass
#Region "Windows Form Designer generated code "
...
#End Region
#Region "Upgrade Support "
...
#End Region

Private Sub Command1_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, ByVal eventArgs

_
As System.EventArgs) Handles Command1.Click
Update_Renamed("joe")
End Sub

' UPGRADE_NOTE: Update was upgraded to Update_Renamed.

' UPGRADE_NOTE: name was upgraded to name_Renamed.
Public Sub Update_Renamed(ByRef name_Renamed As String)
Dim COM As Object

COM = CreateObject("BusinessComponent.Business")
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object
' COM.UpdateContact.
COM.UpdateContact(name_Renamed)

End Sub

Public Sub Subscribe()

Dim subscriptions As COMAdmin.ICatalogCollection
Dim s As COMAdmin.ICatalogObject
Dim comAdm As COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog

comAdm = New COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog

subscriptions = comAdm.GetCollection("TransientSubscriptions")
s = subscriptions.Add
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object s.Value().
' For illustrative purposes the CLSID value is hardcoded in
' this example.
' This CLSID value is generated when the library that contains the Event
' class is registered. After the value is generated it can be read
' from the registry.
s.Value("EventCLSID") = "{2D080D19-C950-4B0A-9009-67C30CF5DCEA}"
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object s.Value().
s.Value("Name") = "Form subscription"
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Could not resolve default property of object s.Value().
s.Value("SubscriberInterface") = Me
subscriptions.SaveChanges()

End Sub

Private Sub Command2_Click(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, ByVal eventArgs

_
As System.EventArgs) Handles Command2.Click
Subscribe()
End Sub
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 443

' UPGRADE_NOTE: name was upgraded to name_Renamed.

Private Sub EventClass_ContactInfoUpdated(ByRef name_Renamed As String) _
Implements EventComponent.EventClass.ContactInfoUpdated
MsgBox(name_Renamed)
End Sub
End Class

You must modify every upgraded project to achieve the functionality of the Visual
Basic 6.0 COM+ event. For the following components, this includes changing some
names to ensure a better explanation of building COM+ events in .NET.

Event Interface
The Event Component, which is a Class Library, defines the event interface infra-
structure. For this particular component you do not need to extend the
ServicedComponent class, but it is necessary to add a strong name to the assembly.

To add a strong name to the assembly
1. Use the Strong Name tool (Sn.exe) to create a key pair file for the component. (For
more information about strong names, see the “Using COM+ in Visual Basic
.NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k MyKey.snk

2. Add the AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file to link the server
component with the key pair file.
<Assembly: AssemblyKeyFile("MyKey.snk")>

The following code example shows an event component.

Public Interface IEvent
Sub ContactInfoUpdated(ByVal name As String)
End Interface

Event Class
The next step is to create an event class that implements the previous interface as
detailed in the following procedure.

To create an event class
1. Add a reference to the event interface.
2. Implement the interface.
3. Add the EnterpriseServices reference to the project and a corresponding Imports
statement to the class.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices
444 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

4. Change the class to inherit from the ServicedComponent class.

Inherits ServicedComponent

5. Sign the component with a strong name by adding the corresponding

AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file. Generate the key file with
the following command. (For more information about strong names, see the
“Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k MyKey.snk

7. Add the EventClass attribute to the class. This attribute marks the attributed class
as an event class. Notice that method calls on an event class are never delivered
to the implementation; instead, they are delivered to event subscribers.
8. Add the EventTrackingEnabled attribute to the class. This attribute enables event
tracking for a component.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<EventClass(), EventTrackingEnabled()> _
Public Class COMEventClass
Inherits ServicedComponent
Implements EventInterface.IEvent

Public Sub ContactInfoUpdated(ByVal name As String) Implements

EventInterface.IEvent.ContactInfoUpdated
End Sub
End Class

The Publisher
Next, create a publisher component to be hosted by a COM+ application as detailed
in the following procedure.

To create the publisher component that is to be hosted by a COM+ application
1. Add a reference to the event interface.
2. Add the EnterpriseServices reference to the project and a corresponding Imports
statement to the class.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

3. Change the class to inherit from the ServicedComponent class.

Inherits ServicedComponent
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 445

4. Sign the component with a strong name by adding the corresponding

AssemblyKeyFile attribute to the AssemblyInfo.vb file. Generate the key file with
the following command. (For more information about strong names, see the
“Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET” section earlier in this chapter.)
sn -k MyKey.snk

The following code is an example of a Publisher class.

Imports System.EnterpriseServices

Public Class Publisher

Inherits ServicedComponent

Public Sub Update(ByVal name As String)

Dim evt As New EventClass.COMEventClass
evt.ContactInfoUpdated(name)
End Sub
End Class

After the event and the publisher are ready, you must upgrade the subscriber/test
application. It will be a Windows Forms application with the same two buttons as
the Visual Basic 6.0 application.

To create the application
1. Add a reference to the event interface.
2. Add a reference to the COM+ Admin Type Library.
3. Use the Type.GetTypeFromProgID method to obtain the type of the event class,
and then use the GUID property to obtain the COM.
Type.GetTypeFromProgID().GUID

The statements inside the Subscribe method use COM+ Admin Type Library
objects, so you do not have to make additional changes.
The following code example shows the application code.
Public Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
Implements EventInterface.IEvent

#Region " Windows Form Designer generated code "

...
#End Region

#Region "Upgrade Support "

...
#End Region
446 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Public Sub Update_Renamed(ByRef name_Renamed As String)

Dim COM As Object
COM = CreateObject("PublisherComponent_NET.Publisher")
COM.UpdateContact(name_Renamed)
End Sub

Public Sub Subscribe()

Dim subscriptions As COMAdmin.ICatalogCollection
Dim s As COMAdmin.ICatalogObject
Dim comAdm As COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog

comAdm = New COMAdmin.COMAdminCatalog

subscriptions = comAdm.GetCollection("TransientSubscriptions")
s = subscriptions.Add
s.Value("EventCLSID") = "{" & _
Type.GetTypeFromProgID("EventClass.COMEventClass").GUID.ToString() &
"}"
s.Value("Name") = "Form subscription"
s.Value("SubscriberInterface") = Me
subscriptions.SaveChanges()
End Sub

Public Sub ContactInfoUpdated(ByVal name As String) Implements _

EventInterface.IEvent.ContactInfoUpdated
MsgBox(name)
End Sub

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As _

System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Subscribe()
End Sub

Private Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As _

System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
Update_Renamed("Joe")
End Sub
End Class

Message Queuing and Queued Components

Message Queuing (also known as MSMQ) constitutes a platform that supports
flexible and reliable communication between applications. Different applications can
be integrated by implementing a communication environment where messages can
be sent between applications in networks with varying degrees of reliability. Mes-
sage Queuing enables applications that are running at different times to communi-
cate across heterogeneous networks in a reliable manner, in spite of any unreliable
components in the system.
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 447

A task is invoked asynchronously when it is called without waiting for it to termi-

nate and produce a result. Using this type of execution allows applications to have
better responsiveness and improved usage of the available resources. This mode of
processing can be achieved using COM+ Queued Components or Message Queuing.
Using Message Queuing, an application can place data into a queue, which is a
message store that allows applications to communicate indirectly. Queues will
preserve messages until they are not needed anymore. While the data is in the queue
it can be retrieved by the same application that generated it or by other applications.
Message Queuing queues can receive messages that represent a task to be executed
asynchronously by a server process that retrieved the message.
In an unreliable distributed computing environment, it is quite possible that not all
of the servers involved in a transaction are available at a given time. For example, a
customer purchase order may need to be temporarily saved in a message store while
the necessary remote SQL server becomes available. Message Queuing was designed
and developed with this kind of situation in mind.
Until recently, the primary ways to access the services provided by Message Queu-
ing were through the MSMQ COM API and C API. The COM API is available to
COM clients such as Visual Basic 6.0, but it can also be accessed in Visual Basic .NET
using COM interoperability. However, with the introduction of the .NET Frame-
work, the System.Messaging namespace provides a new and convenient way to
access MSMQ in a managed environment. For more information about the
System.Messaging namespace, see “System.Messaging Namespace” in the .NET
Framework Class Library on MSDN.
Message Queuing supports different types of queues, including:
● Public queues. These queues can be accessed by everyone. Public queues are
usually created and configured by the system administrator.
● Private queues. These queues can be accessed by applications that have data
about the complete path of the queue to be accessed.
● Transactional queues. These queues can be used as the target of transactional
messages. Sending messages as part of a transaction ensures that they are deliv-
ered in order, delivered only once and successfully retrieved from their destina-
tion queue. If one of these conditions is not met, then the transaction will be
incomplete and the .NET Framework MessageQueueTransaction.Abort method
will be called to rollback the entire transaction. Transactional queues can be used
in conjunction with Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) to make messages part of
the MTS transaction. For more information about using transactional queues in
.NET, see “MessageQueue.Transactional Property” in the .NET Framework Class
Library on MSDN.
448 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The System.Messaging namespace provides a group of classes that allow a devel-

oper to access most of the functionality offered by Message Queuing. Table 15.5
offers suggestions for upgrading the different classes available in the MSMQ COM
API:
Table 15.5: How to Upgrade Message Queuing COM API Classes in Visual Basic .NET
MSMQ COM API Class Suggested Upgrade
MSMQApplication No equivalent is available; it requires
Implements the Message Queuing reimplementation.
application object. Provides global
functionality.
MSMQCoordinatedTransactionDispenser No equivalent is available; it requires
Implements the DTC transaction dispenser. reimplementation.
Supports creating new DTC transactions.
MSMQDestination The destination of a message is indicated by a
Describes a Message Queuing destination. System.Messaging.MessageQueue object itself,
whose Send method no longer receives a
destination object. The Send method is now
part of the message queue as opposed to the
MSMQ COM API which defined that method in
the MSMQMessage class.
MSMQEvent The System.Messaging.MessageQueue.Peek
Describes outgoing asynchronous events. Completed event can be used to get
Used for notification of asynchronous notifications of asynchronous message
message arrival. arrivals.
MSMQManagementEncapsulates common administrative functionalities for outgoing and target
queues. No equivalent is available; it requires
reimplementation.
MSMQMessageDescribes a message. System.Messaging.Message
MSMQOutgoingQueueManagement No equivalent is available; it requires
Encapsulates administrative functionalities reimplementation.
for outgoing queues.
MSMQQuery Query criteria is specified with
Provides Message Queuing lookup facilities System.Messaging.MessageQueueCriteria.
that are used to locate public queues. The query is executed with the
System.Messaging.MessageQueue.
GetPublicQueues method.
MSMQQueue It is a subset of
Describes an open queue that supports System.Messaging.MessageQueue.
message retrieval.
MSMQQueueInfo It is a subset of System.Messaging.
Describes a queue. Used to create, MessageQueue.
delete, and open queues.
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 449

MSMQ COM API Class Suggested Upgrade

MSMQQueueInfos System.Messaging.MessageQueueEnumerator
Describes the collection of queues produced
by MSMQQuery.LookupQueue.
MSMQQueueManagement No equivalent is available; it requires
Encapsulates administrative functionalities reimplementation.
for target queues.
MSMQTransaction System.Messaging.MessageQueueTransaction
Implements the Message Queuing
transaction object.
MSMQTransactionDispenser A new transaction is created with the
Implements the Message Queuing constructor
transaction dispenser. System.Messaging.MessageQueueTransaction.
New. Transaction objects are then used as
parameters in MessageQueue.Send and
MessageQueue.Receive.

The following example shows the Visual Basic 6.0 source code for message sender
and message receiver procedures that use a public Message Queuing queue as the
communication medium.
Private Sub Send_Click()
Dim dest As New MSMQDestination
Dim msg As New MSMQMessage
dest.ADsPath = _
"LDAP://CN=MSMQTest,CN=msmq,CN=MyComputer,CN=Computers,DC=MyDomain,DC=com"
dest.Open

msg.Body = "This is a test"

msg.Send dest
End Sub

Private Sub Receive_Click()

Dim QueueQuery As New MSMQQuery
Dim QueueCollection As New MSMQQueueInfos
Dim QueueInfo As New MSMQQueueInfo
Dim MsgQueue As New MSMQQueue
Dim msg As New MSMQMessage

Set QueueCollection = QueueQuery.LookupQueue(, , "MSMQTest")

QueueCollection.Reset
Set QueueInfo = QueueCollection.Next()
Set MsgQueue = QueueInfo.Open(MQ_RECEIVE_ACCESS, MQ_DENY_NONE)
Set msg = MsgQueue.Receive()
MsgBox "Received message: " & msg.Body
End Sub
450 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Notice the different parts that are included in the path string (ADsPath) that is used
in the Send_Click event handler. The arguments specified are the public queue name
(MSMQTest), Message Queuing provider (msmq), the server name (MyComputer),
an indicator that the path refers to a message queue (Computers), and the domain
name (MyDomain). The above example uses a public queue that was created by a
system administrator using the Computer Management configuration application.
The steps for creating a queue are in the next section.

Note: You must have Message Queuing installed on your computer to do this procedure. For
more information about installing Message Queuing, see “How to Install MSMQ 2.0 to Enable
Queued Components” on MSDN.

To create a public queue

1. On the Windows taskbar, click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. In Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools.
3. Double-click Computer Management.
4. Click the Services and Applications folder.
5. Double-click the Message Queuing folder.
6. Right-click the Public Queues folder, and then click New\Public Queue.
7. In the New Object window, type MSMQTest in the Queue name box, and then
click OK.
You can manually upgrade this code sample to the following Visual Basic .NET
code.
Private Sub Send_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
_
Handles Send.Click

Dim msgQueue As MessageQueue

Dim msg As New Messaging.Message
msgQueue = New MessageQueue(".\MSMQTest")
msg.Formatter = New XmlMessageFormatter
msg.Body = "This is a test"
msgQueue.Send(msg)
End Sub

Private Sub Receive_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _

ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Receive.Click

Dim msgQueue As MessageQueue

Dim msg As Messaging.Message
Dim types(0) As String
msgQueue = New MessageQueue(".\MSMQTest")
msg = msgQueue.Receive()
types(0) = "System.String"
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 451

msg.Formatter = New XmlMessageFormatter(types)

MessageBox.Show("Received message: " & msg.Body)
End Sub

Notice how the message queue is identified using a different format, .\MSMQTest.
This specifies a public message that is located on the current computer. The new
format is MachineName\QueueName. For more information about the
MessageQueue class, see “MessageQueue Class” in the .NET Framework Class
Library on MSDN. Another important difference is the use of the Message.Formatter
property that indicates the formatter used to serialize an object into — or de-serial-
ize an object from — the message body. This formatter introduces differences in the
message content with respect to the messages sent from Visual Basic 6.0. Messages
sent from Visual Basic .NET can be received by a Visual Basic 6.0 application but
additional work is necessary to read the contents of the message. The Visual Basic
6.0 application has to parse the internal XML format to obtain the information
originally sent in the message. Additional work is also necessary when communicat-
ing in the inverse order. The recommended solution when it is necessary to commu-
nicate between applications written in Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET is to
keep the entire MSMQ communication layer consistent. For example, all of the
application’s communication layer should be written in Visual Basic 6.0 or Visual
Basic .NET. In such cases, it may be necessary to create new communication classes
that will interact locally with components written in other languages.
The COM+ Queued Components service provides an efficient way to invoke and
execute components asynchronously using Message Queuing. Setting up this kind of
processing can be done relatively easily by deriving the asynchronous class from
System.EnterpriseServices.ServicedComponent.
As shown in the following example, the MaxListenerThreads property indicates the
maximum number of concurrent Queued Components listener threads. This ex-
ample shows how to implement a QueuedComp class on the server to display a
message asynchronously. It also shows a client method that invokes the DispMsg
method on the remote Queued Component. The following code example shows how
to do this.
First, the server code is shown here.
Imports System.Reflection
Imports System.EnterpriseServices
Imports System
Namespace QueuedCompDemo
Public Interface IQueuedComp
Sub DispMsg(msg As String)
End Interface
<InterfaceQueuing(Interface := "IQueuedComp")> _
Public Class QueuedComp
Inherits ServicedComponent Implements IQueuedComp
Public Sub DispMsg(msg As String) implements _
452 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

IQueuedComp.DispMsg
MessageBox.Show(msg, "Processing message")
End Sub
End Class
End Namespace

Notice that for the server project, you must include the following lines in the
AssemblyInfo.vb file.
<Assembly: ApplicationName("QueuedCompDemoSvr")>
<Assembly: ApplicationActivation(ActivationOption.Server)>
<Assembly: ApplicationQueuing(Enabled := True, _
QueueListenerEnabled := True)>
<Assembly: AssemblyKeyFile("QueuedCompDemoSvr.snk")>

Next, the client code is shown.

Protected Sub Send_Click(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) _
Handles send.Click
Dim iQc As IQueuedComp = Nothing
Try iQc = CType(Marshal.BindToMoniker( _
"queue:/new: QueuedCompDemo.QueuedComp"), _
IQComponent)
Catch l as Exception
Console.Writeline("Caught Exception: " & l.Message)
End Try
iQc.DispMsg("Message test")
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(iQc)
End Sub

Notice that the server component must be signed with a strong name. For more
information about strong names, see the “Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET”
section earlier in this chapter.

Summary
MTS and COM+ technologies allow you to build distributed applications to meet
your business needs. If you built these applications with Visual Basic 6.0, you can
upgrade them to Visual Basic .NET. To do this, you must consider several variables,
such as COM+ application types, SOAP, COM+ deployment, but by understanding
the upgrade strategies and issues involved, you ensure that the process of upgrad-
ing these important technologies goes smoothly. Applying the techniques presented
in this chapter assists you in upgrading existing Visual Basic 6.0 MTS and COM+
applications to Visual Basic .NET with as little effort as possible.
 Chapter 15: Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications 453

More Information
For more information about the Strong Name tool, see “.NET Framework Tools
Strong Name Tool (Sn.exe)” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cptools/html/
cpgrfstrongnameutilitysnexe.asp.
For more information about the System.Messaging namespace, see “.NET Frame-
work Class Library System.Messaging” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/
frlrfsystemmessaging.asp.
For more information about using transactional queues in .NET, see
“MessageQueue.Transactional Property” in the .NET Framework Class Library on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/
frlrfsystemmessagingmessagequeueclasstransactionaltopic.asp.
For more information about installing Message Queuing, see “How to Install MSMQ
2.0 to Enable Queued Components” on MSDN
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;256096.
For more information about the MessageQueue class, see “MessageQueue Class” in
the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/
frlrfsystemmessagingmessagequeueclasstopic.asp.
16
Application Completion
Before the upgrade process is complete, you may need to revise some aspects of
your application so that end users can use it more easily. These revisions include
reorganizing assemblies to improve deployment, upgrading integrated Help, man-
aging run-time dependencies, and dealing with deployment options. These revisions
cannot be automatically handled; therefore, you must manually make these changes.
This chapter provides the information you need to complete these revisions.

Separating Assemblies
An assembly is the primary building block of a .NET Framework application. It is a
component library that is built, versioned, and deployed as a single implementation
unit. Every assembly contains a manifest, which describes that assembly.
A system architect must carefully plan the application deployment strategy so that it
is both efficient and reliable. The architect must consider different aspects of the
application and target platform, and choose the appropriate execution location for
each assembly. The following sections provide an overview of the available options
and their corresponding advantages and disadvantages. For more information about
assemblies and the features they offer, see the “Native DLLs and Assemblies”
section in Chapter 4, “Common Application Types.”

No Assembly Separation
If an application or component is implemented as a single assembly but the compo-
nents have low cohesion, the development, deployment and support aspects can be
negatively affected. This can result in serious deployment problems if parts of the
application are modified and new versions of those parts need to be installed. Visual
Basic 6.0 supported this type of organization because it allowed the developer to
define only a single user class per file.
456 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Visual Basic .NET supports having more than one class per assembly, which allows
developers to create groups of related classes with high cohesion. This allows
complete groups of functionality to be managed together, which reduces the risk of
breaking an application by having incorrect versions of components.
In contrast, when assemblies are used as containers for only one component or class,
the application requires additional system resources. This is because more compo-
nents results in more assemblies, and each assembly increases the processing
workload for the .NET common language runtime.

Separation by Application Tier

Small and medium-size projects can have components organized into assemblies
that correspond to each of the application tiers. Assembly separation by application
tier is a natural consequence of the physical separation between the different appli-
cation tiers. For information on application tiers see the “Desktop and Web Applica-
tions” section in Chapter 4, “Common Application Types.”
The main reason to further divide a tier among multiple assemblies, which can
correspond to one or more layers, is the size and complexity of the assembly. If an
assembly is large and some of its functionality is rarely used, the assembly can be
divided according to functional layers. You should consider locating the presenta-
tion tier, business logic, and data access layers in the same assembly if doing so will
ease deployment and systems management concerns.

Separation by Functionality
When the complexity of an application increases, you should organize assemblies
into functional groups. For example, the business logic and the data access function-
ality can be grouped into a single assembly that would be shared by multiple appli-
cations (this is simpler than sharing separate tier assemblies). A functional
separation is useful from a design perspective because it allows developers to build
new functionality based on blocks that operate at the same conceptual level as the
new features.

Upgrading Integrated Help

If your Visual Basic 6.0 application includes support for a Help system — for ex-
ample, if it displays Help documents when a user presses the F1 key —then the
Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard cannot upgrade the system automatically. The up-
grade wizard leaves the HelpFile property (used to specify the name and location of
the Help document) and the HelpContextID properties (used to associate a specific
topic in the Help file for each control on your forms) unchanged. In addition, the
upgrade wizard generates a compilation error for each occurrence of these proper-
ties because of changes in the Help system in Visual Basic .NET. For example, in
 Chapter 16: Application Completion 457

Visual Basic .NET Help support is implemented on a per-form basis: it adds one or
more HelpProvider components to a form. If you need to access a specific topic, you
use the HelpKeyword and HelpNavigator properties that are provided for each
form and control in design time or use the SetHelpKeyword and SetShowHelp
methods in run time.
The following Visual Basic 6.0 code contains two TextBox controls. The App object
sets the Help file and Help topics properties for an application are set at run time.

Note: If you plan to test this example, you must have a compiled HTML Help file (.chm) that
contains sections with specific context IDs. In this code sample, the name of the file is
MyHelp.chm. It contains two sections: the Help context ID for the first is 1000 and the context
ID for the second is 1001. You should replace the path for the Help file and the Help context
ID constants as appropriate.

' Actual context numbers from MyHelp.chm.

' Define Help context ID constants
Const HelpUserName = 1000
Const HelpPWD = 1001

Private Sub Form_Load()

App.HelpFile = "C:\MyHelp.chm"

Text1.HelpContextID = HelpUserName
Text2.HelpContextID = HelpPWD
End Sub

If you use the upgrade wizard to upgrade this code, the following code and issues
will result.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On
Friend Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
…
Const HelpUserName As Short = 1000
Const HelpPWD As Short = 1001

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal eventSender As System.Object, _

ByVal eventArgs As System.EventArgs) Handles
MyBase.Load
'UPGRADE_ISSUE: App property App.HelpFile was not upgraded.
App.HelpFile = "C:\MyHelp.chm"

'UPGRADE_ISSUE: TextBox property Text1.HelpContextID was not upgraded.

Text1.HelpContextID = HelpUserName
'UPGRADE_ISSUE: TextBox property Text2.HelpContextID was not upgraded.
Text2.HelpContextID = HelpPWD
End Sub
End Class
458 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Note that the problematic statements are unchanged from the original code. You
must address these compilation errors before you can build the project.

Integrating Help at Run Time

The following procedure allows you to correct the Help errors at run time, and
include Help support in your Visual Basic .NET application.

To integrate Help at run time
1. Add a HelpProvider component to the forms that display Help. This is demon-
strated in Figure 16.1.

Figure 16.1
Adding a HelpProvider component to a form

2. Replace the HelpFile property of the App object with the HelpNamespace
property of the HelpProvider. To do this, replace the following line.
App.HelpFile = "C:\MyHelp.chm"
 Chapter 16: Application Completion 459

Replace the preceding line with the following line.

Me.HelpProvider1.HelpNamespace = "C:\MyHelp.chm"

3. To upgrade the HelpContextID property, you must know how the Help file was
made. In Visual Basic 6.0 you use an associated context number, but in Visual
Basic .NET you must use the name of the document that has the required infor-
mation. The example uses two constants to identify the specific topic that should
display. Therefore, the constant HelpUserName shows the document
UserName.htm, and the constant HelpPWD shows the PWD.htm.
In the upgraded code, change the lines that refer to the constants to refer to the
proper pages. First, change each constant’s type from Short to String, and then
replace the values with the appropriate document name. This is shown in the
following code example.
Const HelpUserName As String = "UserName.htm"
Const HelpPWD As String = "PWD.htm"

4. Replace the HelpContextID property of each object with the SetHelpKeyword,

SetHelpNavigator and SetShowHelp methods of the HelpProvider object you
added in step 1. The following code example shows these changes.
Me.HelpProvider1.SetHelpKeyword(Me.Text1, HelpUserName)
Me.HelpProvider1.SetHelpNavigator(Me.Text1, HelpNavigator.Topic)
Me.HelpProvider1.SetShowHelp(Me.Text1, True)

Me.HelpProvider1.SetHelpKeyword(Me.Text2, HelpPWD)
Me.HelpProvider1.SetHelpNavigator(Me.Text2, HelpNavigator.Topic)
Me.HelpProvider1.SetShowHelp(Me.Text2, True)

After you complete these changes, the new version of your application should
display Help just as the original version did.

Integrating Help at Design Time

There is another technique used to incorporate Help inside a Visual Basic 6.0 appli-
cation. The previous example showed how to integrate Help at run time; however,
you can include a Help file at design time by setting a property in the Visual Basic
6.0 Project Properties dialog box. This is shown in Figure 16.2 on the next page.
460 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 16.2
Specifying a Visual Basic 6.0 project Help file in the Project Properties dialog box

This requires that you modify the control’s HelpConmtextID property inside the
properties window, as shown in Figure 16.3.

Figure 16.3
Setting a HelpContextID for a Visual Basic 6.0 control

This example is based on the previous example, which is a form with two
TextBoxes. To make it run in Visual Basic 6.0, you must add the path of a valid Help
file to the Help File Name property in the Project Properties dialog. Then, set the
HelpContextID property of each TextBox to a valid entry inside the Help file. This
sets the values correctly, just as the preceding example did, where the values were
set at run time.
After you upgrade this example with the Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard, the
application will compile and execute. However, Help will not be available. To make
 Chapter 16: Application Completion 461

Help available in the upgraded application, you must follow a procedure similar to
the one for integrating Help at run time.

To integrate Help at design time
1. Add a HelpProvider component
2. Modify the HelpProvider HelpNamespace property by setting the path to the
Help file, as shown in Figure 16.4.

Figure 16.4
Specifying the path of the HelpProvider.HelpNamespace property

3. Specify the Topic ID as the HelpKeyword and set the HelpNavigator to the Topic
value, as shown in Figure 16.5.

Figure 16.5
Setting the Help properties for a Visual Basic .NET control
462 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The HelpProvider class provides Help for controls by extending their properties to
the following:
● The HelpKeyword property provides the key information to retrieve the Help
associated with this control from the Help file specified by HelpNamespace.
● The HelpNavigator property specifies the Help command to use when retrieving
Help from the Help file for the specified control.
● The HelpString property specifies the string associated with the specified con-
trol.
● The ShowHelp property specifies whether Help is displayed for the specified
control.
For more information, see “HelpProvider Class” in the .NET Framework Class Library
on MSDN.

Upgrading WinHelp to HTML

Visual Basic .NET supports the HTML Help format only. Therefore, if your existing
Help project is based on a Windows Help project (a .hpj file), you must change it
before you upgrade the source code.

To upgrade Windows Help to HTML format
1. Open the HTML Help Workshop tool, which is included as part of Visual Studio
6.0.
2. Create a new project.
3. Select Convert WinHelp project, and then click Next.
4. In the first field, type the name of the Windows Help file that you need to con-
vert.
5. In the next text field, type the name of the folder that will contain the HTML files.
Alternatively, you can click the Browse button to select a folder, and then type a
name for your project.
6. Click the Finish button to begin the conversion. The HTML Help Workshop tool
will convert your WinHelp project (.hpj) file to an HTML Help project (.hhp) file,
the WinHelp topic (.rtf) files to HTML Help topic (.htm, .html) files, the WinHelp
contents (.cnt) files to HTML Help contents (.hhc) files, and the WinHelp index to
an HTML Help index (.hhk) file. In addition, WinHelp art files (.bmp or .wmf
files) will be converted to HTML image files (.gif or .jpeg files) if your target
browser program, such as Internet Explorer 3.0, requires this format, or to .png
image files if your target browser program, such as Internet Explorer 4.0, sup-
ports them.
7. When the conversion process has finished, compile the project by using the
Compile menu option. This will create the Compiled HTML Help (.chm) file.
 Chapter 16: Application Completion 463

Integrating Context-Sensitive Help

You can implement context-sensitive (pop-up) Help in your Visual Basic .NET
application by using the WhatsThisButton and WhatsThisHelp properties of a
form. The What’s This button appears when you set these properties to True and
you set the following properties to the specified values:
● Set the ControlBox property to True.

● Set the BorderStyle property to Fixed Single or Sizable.

● Set the MinButton and MaxButton to False, or set the BorderStyle property to
Fixed Dialog.
The upgrade wizard does not upgrade the WhatsThisButton and WhatsThisHelp
properties; however, the pop-up Help functionality is implemented in Visual Basic
.NET by the HelpButton property of a Windows form. In Visual Basic .NET, the
Help button appears only if the HelpButton property is set to True and both the
MaximizeBox and MinimizeBox properties are set to False.

Run-time Dependencies
Visual Basic 6.0 applications must have a minimum set of files, referred to as boot-
strap files, before they can be installed. In addition, Visual Basic 6.0 applications
require application-specific files, such as an executable file (.exe), data files, ActiveX
controls, and dynamic link library (.dll) files.
There are three main categories of required application files:
● Run-time files. These are files an application must have to work correctly after
installation. All Visual Basic 6.0 applications require these files. The following are
the run-time files for Visual Basic projects: Msvbvm60.dll, Stdole2.tlb,
Oleaut32.dll, Olepro32.dll, Comcat.dll, Asycfilt.dll, and Ctl3d32.dll.
● Setup files. These files are required to set up a standard application on the end
user’s computer. These include the setup executables (Setup.exe and Setup1.exe),
the setup file list (Setup.lst), and the uninstall program (St6unst.exe). For more
information about setup, see the “Upgrading Application Setup” section later in
this chapter.
● Application-specific files. These are files that are specific to your application that
must be present for the application to run. These files include the application
executable file, any data files, and any ActiveX controls used in the application.
These also include other files that your project depends on, such as the library
and other files used by the ActiveX controls that your application contains.
In Visual Basic .NET, applications also have dependencies. The run-time files are
encapsulated in the .NET Framework runtime and Microsoft data access compo-
nents (MDAC). You must make sure that the .NET Framework and MDAC are
installed before your application can run on the target computer.
464 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The setup files and application-specific files are also required in Visual Basic .NET;
however, the setup file list has changed because the creation of deployment projects
is different in Visual Basic .NET. The next section, “Upgrading Application Setup,”
explains these requirements.

Upgrading Application Setup

After you complete the automatic upgrade and manual changes to your projects,
you should consider how you can distribute your new applications. Your old install-
ers will no longer work and you cannot use the Package and Deployment Wizard to
create an installer for your new application. However, Visual Basic .NET provides a
new project type — called Setup and Deployment Projects — that allows you to
create Windows installers or CAB files to distribute your applications.
The process of using the Setup and Deployment Projects option to create installers is
easiest when you have used a Visual Basic 6.0 setup project to create installers
without making any customizations to the resulting installer. For simple projects
that require no customization in deployment, you need only indicate the executable
files and the product name in the deployment project. However, if your original
project’s installer required customization, such as adding additional dialog boxes or
changing standard dialog text, then you will need to perform similar customization
when you use Setup and Deployment Projects.
The following subsections will show you how to use the Setup and Deployment
Projects type in Visual Studio .NET to create an installer for your upgraded applica-
tion, and how to customize the installer if you need to do so.

Creating a New Installer

To create an installer for your project, you need to perform several steps in the
solution where the deployment project will reside. The first step is to add a new
Setup and Deployment project to the application solution.

To add the setup and deployment project to your application
1. Right-click the Solution node of the tree in the Solution Explorer, and then click
Add New Item on the menu.
2. In the Add New Project dialog box, type the name of your setup project. You can
also specify a location where the installer project will reside if you prefer to keep
it separate from the rest of your application. Figure 16.6 shows a typical Add
New Project dialog box.
 Chapter 16: Application Completion 465

Figure 16.6
The Add New Project dialog box

3. Type the project information, and click the OK button. The project will be added
to your solution.
After you add the setup project to your solution, you must associate the projects in
your solution with the installer. This requires that you add your projects to the
application folder as project output. Project output contains the files that your
projects produce when the project is built, and typically consists of executable (.exe)
or library (.dll) files.

To add projects to the setup
1. Use Solution Explorer to go to your setup project.
2. On the Project menu, click Add, and then click Project Output. The Add Project
Output Group dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 16.7 on the next page. The
projects in your solution will appear in the drop-down list at the top of the dialog
box, followed by a list of project output categories that you can add to the in-
staller.
For a typical installation, select the application project from the list, and select
Primary output from the group list. You can also specify the configuration to use
when preparing the installer, such as Debug .NET or Release .NET.
466 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 16.7
The Add Project Output Group dialog box

After you have added all the appropriate project output to your installer project, you
are ready to build a typical application installer.
In the setup project’s File System view, there are three folders: Application Folder,
User’s Desktop, and User’s Programs Menu. The Application Folder specifies the
path on the target computer where the executable files for your application will be
installed. By default, the value for this path is Program
Files\Manufacturer\ProductName where Manufacturer is the company name you
specified when you installed Visual Studio .NET and ProductName is the name that
you used for the setup project.
To change these values, use the DefaultLocation property of the Application Folder
or the Manufacturer and ProductName properties of your setup project. Be sure to
use the same values that your old installer used in these properties to minimize the
impact on your users.
The User’s Desktop folder specifies any files or shortcuts you want placed on the
user’s desktop during installation. The User’s Programs Menu folder specifies the
items to be added to the user’s Programs Menu when the application is installed.
You can now build your setup project, and all files required to distribute your
application will be created. These files are: Setup.exe, Setup.ini, and
ProductName.msi. Setup.exe is a wrapper for the ProductName.msi and the Windows
Installer bootstrapping application, which installs the correct version of Windows
 Chapter 16: Application Completion 467

Installer if it is not already present on the target computer. All files generated by the
setup project are required and must be distributed as a package.

Customizing Your Installer

In most cases, a standard installer with default options is not sufficient to meet the
deployment requirements of an application. You may need to add dialog boxes, text,
Help files, and more, to your setup program. In Visual Basic 6.0, this required you to
either modify the setup script file or modify the Setup1.exe project template used by
the wizard.
In Visual Basic .NET, you can use the project’s properties and the editors provided in
Visual Studio .NET to make these changes. The editors are the following:
● File System Editor. This allows you to specify installation directories and Start
menu and desktop items.
● Registry Editor. This allows you to specify registry keys and values to be added
to the target computer during installation.
● File Types Editor. This allows you to specify the file type associations for the
application on the target computer, as well as the verbs used to identify possible
actions for those file types.
● User Interface Editor. This allows you to add more dialog boxes to your installa-
tion process.
● Custom Actions Editor. This allows you to specify additional actions to be
performed during installation.
● Launch Conditions Editor. This allows you to specify conditions necessary on
the target computer before the installation can begin.
For more information about a particular editor, see “Editors Used in Deployment”
on MSDN.
With the File System Editor, you can manage all reference to files that will reside on
the target computer, set conditions for copying files, create shortcuts to the installed
files, or add files to a specified directory. The paths you specify for these files are
used on the target computer during installation.
The Registry Editor allows you to manipulate specified registry keys on the target
computer during installation. You can also use the Registry Editor to customize your
upgraded application’s installation to match the previous version’s behavior at
installation. For example, if the previous installer adds the product version as a key
in HKLM\Software\Manufacturer\Version during the installation process, then by
using the Registry Editor, you only need to expand the tree until you find the speci-
fied manufacturer. After you have located the manufacturer, you can add a new key
with its name set to Version. You can add a new string value to this key in which
you set the value for the product version. Figure 16.8 on the next page shows how
to do this.
468 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 16.8
Using the Registry Editor to create a version number key in a deployment project

If you added dialogs to your original installer, you should use the User Interface
Editor to add similar dialogs to your new installer. The User Interface Editor pro-
vides a number of predefined user interface dialog boxes that can be displayed
during installation to present or gather additional information.
The available dialog boxes that you can add are the following:
● Checkboxes. These dialog boxes present up to four choices to the user and
returns the values of those choices during installation. For more information, see
“Checkboxes User Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
● Confirm Installation. This dialog box gives the user a chance to cancel installa-
tion or to go back to earlier dialog boxes and make changes before installation
begins. For more information, see “Confirm Installation User Interface Dialog
Box” on MSDN.
● Customer Information. This dialog box prompts the user for information such as
name, company or organization, and product serial number. For more informa-
tion, see “Customer Information User Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
● Finished. This dialog box notifies the user when the installation is complete. For
more information, see “Finished User Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
● Installation Address. This dialog box allows the user to choose a Web location
where application files will be installed. For more information, see “Installation
Address User Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
 Chapter 16: Application Completion 469

● Installation Folder. This dialog box allows the user to choose a folder where
application files will be installed. For more information, see “Installation Folder
User Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
● License Agreement. This dialog box presents a license agreement for the user to
read and acknowledge. For more information, see “License Agreement User
Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
● Progress. This dialog box updates the user about the progress of the installation.
For more information, see “Progress User Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
● RadioButtons. This dialog box presents up to four mutually exclusive choices to
a user and returns the value of the selected choice during installation. For more
information, see “RadioButtons User Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
● Read Me. This dialog box presents additional user information, such as errata
and late-addition notes that a user should be aware of before running the applica-
tion. For more information, see “Read Me User Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
● Register User. This dialog box allows the user to submit registration information
by using an executable file that you supply. For more information, see “Register
User User Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
● Splash. This dialog box presents an image to the user, typically to display a logo
or branding information. For more information, see “Splash User Interface Dialog
Box” on MSDN.
● Textboxes. This dialog box presents up to four text entry fields to a user and
returns the contents of those fields during installation. For more information, see
“Textboxes User Interface Dialog Box” on MSDN.
● Welcome. This dialog box presents introductory text and copyright information
to the user. For more information, see “Welcome User Interface Dialog Box” on
MSDN.

For more information about these dialog boxes, see “Deployment Dialog Boxes” on
MSDN.
For example, if your previous installer included a readme dialog box during the
installation process, and you want to include this behavior in Visual Basic .NET, do
the following:
1. Save the readme content in a file.
2. Use the User Interface Editor to add a readme user interface dialog box to your
project.
3. Set the path of your readme file to the ReadmeFile property of the dialog box.
You can access any of the editors by using the panel at the top of the Solution Ex-
plorer pane, as shown in Figure 16.9 on the next page.
470 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 16.9
Deployment dialog box editors on the Solution Explorer pane

You can further customize your installer by using the setup project’s properties. You
can use the properties to set information such as the author’s name, product name,
manufacturer name, product description, and the version number. An example of
the setup project properties page is shown in Figure 16.10.

Figure 16.10
A typical setup project Properties page
 Chapter 16: Application Completion 471

Merge Modules
Another important step in the creation of your installer is the creation of the merge
modules, which allow you to install components that are shared by multiple appli-
cations, such as the COM projects. A merge module (.msm) is a single package that
includes all files, resources, registry entries, and setup logic to install shared files.
The merge modules are Setup and Deployment project options available in Visual
Studio .NET that you can add to your solution. Anything that can only be used by
a developer, such as .dll files, controls, resources, and components, should be pack-
aged into a merge module. This module can later be included in a Windows Installer
for distribution to the end user.
Although it is possible to put several components in a single merge module, as a
general rule it is best to create a separate merge module for each component to avoid
distributing unnecessary files. Note that if you need to add third-party shared code
that is not distributed in a merge module file to your installer, you must set the
SharedLegacyFile property appropriately.
A typical case where the merge modules are important is when your application
uses COM components created in Visual Basic 6.0 (hybrid applications) because the
deployment of this type of application requires that you include the Visual Basic 6.0
run-time merge module. This merge module is used to automatically install the
Visual Basic 6.0 run-time files if they are not present on the target computer. When
you create a setup project for this type of application, Visual Studio .NET automati-
cally adds any COM components that are referred to as project output. The Win-
dows Installer registers the COM components during the installation. However, the
Visual Basic 6.0 run-time merge module is not added automatically. Therefore, you
must include it manually. The process for doing so is straightforward, as described
in the following procedure.

To manually add a Visual Basic 6.0 merge file
1. In the Solution Explorer, select the Setup project.
2. On the Project menu, select the Add option, followed by the Merge Module
option.
3. In the Add Modules dialog box, search for Visual Basic 6.0 merge module,
Msvbvm6.msm. By default, this module should be installed in the \Program
Files\ Common\Merge Modules directory. If you do not have the file on the
system, you can download it from “Windows Installer Merge Modules” in the
Microsoft Visual Studio Developer Center on MSDN. After you have selected the
file, click the OK button.
There are some cases when Visual Studio .NET will not automatically detect the
dependencies of an unmanaged component (for example, a COM .dll). In these
situations, you must determine the types of dependencies in your project before you
472 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

create the installer. Based on the types of dependencies you identify, you can choose
the proper solution when you create the deployment project.
An example of this type of situation occurs if you refer to a component that may
only be installed as part of another product; for example, the Web Browser control
(Shdocvw.dll), which is installed as a part of Internet Explorer. In this situation, you
must exclude the component from the deployment project. You should add a launch
condition that checks for the component on the target computer and prevents the
installation if the component is not found. The end user must install the product that
provides the component before installing your application.
Another example of this situation is when you add an unmanaged component that
does not expose all of its dependencies, for example, the Microsoft Foundation
Classes (MFC) which does not include localized satellite files as dependencies. In
this situation, you must determine all of the possible dependencies and include
them in the deployment project. You must check the documentation for the compo-
nent or contact the component’s author to get a complete list of dependencies.
For more information about merge modules, see the following MSDN articles:
● “Installer Package Files and Merge Modules”

● “Merge Module Properties”

● “Walkthrough: Creating and Consuming a Merge Module”

Web Deployment
You can deploy ASP.NET applications by using the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
Web Setup project, which allows you to create Windows installers for distribution
through the Web rather than traditional media. Using deployment to install files on
a Web server provides an advantage over simply copying files onto the server
because deployment automatically handles any issues with registration and configu-
ration.
This type of setup project uses the same editors described in the “Customizing Your
Installer” section earlier in this chapter, with minor changes to include the necessary
information about the installation Web site. The editor that has the most changes is
the File System Editor, because it only shows the structure of the Web folder where
your pages will reside and the properties that you can use to modify the attributes of
the target Web site.
The main properties that the File System Editor provides are the following:
● Virtual Directory. This property maintains the name of the target Web site.

● Port. This property specifies the number of the port to which the Web site re-
sponds.
● AllowDirectoryBrowsing. This property specifies whether the target Web direc-
tory can be browsed.
 Chapter 16: Application Completion 473

● ExecutePermissions. This property specifies the execution mode of the target

Web site.
● IsApplication. This property specifies whether it is necessary to create an appli-
cation for the target Web site.
Additionally, Visual Studio .NET automatically adds a Launch Condition to check
the availability of the Internet Information Services in the target computer in the
Launch Conditions Editor.

COM+ Deployment
The Component Services administrative tool can automate many of the COM+
deployment tasks performed by system administrators, such as installing server
applications on staging and production computers, installing application proxies on
client computers, and removing or updating applications.
These are some COM+ application installation tasks you may need to perform using
the Component Services administrative tool:
● Create a new COM+ application. To perform this procedure, you must be a
member of the Administrator role on the target computer’s system application.
● Export COM+ server applications. You can use the Component Services admin-
istrative tool to export a COM+ server application for installation on one or more
other server computers. For example, you can use the Component Services
administrative tool to export a COM+ application from a staging computer, on
which the application was developed and tested, to a production computer at an
individual site.
● Install COM+ server applications. You can install a COM+ application by using
the COM+ Application Install Wizard, or by dragging an application file from
Windows Explorer to the details pane of the Component Services administrative
tool while the COM+ Applications folder of a computer is open.
● Export COM+ application proxies. The COM+ Application Export Wizard will
export a COM+ proxy application. When the proxy is installed on client comput-
ers, client applications can use the proxy information to find a COM+ server
application running on a production computer and access it by using DCOM.
● Install COM+ application proxies. The application proxy is created as a Win-
dows Installer (.msi) file, and can be easily installed on a client computer. Install-
ing the application proxy provides the registration information needed for client
applications to access the COM+ application remotely from the client computer.
● Remove COM+ applications. As existing applications become outdated or are no
longer being used, you may need to remove them. Deleting the application also
deletes any components contained in the application. If these components de-
pend on additional resources (database connections, data or text files, IIS virtual
474 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

root configuration, and so on), these resources must be removed by using tools or
utilities other than the Component Services administrative tool.
● Replicate COM+ applications. You may need to replicate all COM+ applications
and their configurations from one computer (master) to another computer (repli-
cation target). Replication is useful in the following situations:
● Web farm

● Failover cluster

● Staging to production

You can replicate applications manually by repeatedly exporting and then installing
each of the applications on the master computer. However, this procedure is rather
tedious and error-prone, and you might find it simpler to use the replication utility,
comrepl.exe, for COM+ applications. This utility is provided by the Microsoft
Windows 2000 operating system and later. This replication utility copies all the
COM+ applications from a master computer to a target computer, and replicates all
computer-wide COM+ configurations.

Application Proxies
You can use the Component Services administrative tool to easily export a COM+
server application as an application proxy. For COM+ to generate an application
proxy, it is important that all components in the server application were installed
and not imported. This ensures that the application includes all the necessary
registration information.
Application proxies generated by COM+ are Windows Installer installation pack-
ages. After installation, the application proxies appear in Add/Remove Programs in
the Control Panel of the client computer (unless the .msi file is modified by using a
Windows Installer authoring tool).

COM+ Installation Packages

You can use the Component Services administrative tool or the COM+ Administra-
tion Library to create Windows Installer installation packages for COM+ applica-
tions and application proxies, and then use these packages to deploy COM+
applications to server and client computers.
The Component Services administrative tool determines the classes that form the
application to be exported, their attributes, and global-level attributes. The tool uses
this information to generate a single .msi file with the following contents:
● Windows Installer tables with COM registration information

● An .apl file that contains the application’s attributes

● The .dll files and type libraries that describe the interfaces implemented by the
COM+ application’s classes
 Chapter 16: Application Completion 475

Deployment Options
The packaging of components for deployment is an important aspect that you
should consider carefully when you create component-based applications. For
COM+ applications, your deployment strategy should consider the application tier
in which a given distributed component will be deployed and executed. The deci-
sion regarding the type and organization of COM+ components will affect different
aspects of the application, including performance, reliability, and fault tolerance. The
type of COM+ component, that is, whether it is a server or library component,
should be the determining factor when you select a deployment options.
Server components are isolated in their own process. If a server component is
stopped, it will not affect other server applications. In contrast, library components
are loaded in the immediate caller’s process and become interdependent.
The first thing to consider when evaluating deployment options is the performance
of the invocations. Calls between different processes are expensive compared with
calls within the same process. Another aspect to consider is the security verification
performed during component invocations. Security credentials are verified only for
interprocess invocations. Library components use the security level of the host
process.
In general terms, COM+ library applications should contain utilities that are used by
the main COM+ components contained in server applications. In this way, the
volume of interprocess invocations can be controlled.
The main application components should be COM+ server components that call
library components as necessary. The quantity of application components should be
in balance with the maintainability, security, and reliability considerations.
Deployment considerations can affect the architectural decisions for an application
and vice versa. You may need to refine and change the architecture and deployment
options during the life cycle of an application, and you should take this into account
when you select a deployment schema.

Summary
Providing a user with a completely upgraded application requires not only upgrad-
ing the code, but also upgrading the Help and deployment features. It also means
managing deployment features to decrease the likelihood of component version
conflicts that lead to broken applications.
This chapter provided the information necessary to upgrade an application’s Help
system to Visual Basic .NET. It has also shown the various options available for
deploying newly upgraded applications. Applying these procedures and techniques
when upgrading your applications will help you to complete the upgrade process.
476 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

More Information
For more information about dialog boxes, see “Deployment Dialog Boxes” on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vsintro7/html
/vbconDeploymentDialogs.asp.
For more information about the HelpProvider class, see “HelpProvider Class” in the
.NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html
/frlrfsystemwindowsformshelpproviderclasstopic.asp.
For more information about editors, see “Editors Used in Deployment” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vsintro7/html
/vbcontheunifieddeploymenteditor.asp.
To download the Visual Basic 6.0 merge module, see “Windows Installer Merge
Modules” in the Microsoft Visual Studio Developer Center on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/updates/sp/vs6/sp5/mmoverview.asp.
For more information about merge modules, see the following MSDN articles:
● “Installer Package Files and Merge Modules”:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vsinstal/html
/veconinstallerpackagefilesmergepackagefiles.asp.
● “Merge Module Properties”:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vsinstal/html
/veovrmergepackageproperties.asp.
● “Walkthrough: Creating and Consuming a Merge Module”:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vsintro7/html
/vxwlkwalkthroughcreatingconsumingmergemodule.asp.
17
Introduction to Application
Advancement
Upgrading your applications does not have to end with functional equivalence. In
fact, one of the key benefits of upgrading to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET is the
ability to add new features that are difficult, if not impossible, to implement in
earlier versions of Visual Basic. After you move an application to Visual Basic .NET,
you open it up to new possibilities.
Application advancement is the process of adding new features, or improving the
existing features, of an application. It is not always necessary to first upgrade to a
new (or at least later version) language to advance an application, doing so often
helps. Earlier versions of a language or framework may have too many limitations
to enable them to embrace emerging new technologies.
Listing the possibilities for advancing a Visual Basic .NET application and providing
the details on how to accomplish each is a book unto itself. As a result, Chapters 17
(this chapter), 18, 19, and 20 are provided to give you ideas about the kinds of
advancements you can make to your applications and provide you with pointers to
more detailed information if you want to pursue a particular possibility. They
address common advancement scenarios without actually providing all the technical
content. However, the information should provide a roadmap of the aspects of your
application that you can advance.
You will have to decide which areas to advance and by how much. The trick is to
make it a useful and realistic roadmap without it being a list of Visual Studio .NET
or Visual Studio 2005 features. For some types of advancement, it may make sense to
list out pre-requirements and caveats. The information provided in this and the
following chapters should give you what you need to make decisions and determine
courses of action. They will also give you references to the details you need to act on
your decisions.
478 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Target Audience
Application advancement requires the attention of all members of the product team.
Technical decision makers must determine if the benefits of a particular advance-
ment justify the cost of the effort to achieve the advancement. In addition to a
discussion of advancements that can be performed on an application, these chapters
also discuss the advantages of the advancement. With this information, technical
decision makers can weigh the benefit of the advancement to the business against
the cost of performing it, and make an appropriate decision. The information pro-
vided in this part of the guide can also be used to make a business case for perform-
ing the advancement.
Solution architects responsible for the design of components, applications, and
systems will find the discussions of software architecting and refactoring invaluable
to improving their designs. Because these topics are too extensive to be fully dis-
cussed in these chapters, references to additional resources are provided.
Software developers will find introductory discussions of some of the many features
and technologies available in the Microsoft .NET Framework and how they can be
applied to improve the performance and scalability of applications. There are also
references to additional resources for more detailed information about each feature
and technology.

Advancing the Architecture, Design, and Implementation

Even the least ambitious advancement plans will require a new architecture, design,
and implementation. Architecture topics will impact the overall system and what it
depends on. It will also impact relationships to other systems. The design advance-
ments will organize the code and help you determine which portions of your system
can be reused and which must be recreated anew. Implementation advancements
will improve the performance, readability, and maintainability of the code on at a
fine granularity.
This section examines each of these advancement aspects in detail.

Advancing Architecture
The concept of architecture is an old and well-used concept in the software industry.
It plays an important role in programming with new technologies, and architecting
is a key practice when planning to develop scalable applications in the .NET Frame-
work.
There are several opinions of what software architecture is and how it can be used or
implemented. Some people consider it in terms of the highest level breakdown of a
system into parts or a shared understanding of the system design by developers.
 Chapter 17: Introduction to Application Advancement 479

The most popular modern description considers architecture a collection of patterns.

Regardless of your interpretation of the term “architecture,” its role in software
development is very important.
The .NET Framework provides a firm step toward the necessity to focus on architec-
ture. Many portions of the framework have been designed to address specific
patterns of software development. Understanding these patterns and their applica-
tion help to utilize the framework properly and ease design and development cycles.
Object-oriented designs are built around classes. A single class (out of context from
the application) is sometimes meaningless. Design patterns in architecture represent
relationships, and when they are applied to objects, they give meaning to the overall
application and the individual component.
Architecting is a key practice to apply to building complex solutions and enterprise
applications. An application can be looked at as a building; it would be impractical
and flawed to construct a building without architectural designs. Architecture also
helps manage complexity; the larger the building, the more crucial the architecture.
Architecture patterns provide a meaning for the application as a whole, and thus
give us a better understanding of the problem to be solved. Having a plan in place
built on strong architectural patterns provides quicker application development. A
well built application is easier to maintain if it is architected properly, and it is also
easier to extend functionality and implement changes. It is the job of the program-
mer to put together the parts based on known patterns. This opens the role of
architect and programmer to be two distinct functions.
The .NET Framework creates a new focus on architecture. Applications are now
more robust in nature and are built on frameworks that provide an enhanced ap-
proach to development and design. The .NET Framework enables development that
is based on sound principles and methods and easily fits into complex situations
while maintaining a true sense of structure and purpose.
Architecture was seen mostly in the early 1990s when client server applications were
becoming prominent. These applications required much more management in the
design, implementation, and deployment stages than today’s applications.
The new millennium ushered in the new technologies such as .NET. These provided
a rich framework for application development that augmented the Web develop-
ment environment. So, now that these are in place, it is necessary to take a step back
to client/server architecture and move in the right direction for future development
of .NET Framework applications.

Taking Advantage of Object-Oriented Features

Visual Basic .NET is a fully object oriented language that supports most of the
object-oriented features available in other languages such as C++ and C#. These
features include inheritance, polymorphism, and member overloading. This section
480 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

will provide an overview of these features in the Visual Basic .NET language and
some suggestions about their usage. A complete discussion about object-oriented
design and development techniques is beyond the scope of this guide. For more
information, see “Object-Oriented Programming in Visual Basic” on MSDN.
Object-oriented design and programming have been proposed as better ways to
understand and model the world around us and to implement those models. Thus,
they provide more natural representations and improve the quality and maintain-
ability of code. These features include encapsulation, inheritance, and polymor-
phism.

Encapsulation
This feature allows a group of class members to be treated as a single conceptual
unit. It enables developers to hide implementation details while exposing a well
defined set of functionality to clients.

Inheritance
This feature is the ability to create new classes based on previously defined classes
or interfaces. The new class (named the derived class) extends the functionality of the
class it inherits from (named the base class) to solve a more specific problem. The
derived class will have all existing members (including variables, methods, and
properties) of the base class. If an inherited method’s behavior is inadequate or
incorrect for the derived class then the derived class can change the definition of an
inherited method to make it more suitable. The name of this process is overriding.
A classic example of inheritance is a Shape base class with specific shape subclasses
such as Rectangle and Circle. The Shape class might include a method Area to
compute the area of a shape. Each subclass can override the definition of Area as
appropriate for that particular type of shape.
Inheritance is demonstrated in the following example class definitions.
' Base class
Public Class Shape
Public Overridable Function Area() As Double
' Generic shape area code goes here.
End Function
End Class

Public Class Circle ' Derived class

Inherits Shape 'Inheritance

…
Overrides Public Function Area() As Double
' Code to compute the area of a circle goes here.
End Function
End Class
 Chapter 17: Introduction to Application Advancement 481

The preceding class definitions establish the inheritance relationship between the
Shape class and the Circle class. The Overridable keyword in the Shape class defini-
tion indicates that this method can be modified in any class that inherits from Shape.
In this example, the Circle class modifies the Area function as indicated by the use of
the keyword Overrides. Derived classes do not have to override any functionality
provided in the base class if the existing functionality is already sufficient.
Note that the inheritance property is transitive. If class A is the base class of class B,
and class B is the base class of class C, then class C also inherits from class A. In such
a situation, class A is said to be the ancestor class of class C. Objects of class C will
have all the methods and variables of class A and can override any methods of class
A tagged as Overridable.
Inheritance improves application design and allows developers to reuse and adapt
existing code resources.

Interfaces
Interfaces specify the properties, methods, and events that classes must implement.
They allow developers to separate the information that clients need to know (such
as the names, return types, and parameter lists of methods) from the implementa-
tion details. This reduces compatibility risks because enhanced implementations can
be developed for interfaces without jeopardizing existing code.
In Visual Basic 6.0, it is possible to implement existing interfaces, but it is not pos-
sible to define them yourself. The Interface statement has been introduced in Visual
Basic .NET to allow developers to define interfaces as entities that are different from
classes. The Implements keyword is used to implement interfaces in a class. It is
important to note that .NET Framework classes can implement more than one
interface to be applicable in different contexts. It is also important to note that
implementing an interface establishes an inheritance relationship between the
interface (which serves as the base) and the implementing class (which is derived
from the interface).
Interfaces eliminate a possible problem of class inheritance: it eliminates the possi-
bility of breaking code when you make post-implementation changes to your de-
sign. Design decisions need to be made when the class is first published. If there is a
need to change a design assumption, it could be unsafe to change the application’s
code.
The following code example shows a Visual Basic .NET interface that corresponds to
a class used to encrypt files.
Interface ICipher
Sub SetKey(ByVal keyBase As String)
Sub Encrypt(ByVal inputFile As String, ByVal outputFile As String)
Sub Decrypt(ByVal inputFile As String, ByVal outputFile As String)
End Interface
482 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For an example implementation of this class, see the “Using Cryptography” section
in Chapter 20, “Common Technology Scenario Advancements.” For more informa-
tion about interfaces, see “Interfaces in Visual Basic .NET” on MSDN.

Polymorphism
This feature, in conjunction with inheritance, allows a program to invoke the proper
version of a method depending on the object being used to invoke it. Conceptually, a
base class provides some core set of functionality. Derived classes build on this core
set by specializing some of the functionality. A base class reference variable can be
used to refer to any object of the base class or any derived class. When an overrid-
den method is invoked through this reference, the actual method invoked will be
based on the type of the object, not the type of the variable. This is best demon-
strated with an example, as shown here.
Public Function ShowArea(shape as Shape)
Dim msg as String

msg = "Area = " & shape.Area

MsbBox(msg)
End Function

…
Dim s as new Shape()
Dim c as new Circle()
' Shape version of area will be invoked
ShowArea(s)
' Circle version of area will be invoked
ShowArea(c)
…

Polymorphism allows very generic programming. Developers can write solutions

for problems based on what functionality will be provided without having to worry
about how that functionality will be specialized in derived classes. In the preceding
code example, all the developer needs to be aware of is that the Area method exists.
The details of how it is computed for different shapes are unimportant. The runtime
manages which version to invoke based on the object’s type.

Overloading Functionality
A member is overloaded when it is declared more than one time with the same name
but different arguments. This quality allows developers to program functionality in
a generic way. For example, the Encrypt function can be designed to receive differ-
ent data types and return an encrypted value. In this way, the Encrypt function can
be used in all the places that an encrypted variable is required. In Visual Basic 6.0,
you would have to define a function with a different name for each of the expected
data types.
 Chapter 17: Introduction to Application Advancement 483

Overloading, overriding, and shadowing are similar concepts applicable to the

declaration of members with the same name, but there are important differences that
make them appropriate to certain circumstances, such as the following:
● Overloading is applicable when different members have the same name but
accept a different number of arguments or arguments with different data types.
● Overriding is applicable when a member defined in a derived class must accept
the same data type and number of arguments as a member in the ancestor.
● Shadowing is applicable when an inherited member has to be locally replaced.

Visual Inheritance
Another scenario where inheritance has been proven to be especially useful is in
visual form inheritance. This type of inheritance allows you to apply the layout,
controls, and code for existing forms to new forms. Through this type of inheritance,
developers can build standard base forms. These forms can then be inherited by
applications to give them a similar look and feel, but they still give the application
developers freedom to expand on the form by adding new controls or changing a
particular control’s behavior. The result of visual inheritance is that developers can
take existing forms and customize them for new applications, instead of having to
recreate new forms for each application.

Layering Implementation
Layering is a common term used by developers when they try to present their
applications as good n-tier model applications. Developers will often proudly
discuss how an application is being built properly because it is in layers. This is a
good start, but it does not imply a well architected solution.
This subsection discusses layering in detail, including how it can help you prepare
your applications for advancement.
Layers represent a build-up of functionality. The higher layers are dependant on the
lower layers to supply the required information and methods. A single layer repre-
sents a logical group of functionality that is contained in an application tier that
usually corresponds to functionality that is bound to a physical resource such as a
database server. In this way, application tiers are composed of one or more logical
layers that build the functionality provided by the tier. For more information about
application tiers and its classification, see the “Architecture Considerations” section
in Chapter 4, “Common Application Types.”
Development takes several approaches to this, such as the bottom-up and the top-
down approaches. However, these approaches cannot necessarily be applied to all
applications. Every application presents a solution to a specific problem, and what
applies to one application cannot be applied to another. The key is to always observe
484 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

layers as building blocks for higher layers, and to also keep in mind that lower
layers should almost never rely on higher layers for operation.
A group of layers usually present a coherent whole. For example, you may be
familiar with the concept of dividing an application among various tiers that are
composed of groups of layers, such as the presentation tier, the business logic tier,
the data tier, and so on; each tier represents a coherent unit of the application and
serves a single purpose, such as displaying information to the user or representing
business logic.
A disadvantage of layers is that cascading interface changes may lead to more work.
Adding a field to a screen or page may require a change not only in the layers of the
presentation tier, but it may also require a change in the business and data tiers.
An advantage to layers is that substitution is possible. This means that you can pull
out a layer and provide a different layer that adheres to the interface but provides a
completely different level of functionality. This is very helpful for unit tests; it is also
helpful for applications that may require different business logic or database access
but no other changes. Keep in mind that careful layer design is important. Unneces-
sary layers can harm performance.
There are three tiers clearly defined for most business applications. These are:
● The presentation tier. This tier provides the application user interface (UI).

● The domain (business) logic tier. This tier implements the functionality of the
application.
● The data tier. This tier is responsible for storage and retrieval of information to
and from an external database.
There are other architectures with other tiers to consider, but the general outlook of
an application provides these three distinct tiers of separation.
Note that the term n-tier application is one of the most misused terms in the field.
Many people view the layered application as an n-tier application. Actually, the term
is applicable only to applications whose business logic tier is divided in more than
one layer that can run on different computers. In fact, the term “tier” denotes a
physical separation and not a logical separation; the term “layer” denotes a logical
separation.

Design Patterns
Design patterns are recurring solutions to software design problems you find again
and again in real-world application development. Design patterns are about design
and interaction of objects. They are intended to provide a communication platform
centered on elegant, reusable solutions to commonly encountered programming
challenges.
 Chapter 17: Introduction to Application Advancement 485

Use of Frameworks, Libraries, and Application Blocks

Some of the most useful patterns describe frameworks. Such patterns can be viewed
as abstract descriptions of frameworks that facilitate widespread reuse of software
architecture. Similarly, frameworks can be viewed as concrete realizations of pat-
terns that facilitate direct reuse of design and code. One difference between patterns
and frameworks is that patterns are described in a language-independent manner,
whereas frameworks are generally implemented in a particular language. However,
patterns and frameworks are highly synergistic concepts, with neither subordinate
to the other. The next generation of object-oriented frameworks will explicitly
embody many patterns, and patterns will be widely used to document the form and
contents of frameworks.
The introduction and marketing of design patterns have created a small revolution
in software development. Developers are encouraged to abstract their problems and
recognize when a problem fits into one of the many defined design patterns. By
thinking in terms of common patterns, developers are able to more easily apply
knowledge and implementation experience gained from previous development
efforts. Although thinking in terms of design patterns will not solve all the problems
inherent to software development, it has proven to be a very powerful and effective
way to develop software.
Some patterns are so commonly used, and often in exactly the same way, that they
become more than just patterns. They evolve into common code libraries and are
included in almost every project. This is nothing new: common code libraries have
been around for almost as long as programming has existed. Every programmer has
his or her own library of common code, as does every development team. After you
figure out a good way to perform a common task, it makes sense to formalize it and
put it somewhere where others can use it. That is what Microsoft application blocks
are: code libraries that ease implementation of common tasks. Application blocks are
focused, typically small abstraction layers that ease and standardize implementation
of common tasks.
For example, accessing data is a very common task in today’s applications. There are
many different ways to access data, but over the years developers have learned that
only a few of those ways are effective. The developers of the Data Access Applica-
tion Block (DAAB) recognized the common database access patterns and abstracted
them into a small, consistent interface that takes most of the drudgery out of data-
base access. Compared to the amount of code required to directly access data
through ADO.NET, using the DAAB is almost trivial. Because it is implemented in a
separate class, it is very easy to use unmodified in many different applications.
The following application blocks are currently available for use in .NET:
● Asynchronous Invocation Application Block for .NET:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html
/PAIBlock.asp
486 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Caching Application Block:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/
CachingBlock.asp
● Configuration Application Block:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/cmab.asp
● Data Access Application Block:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnbda/html/daab-rm.asp
● Exception Management Application Block:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/emab-
rm.asp
● Logging and Instrumentation Application Block:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/
Logging.asp?frame=true
● Security Application Block:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/
security1.asp
● Smart Client Offline Application Block:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/offline.asp
● Updater Application Block – Version 2.0:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/updater.asp
● User Interface Process (UIP) Application Block – Version 2.0:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/uipab.asp
● User Interface Process Application Block for .NET:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/uip.asp
All of these application blocks are supplied with source code and examples, and all
are free to download and use.
For more information about application blocks, see the “Using Visual Basic .NET
Application Blocks” section in Appendix B, “Application Blocks, Frameworks, and
Other Developer Aids.”

Refactoring to Patterns
Refactoring is an iterative process whose goal is to transform existing applications
according to modern software engineering quality criteria. When refactoring is
applied to an application, the characteristics of the application are improved in
terms of clarity, maintainability, and redundancy reduction, amongst others.
Refactoring may involve small changes, such as changing variable or subroutine
names, or it may require large changes, such as consolidating functionality into a
single component or breaking apart an existing component into multiple compo-
nents that more logically isolate functionality.
 Chapter 17: Introduction to Application Advancement 487

The best approach to refactoring is to attempt to do so in small steps. This will help
to ensure that the refactoring process does not introduce defects. Smaller refactoring
processes, such as identifying poor variable names, may take only minutes. Larger
refactoring processes, such as identifying functionality that can be consolidated (or
separated) can take hours, days, or even weeks. However, even for extensive or
intensive refactoring, it is still best to proceed in small steps.
There are several reasons to apply refactoring; the following motivations are among
the most common:
● To make it easier to modify and add new code. The grouping and separation of
common pieces of code allows for centralization of functionality. If functionality
needs to be changed, it can be done in one single place.
● To improve the design of existing code. Refactoring tends to produce clearer
code and eases the adoption of enterprise development standards. It also allows
the developer to easily develop and test different system models and designs to
identify which one best fits the enterprise needs.
● To gain a better understanding of code. The clarity and organization gain
obtained with refactoring allows the human reader to identify and understand
the key concepts of the functionality.
● Improved growth and integration capabilities. The code can grow in an orga-
nized and systematic way; this allows for the definition of standard interfaces
that ease integration and reusability.
Refactoring to patterns implies the transformation of existing applications according
to software design patterns. A pattern is based on an abstraction of a group of
similar software designs that is further refined and at the end constitutes a model
that contains the most relevant characteristics of the original applications. Patterns
are obtained with a logical inductive process that has been applied to real-life
application designs. Software design patterns are also enriched with good design
principles and standards that will allow the user to obtain a better product when the
pattern is applied.
Patterns can assist users with creating large-scale applications and with resolving
recurring design problems with proven and highly effective guidance. When an
application is refactored according to design patterns, the resulting structure of the
application can be understood as a derivation of the pattern(s) applied; this reduces
the future development and maintenance risks.
Keep in mind that the effort of refactoring existing code to a pattern must be
weighed against the necessity of the code itself. It must be stressed that making an
effort to use patterns will strengthen your overall design ability, but like your basic
coding skills, it is something that is to be learned and cultivated.
For more information about design patterns, see “Microsoft Patterns” on MSDN.
488 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Implementation
Eventually, advancing your application will require implementing the new features
or improvements you have identified. This section discusses some of the implemen-
tation issues in application advancement.

Replacing API Calls with .NET Framework Intrinsic Functions

Because of some limitations in Visual Basic 6.0, many programmers have been forced
to use the different functions that are available in the Windows API. For operations
such as registry manipulation, finding window names, or finding the names of
special folders, Visual Basic 6.0 developers were forced to use the Windows API
because there was no other way to carry out these tasks.
In Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, all the barriers that held back Visual Basic 6.0 devel-
opers and forced them to resort to the Windows API are completely gone. For every
function that accomplished a specific task in the Windows API, there is a way to
achieve the same result in .NET using intrinsic functions.
You can still use Windows API calls by means of using interop services, but your
.NET applications are usually be better off using the functions included in the .NET
Framework. The amount of work required to get your .NET application working
with the same API calls from Visual Basic 6.0 may be more than what you would
expect. Calling these APIs in .NET is not as simple as it is in Visual Basic 6.0, and
there may be some additional overhead making the necessary corrections so that
changes in data types from Visual Basic 6.0 will adhere to the type specifications of
the APIs. Furthermore, by using API calls in your .NET application, you are immedi-
ately limiting your application to be specific to a particular version of the Windows
operating system.
Even though there is no harm in using Windows APIs in Visual Basic .NET, your
code may be more portable and compatible if you replace your API calls by using
.NET intrinsic functions. The end result may be the same, but if you ever need to
move part of your code toward another .NET language or operating environment
you know that you will not be held back by adhering to .NET functions instead of
using the Windows API.
For a complete list of all the Windows API functions and possible replacements for
you to use in .NET, see “Microsoft Win32 to Microsoft .NET Framework API Map”
on MSDN.

Replacing Registry API with .NET Intrinsic Functions

Built-in registry manipulation from within Visual Basic 6.0 has been somewhat
limited to the following four functions: SaveSetting, GetSetting, GetAllSettings,
and DeleteSettings. Although these functions allow registry editing, they are
limited in the subtrees they can access: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB
and VBA. Because of this limitation, many programmers use the Windows API to
perform registry modification tasks from within Visual Basic 6.0.
 Chapter 17: Introduction to Application Advancement 489

Two new classes that offer the same registry manipulation functionality as the
Windows Registry API have been added to the .NET Framework. These classes are
the Registry class and the RegistryKey class; they are located in the
Microsoft.Win32 namespace.

For Visual Basic 2005:

Registry access has been simplified in Visual Studio 2005 with the addition of
the My.Computer.Registry object and the addition of two new methods to the
Microsoft.Win32.Registry object that My.Computer.Registry points to. These
objects provide access to the registry on the local computer. The two new
methods are GetValue() and SetValue(); they allow you to read from and write
to arbitrary keys in the registry without having to first navigate the registry
tree. For more information, see “My. Computer.Registry Object” in the Visual
Basic Language Reference on MSDN.

The Registry class provides the set of standard base keys found in the registry.
Using the Registry class, you can define the root key on which you will be working.
After the base key is defined, you can use the RegistryKey methods to perform the
necessary registry actions.
The RegistryKey class methods provide the means by which to add, delete, or
change subkey values within the registry. There are equivalent .NET registry method
calls for the most common operations performed using the Windows registry API
functions. For example, if you used the RegCreateKey, RegOpenKeyEx, or
RegDeleteKey API calls, you can now use the RegistryKey class methods
CreateSubKey, OpenSubKey, or DeleteSubKey respectively. These .NET methods
offer the same functionality as their API counterparts and are easier to use.
For information about the available properties and methods available in the registry
and RegistryKey classes, their usage, and how to incorporate them into your appli-
cation, see the following resources from the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
● “Registry Class”

● “RegistryKey Class”

By using the Registry and RegistryKey classes, you will be able to manipulate the
registry from within Visual Basic .NET. The end result will be exactly the same as
when using the Windows API registry functions from within Visual Basic 6.0. In
most cases, the necessary code to perform these operations will be smaller and more
understandable than the API counterpart.

Serialization
When coding applications that do not have or need access to a database, there is
frequently a need to store data used in the program for later retrieval. Before .NET,
any attempt to serialize data required custom code. For example, if the programmer
490 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

needed to serialize the information from a class or data structure, a procedure could
have been written that would write each instance of the class/structure to an XML
document. Programming this code usually required a great deal of work and testing
to make sure that the implemented serialization worked correctly. Fortunately,
carrying out this task with .NET does not require writing, testing, or debugging
custom code because it has been carefully planned and is very straightforward to
implement.
Using .NET, there are different serialization schemes that can be used in your appli-
cation. Each technique has its own positive and negative aspects; choosing the
correct technique depends on the requirements that you may have for storing your
data.
The first technique uses classes found in the System.Xml.Serialization namespace,
specifically the XmlSerializer class. Using this class, you can easily serialize and de-
serialize data in your code to XML format. You must first create an XmlSerializer
instance and pass to the constructor the type of the class that you want to serialize.
You can then create an object of type FileStream to store the data and then call the
Serialize method of the XmlSerializer instance that was previously defined. Assum-
ing you already have an Employee class and an instance of the class named
myEmployee, the following code demonstrates how to serialize a class instance.
Imports System.Xml.Serialization
Imports System.IO
…
Dim mySerializer As New XmlSerializer(GetType(Employee))
Dim myData As New FileStream("myData.xml", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write)
mySerializer.Serialize(myData, myEmployee)
…

De-serializing data using the XmlSerializer class is very similar to serializing, except
that you need to assign the retrieved information to an instance of the class of the
same type that you originally serialized. The following code shows the de-serializa-
tion procedure using the XmlSerializer class.
Imports System.Xml.Serialization
Imports System.IO
…
Dim myDeserializer As New XmlSerializer(GetType(Employee))
Dim myData As New FileStream("myData.xml", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read)
Dim myEmployee As New Employee
myEmployee = myDeserializer.Deserialize(myData)
…

If the employee class has any private properties, these would not be serialized into
the XML format. Only public properties are serialized to the XML document; this
type of serialization is referred to as shallow serialization.
 Chapter 17: Introduction to Application Advancement 491

Unlike shallow serialization, the next serialization technique in .NET, binary serial-
ization, allows the storage of both private and public properties. This technique is
found in the System.Runtime.Serialization namespace and requires a bit more
coding than the XMLSerializer method.
The class to be serialized using binary serialization must have the <Serializable()>
attribute declared. This communicates to the serialization object that it can go ahead
and try to serialize the object, as demonstrated in the following code example.
<Serializable()> _
Public Class Employee
Public Name As String
' Other class properties here.
End Class

The class can now use binary serialization in a very similar manner as previously
done with the XmlSerializer class. You need to first declare a BinaryFormatter
object to store the data; then you are able to use a FileStream object and the Serial-
ize method of the BinaryFormatter class to store this information to a file, as shown
here.
Imports System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary
Imports System.IO
…
Dim mySerializer As New BinaryFormatter
Dim myData As New FileStream("myData.bin", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write)
mySerializer.Serialize(myData, myEmployee)
…

The process of deserializing the data using the BinaryFormatter class is very similar
to the XmlSerializer and is left as an exercise for the reader.
The two classes discussed in this section make it very easy for serializing and
deserializing data in .NET applications. The XmlSerializer technique requires less
work, but it is more limited in what it can do. As previously mentioned, it will not
serialize private properties from a class. Furthermore, there are some objects that it
cannot serialize (for example, any class that implements the IDictionary interface). If
you ever run into any limitations using the XmlSerializer class, be sure to check if
the BinaryFormatter will help you overcome these hurdles.

Optimizing Performance with .NET Collections

In the System.Collections namespace, you can find a series of classes and interfaces
that define a series of objects that can be used to implement sets of closely related
objects in your classes. This namespace includes collections that can be used imme-
diately, such as ArrayList, Stack, Hashtable, and Queue, but it also includes inter-
faces such as IEnumerable that allow you to create your own collection classes.
492 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

By having classes implement collections instead of dealing with groups of instances

by means of arrays, you may be saving yourself a lot of trouble in the future. All the
caveats that using arrays usually bring, such as (but not limited to) run-time errors,
invalid indexes, or array length tracking, are no longer concerns when you use
collections. By implementing collections, you are also following good object-ori-
ented practice in the sense that you can easily employ other concepts such as inherit-
ance and polymorphism in the future. Following this approach will also aid you in
avoiding errors in the future by re-utilizing stable code.
The following examples demonstrate how to implement collections using the classes
available in the System.Collections namespace. Assume that you are working on an
inventory for a fish store. Because there would be plenty of fish to keep track off, a
good idea would be to implement a Fish class and then create a Fishes collection
class to keep track of all the different fish that would be available in the store. To
offer this functionality, the Fishes class could inherit from
System.Collections.CollectionBase.
Public Class Fishes
Inherits System.Collections.CollectionBase

It is then necessary to implement the add and remove methods from the
CollectionBase abstract class in addition to the Item property, as shown here.
…
Sub add(ByVal aFish As Fish)
List.Add(aFish)
End Sub

Sub remove(ByVal index As Integer)

If (index > 0 & index < List.Count - 1) Then
List.RemoveAt(index)
End If
End Sub

ReadOnly Property Item(ByVal index As Integer) As Fish

Get
Return List.Item(index)
End Get
End Property
…

After the add and remove methods and the Item property are implemented, the
Fishes class makes it very easy to keep track of the fish by means of adding and
removing elements at certain indexes.
…
Dim gerald As New Fish("Greg", "Guppy", "Orange")
Dim nemo As New Fish("Nemo", "Clown Fish", "Orange/White")
 Chapter 17: Introduction to Application Advancement 493

Dim myFishCollection As New Fishes

myFishCollection.Add(gerald)
myFishCollection.Add(nemo)
myFishCollection.remove(0)
MsgBox(myFishCollection.Item(0).getName)
…

As you can see, the procedure to build a class that can implement a collection is a
simple one. The Fishes class now offers an easy way to add and remove items from
the objects that you want to group together.
If you prefer to not implement a collection in your class, but you are still changing
the sizes of your arrays, you might be better off using the ArrayList class in the
System.Collections namespace. For insertions and deletions of sets of related
objects, arrays do not support directly adding and removing the elements. If you are
inserting or deleting elements at the end of an array, you have to use the Redim
statement to carry out this operation, which usually degrades performance. To insert
or remove elements anywhere else, be sure to use an ArrayList to carry out these
tasks.
One thing to note is that classes such as HashTables or ArrayLists are not type-safe.
Because these objects hold elements of type System.Object, they will accept any
type regardless of what they are currently holding. For example, if you have an
ArrayList that is currently holding Boolean values, the compiler will not identify a
compilation error when you try to add an object of type Integer. This will go unno-
ticed until the application is executed at run time; at run time, it will throw a type-
casting error.

COM Object Creation in Visual Basic .NET

The CreateObject() function in Visual Basic .NET is responsible for creating and
returning an instance of a COM object. This function can only be used with classes
that have been exposed as COM components.
The function has the following usage.
Public Shared Function CreateObject( _
ByVal ProgId As String, _
Optional ByVal ServerName As String = "" _
) As Object

The first parameter, ProgId, is the string representation of the program ID of the
object that you would like to be created. The second optional parameter is the name
of the network server where the object will be created. If an empty string is passed,
the local computer will be used.
When using the CreateObject() function, you should be concerned about the way in
which you are assigning the creation of the object to an instance of a variable. In the
494 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

following example, the cnADO variable will be late bound by the .NET common
language runtime (CLR).
Dim cnADO as Object
Set cnADO = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")

The referenced variable in the first line of the preceding example can point to data of
any type. Although flexible, this has the caveat of compromising performance
because the Object variable will be late bound. After the application is running, the
CLR will have to perform type checking and member lookup at run time. This
clearly has a performance overhead that would not happen if the variable declara-
tion is early bound because the compiler is able to perform the type checking and
member lookup at compile time.
You can add a reference to the type library of the COM class that you are trying to
instantiate instead of relying on late binding. In most cases, the use of the Dim
statement and a primary interop assembly to instantiate the COM class will be more
efficient and will yield code that is easier to read and maintain than code that uses
late binding. The following example shows how to create an instance of a Recordset
without using the CreateObject() method.
Dim cnADO as ADODB.Recordset

If you have to create objects on a remote server, the CreateObject() function will
allow you to do this if you have made your application accessible from the remote
server. This is achieved by passing the server name as the second parameter, and is
demonstrated in the following code example.
Sub CreateRemoteExcelObj()
Dim xlApp As Object
xlApp = CreateObject("Excel.Application", "\\YourServerName")
MsgBox(xlApp.Version)
End Sub

Summary
Taking advantage of the benefits available in Visual Basic .NET and the .NET Frame-
work in general means advancing your upgraded application with new features and
technologies. This chapter has presented some introductory material about how to
advance the architecture, design, and implementation of your applications after you
have upgraded them to Visual Basic .NET.
The possibilities discussed here and in the following chapters are only the begin-
ning. By studying Visual Basic .NET and the .NET Framework in detail, you will
discover even more technologies and features that you can add to your application
 Chapter 17: Introduction to Application Advancement 495

to increase their value to your business for years to come. To start you on your
discovery of these possibilities, the next chapter will introduce advancements for
typical application scenarios. The following chapter will introduce advancements for
Web applications. Finally, a chapter about advancements based on technological
needs, such as security and performance features, will round out this discussion.

More Information
A complete discussion about object-oriented design and development techniques is
beyond the scope of this guide. For more information about object-oriented design,
see “Object-Oriented Programming in Visual Basic” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html
/vbconprogrammingwithobjects.asp.
For more information about interfaces, see “Interfaces in Visual Basic .NET” on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html
/vaconinterfaces.asp.
For more information about design patterns, see “Microsoft Patterns” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpatterns/html
/MSpatterns.asp.
For a complete list of all the Windows API functions and possible replacements for
you to use in .NET, see “Microsoft Win32 to Microsoft .NET Framework API Map”
on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html
/win32map.asp.
For more information on registry objects, see “My.Computer.Registry Object” in the
Visual Basic Language Reference on MSDN:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/sykcb9xf(en-us,vs.80).aspx.
For information about the available properties and methods available in the registry
and RegistryKey classes, their usage, and how to incorporate them into your appli-
cation, see the following resources from the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
● “Registry Class”:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html
/frlrfmicrosoftwin32registryclasstopic.asp.
● “RegistryKey Class”:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html
/frlrfmicrosoftwin32registrykeyclasstopic.asp.
18
Advancements for Common
Application Scenarios
Arguably, the best way to begin a discussion of possible application advancements
is to start by examining typical application scenarios. From this viewpoint, you can
identify advancements based on the type of application you want to advance.
There are many categories of applications possible, and each one has possible
advancement potential. This chapter will focus on only two categories: Windows-
based applications (form-based applications) and business applications (enterprise
services).

Windows Applications and Windows Forms Smart Clients

Smart clients are easily deployed and managed client applications that provide an
adaptive, responsive and rich interactive experience by leveraging local resources
and intelligently connecting to distributed data sources. They are connected systems
(usually through the Internet) that allow the user’s local applications to work
together with remote applications. For example, a smart client running an image
recognition application can communicate with a remote database over the Internet
to collect image patterns from the database to be used in the image recognition
process. The following are characteristics that define smart clients:
● They have the ability to work offline; this means they can work with data even
when they are not connected to the Internet.
● They have the capability to be deployed and updated in real time over the net-
work from a centralized server.
● They support multiple platforms and languages because they are built on Web
services.
● They can run on almost any device that has Internet connectivity, including
desktop computers and portable computers.
498 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Smart clients can be built to take maximum advantage of the features provided by
the host device, and they can be tuned to provide the best user experience for the
typical users of these devices.

Architecture Advancements
Smart clients provide the benefits of a rich client model with thin client manageabil-
ity, but they also provide much more flexibility than traditional rich client applica-
tions. Smart client solutions are composed of functionality from more than one client
application, with each application collaborating with the others to provide user
functionality. Such composite applications integrate client-side software resources
into a consistent solution or extend the functionality of an existing application to
provide smart client features.
The following characteristics serve as a guide to the features provided by smart
clients that are beyond the features provided by traditional rich client applications.
If a client application displays these characteristics, it can be said to be a smart
client:
● Utilizes local resources. A smart client always has code statements on the client
that enable local resources to be utilized. They may take advantage of the local
CPU or GPU, local memory or disk, or any local devices connected to the client,
such as a telephone or bar-code/RFID reader. It may also take advantage of local
software, such as Microsoft Office applications, or any installed applications that
interact with it.
● Connected. Smart clients are never standalone and always form part of a larger
distributed solution. This could mean that the application interacts with a num-
ber of Web services that provide access to data or a line-of-business (LOB) appli-
cation. Very often, the application has access to specific services that help
maintain the application and provide deployment and update services.
● Offline capable. Smart clients work whether or not they are connected to the
Internet. Because they are running on the local computer, this is one of the key
benefits smart clients offer: they can be made to work even when the user is not
connected to the Internet.
Smart clients can take advantage of local caching and processing to enable operation
during periods of unavailable or limited network connectivity. This functionality is
especially valuable considering the cost, latency, and speed of mobile connections.
However, offline capabilities are not only useful in mobile scenarios; desktop solu-
tions can take advantage of offline architecture to update server systems on back-
ground threads. This keeps the user interface responsive and improves the overall
end-user experience. This architecture can also provide cost and performance
benefits because the user interface does not have to be shuttled to the smart client
from a server.
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 499

Because smart clients can exchange only the required data with other systems in the
background, reductions in the volume of data exchanged with other systems are
realized. Even on hard-wired client systems, this bandwidth reduction can realize
huge benefits. This increases the responsiveness of the user interface (UI) because
the UI is not rendered by a remote system.
Intelligent Install and Update
Smart clients manage their deployment and update in a much more intelligent way
than traditional rich client applications. The Microsoft .NET Framework enables
applications to be deployed using a variety of techniques, including simple file copy
or download over HTTP. Applications can be updated while running and they can
be deployed on demand by clicking a URL. The .NET Framework provides a power-
ful security mechanism that guarantees the integrity of the application and its
related assemblies.
Self-Update and ClickOnce
ClickOnce is a new application deployment technology that makes deploying a
Windows Forms application as easy as deploying a Web application. This technol-
ogy is available in the .NET Framework 2.0, which is included in Visual Studio 2005.
With ClickOnce, running a Windows Forms application is as simple as clicking a
link on a Web page. To deploy or update an application, administrators have to only
update files on a server; there is no need to individually touch every client.
ClickOnce applications are fundamentally low impact for the following reasons:
● Applications are completely self-contained and install for each user; this means
that no administrator rights are required.
● A ClickOnce application does not break other applications because it is self-
contained. Nonetheless, if your application does have to do something risky at
install time, for example installing drivers, you should use Microsoft Windows
Installer.
ClickOnce applications can be deployed through Web servers, file servers, DVDs,
and so on. They can also be installed. When they are installed, Start menu and Add/
Remove program entries are created or they run and are stored in cache. Further-
more, ClickOnce has several ways that it can be configured to automatically check
for application updates. Alternatively, applications can use the ClickOnce APIs
(System.Deployment) to control when updates should happen.
Client Device Flexibility
The .NET Framework together with the .NET Compact Framework provides a
common environment on which smart client applications can be built. Often, there
will be multiple versions of smart clients, where each smart client targets a specific
device type and takes advantage of the device’s unique features and provides
functionality that is appropriate to its usage.
500 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Technology Updates
This section describes the technology updates that are provided in Visual Basic .NET
with respect to Windows and smart clients.
Replacing Resize Logic with Docking and Anchoring
Visual Basic 6.0 requires you to write custom code for the Resize event to make sure
that controls are correctly displayed on the resized form. This makes it possible for
any resizable application to retain the original placement of controls on the form
regardless of the size of the form itself. It is expensive to do this because you have to
write custom code for each form. If you have only a few forms, this is not big deal,
but on a larger scale application, this custom code can be very time consuming to
implement.
In Visual Basic .NET, there is no need to write this code because you can accomplish
the same result by working with the Docking and Anchoring properties of the
controls in your forms. This section describes some examples about how to effi-
ciently work with these properties to ensure that your .NET application will display
controls correctly despite the form’s dimensions.
A control’s Anchor property can be modified so that it is dynamically positioned on
screen. When a control is anchored to a form, and the form’s size changes, the
control’s position on the form remains the same relative to the anchor position(s) it
holds. By default, the anchoring property is set to the upper-left, as illustrated in
Figure 18.1.

Figure 18.1
The Anchor property of a button on a form

The dark grey anchors are the ones that are currently set (top, left). To set or unset an
anchor, click the target anchor bar.
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 501

Figure 18.2 illustrates the form with the button anchored in the bottom, right posi-
tion before and after the form is resized.

Figure 18.2
Resizing a form with an anchored button

In Figure 18.2, the form on the left displays the initial form, and the form on the
right displays the resized form. Anchoring causes the button to automatically
maintain a relative position on the form when the form is resized.
When opposing anchoring settings of a control are set, to maintain the same dis-
tances from both borders, the size of the control changes if the height or width of the
container changes. For example, if a button’s top and bottom anchoring attributes
are set and the form’s height is increased, the button’s height also changes. A similar
behavior can be observed if the control’s anchor is set to left and right and the form’s
width changes: the width of the button changes to make sure that the distance from
both borders is preserved. Figure 18.3 demonstrate three buttons with different
anchoring properties and their state after the width and height of the form changes.

Figure 18.3
Opposing anchoring borders

In Figure 18.3, the form on the left illustrates the initial form, and the form on the
right illustrates the form after it is resized.
502 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The Docking property of a control allows the control to adhere to the edge of the
form or the container in which it resides. The docking behavior in some controls has
been available before .NET. In Visual Basic 6.0, the Toolbar control exhibited a
docking behavior by attaching itself to the top edge of the form. In Visual Basic
.NET, you can set the docking property of many controls so that they attach them-
selves to the side of the container when the size of the form changes.
The docking property of a control can be changed to set the adhering properties
when a form is resized. Table 18.1 shows the different docking properties that can be
set on controls.
Table 18.1: Docking Properties
Dock Property Description
Top The control’s top edge is adhered to the top edge of its parent container.
Bottom The control’s bottom edge is adhered to the top edge of its parent container.
Left The control’s left edge is docked to left side of its parent container.
Right The control’s right edge is docked to right side of its parent container.
Fill All of the control’s edges are docked to the edges of its parent; the control
will be resized accordingly.
None The control is not docked.

When you dock a control to the left or right side of the container, the control’s height
will be the same as the height of its container. Likewise, when you dock a container
to the top or bottom edges of the container, its width will be the same as the width
of the container where it resides. When multiple docked controls exist at the same
time, the second control will dock alongside the first. For example, in Figure 18.4,
the button labeled “2-Dock = Right” is docked to the left and adheres itself to the top
edge of the button labeled “1-Dock = Top” because this button’s docking property
was set first.

Figure 18.4
The Docking property applied to buttons on a form
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 503

When two (or more) controls are inside the same container and share the same
docking properties, the way in which they are docked has a special behavior. They
will not be placed on top on each other; instead, they will be placed next to each
other. The container whose dock property was set first will be the one closest to the
edge of its parent container.
Figure 18.5 illustrates some controls with their docking properties set to different
borders on the form. Notice how they retain their docking properties when the form
is resized.

Figure 18.5
Docking applied to a form that is resized

By using the docking and anchoring properties of your controls, you can gain more
control over what goes on when the form (or container) is resized. You do not have
to write code for the placement of your controls when containers change size. The
idea behind anchoring and docking may be a little perplexing at first, but with some
practice and testing, you will see and learn how to best implement these properties
without relying on resize events and custom code.
Intrinsic Controls
Many controls in Visual Basic 6.0 that enhanced the GUI of an application were
available by means of importing ActiveX libraries. For example, if you wanted to
use an ImageList, Treeview, or Toolbar, you could easily do this by adding a refer-
ence to the Microsoft Common Controls .ocx. After this reference is added, the
power of these extremely useful controls was unlocked for you to use in your
application.
Many of these components are automatically upgraded to .NET by the Microsoft
Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard; however, they are not upgraded to their intrinsic
counterparts in Visual Basic .NET. Instead, they are upgraded to ActiveX compo-
nents. The only exceptions to this are the Microsoft Tabbed Dialog Control and your
own custom user controls. For example, when a Toolbar control is upgraded to
Visual Basic .NET, a wrapper reference to the ActiveX control is added to the refer-
ences of the project, as illustrated in Figure 18.6 on the next page.
504 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 18.6
The reference to that ActiveX control automatically added by the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard

Even though most of the ActiveX controls upgraded from Visual Basic 6.0 will work
fine when upgraded to Visual Basic .NET, you might be better off substituting them
for native Windows Forms controls when you have the opportunity to do so. You
can make your project easier to maintain by removing references to ActiveX controls
that are not imperative to use. Furthermore, by removing the references, you do not
have to worry about their distribution and registration when they are installed on
the user’s machine. In most cases, the task of programming native Windows controls
is easier than everything that is involved with ActiveX control programming.
The level of difficulty of upgrading your ActiveX controls depends on the ActiveX
control that you want to upgrade. For instance, if you are using a TreeView or
ListView control that adds some nodes using the Add method, this could implicate
some work overhead. The Add method parameters signature may have changed in
.NET, and you will probably have to check your code to obtain the same logic that
you had implemented in your Visual Basic 6.0 code.
With ActiveX controls, such as ImageList or Toolbar controls, be aware that indexes
for the collections that these items hold has changed in Visual Basic .NET. The
lowest index number in Visual Basic started at 1; in Visual Basic .NET, the lowest
index position now starts at position 0. You will need to verify and fix cases like this
to avoid invalid index references at run time. For example, take a look at the follow-
ing code from a Visual Basic 6.0 toolbar event.
Private Sub Toolbar1_ButtonClick(ByVal Button As MSComctlLib.Button)
Select Case Button.Index
Case 1:
MsgBox "Button Click 1 Event"
End Select
End Sub
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 505

To replicate the same behavior in Visual Basic .NET with the intrinsic counterpart,
after removing the old ToolBar reference from the designer, the preceding code
would have to be changed to address the correct index in Visual Basic .NET. Also
note how the ButtonClick event signature has also changed and needed to be
rewritten accordingly, as shown here.
Private Sub ToolBar1_ButtonClick(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As _
System.Windows.Forms.ToolBarButtonClickEventArgs) _
Handles ToolBar2.ButtonClick
Select Case ToolBar2.Buttons.IndexOf(e.Button + 1)
Case 1
MsgBox("Button Click 2 Event")
End Select
End Sub

You also have to consider that certain ActiveX signatures for events and methods
differ from the ones that are used in Windows controls. To retain functional equiva-
lence, you will have to revise all events; and in some cases, you will have to recreate
the event to make sure things keep working as they are supposed to.
The required work to port all of your ActiveX components to native Windows Forms
controls depends on which controls you used and the intricacy level of the opera-
tions you are performing on them. In essence, most of the basic operations are
completely represented on the .NET side. More complex procedures might not be as
easy to implement, but this does not mean that it is impossible to do — it just might
require more work. In Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, the Visual Basic Upgrade
Wizard will automatically upgrade most of the ActiveX components to Windows
Forms controls.
Providing Visual Feedback with the ErrorProvider Control
Requesting input from a user in your application always involves the risk of a user
entering invalid information. The reasons for this might range from a simple error to
a malicious attempt to exploit vulnerability in your code. Regardless of the reasons
for the error, the fact is that you must have input validation in your code.
If your code determines that a user has entered invalid data, the next step would be
to alert the user so that the error is corrected. In Visual Basic 6.0, the most common
way to perform this task was to use the MsgBox function. This approach worked
well for many purposes, but there are some ways in which this input error valida-
tion can be improved.
The biggest drawback with using a message box to display an error is that in some
occasions, a text message is insufficient. For example, if a form has many input fields
and there are several errors made, chances are that the user will not remember all
the errors after the message box is closed. This means that the user will have to be
reminded of the errors more than once to correct the problems with the input.
506 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

In Visual Basic .NET, ErrorProvider control can be used to report errors and provide
a better way to let the user know where the error is. The main difference between
using this control and the message box approach is the means by which the user is
alerted about the error. Instead of being presented with a text message, the input
validation controls that require attention in your form will display an icon to let the
user know exactly what and where the problem is. When the mouse is placed over
the error notification icon, a ToolTip will be displayed to further assist with the error
resolution procedure.
The ErrorProvider control is very easy to incorporate in your current controls. By
using the ErrorProvider, you can be assured that utilizing this functionality will
most likely be more efficient and error free than using a custom implementation to
achieve the same results.
The next example demonstrates the use of the ErrorProvider control. Suppose you
have a simple form that requests user information to be stored into a database, as
shown in Figure 18.7.

Figure 18.7
A sample input form with invalid input data

The form has a very obvious mistake that the user should be alerted about. This can
be accomplished by using the ErrorProvider control to let the user know where and
what the problem is. You can add the ErrorProvider control by accessing the Tools
pane and selecting the corresponding tool icon, as shown in Figure 18.8.

Figure 18.8
Selecting the ErrorProvider control

The following code shows all that needs to be done to alert the user where the
problem is.
…
If Not validAge(txbAge.Text) Then
textErrorProvider.SetError(txbAge, "Age should only be a number")
End If
…
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 507

The SetError function takes as parameters the control to which you would like to
indicate an error and the text to be displayed when the user places the mouse over
the error icon. Figure 18.9 illustrates the form after the invalid input has been en-
tered and the ErrorProvider is notified to mark it.

Figure 18.9
The ErrorProvider indicates an invalid input in a text box control

The ErrorProvider control is very easy to implement and is better than the message
box approach to display errors. It clearly indicates where the problem lies and is
fully customizable. For more information about this powerful feature, see
“ErrorProvider Class” in the .NET Framework Library on MSDN.
FlowLayoutPanel and TableLayoutPanel
In Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, two new containers are available that facilitate
control placement: the FlowLayoutPanel and the TableLayoutPanel. These controls
differ from the Panel container control that was previously available in the way in
which controls are placed within it. The two new controls offer full customization
for how and where you would like your contained controls to be displayed. Both
controls can be added to your forms by accessing the containers category in the
Toolbox pane in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, as shown in Figure 18.10.

Figure 18.10
The FlowLayoutPanel and TableLayoutPanel in the Toolbox pane

The FlowLayoutPanel makes it easy to automatically position controls when they

are added to the container. When controls are added to the panel, they will flow
horizontally and vertically to fit within the container. This makes it quick in situa-
tions where you would like to deal with perfectly aligned tuples of several controls
508 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

(for example, several text boxes and labels). In Figure 18.11, the Label1 and the
bottom-level text box controls were added first. Subsequent addition of controls
shifted each existing control downward.

Figure 18.11
An example FlowLayoutPanel

You can change the order in which controls flow within the FlowLayoutPanel by
changing the values of the FlowDirection property. Table 18.2 and Figure 18.12
show the values and behavior of the different values that can be set in the
FlowLayout property.
Table 18.2: FlowLayoutPanel Properties
FlowLayoutPanel Property Description
LeftToRight (default) When a new control is added, it will be placed to the right of
any existing controls. If the WrapContents value is set to true
(default), contents will also shift downward.
TopDown New controls are placed below existing ones, resembling an
HTML table with several rows and just one column.
RightToLeft When a new control is added, it will be placed to the left of any
existing controls in the panel. This is the opposite behavior of
LeftToRight.
BottomUp New controls are placed above existing ones.

If you would like to be in more control of the placement of the controls within a
panel, you will definitely enjoy working with the TableLayoutPanel. Just like its
HTML counterpart, this control offers a row-column approach by which to arrange
your controls. A noticeable difference is that only one control can be placed in each
of the cells in the panel.
The TableLayoutPanel offers a quick and efficient implementation to solve the
problems that have long plagued programmers when dealing with the GUI section
of their application. Aligning controls so that they are perfectly positioned with each
other is very easy using this control. You need only to define the number of rows
and columns and start placing them. Whenever it is necessary to add new controls
between existing controls that have already been placed, you need only to add a
new column to the existing table layout and shift items accordingly.
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 509

Figure 18.12
Variations of the FlowLayoutPanel automatic positioning

The TableLayoutPanel is fully customizable at design time. By accessing the contex-

tual menu, you can carry out tasks such as adding columns and rows, removing
columns and rows, and accessing the powerful Columns and Rows editor. Figure
18.13 illustrates the different options available to edit the TableLayoutPanel from
the design-time contextual menu.

Figure 18.13
The TableLayoutPanel shortcut menu

Windows XP Look and Feel

If you are a regular Windows user, you may be familiar with the use of themes
throughout the system. The option to use themes is turned on by default; thus
users are encouraged to use the different available themes and variations on their
computers.
Applications created with the .NET Framework version 1.0 will not support themes.
Starting with the .NET Framework version 1.1, Windows XP visual styles are avail-
able. This behavior will be supported when Visual Studio 2005 ships because every
form that is created will support themes by default. Figure 18.14 on the next page
illustrates a Visual Basic .NET application with radio button and button controls.
510 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 18.14
A .NET application without themes support

The buttons in Figure 18.14 look like they are using the Windows 2000 theme. The
Windows XP style theme’s buttons have rounded corners and offer a light blue
border; the buttons in this graphic do not have these features.
Fortunately, when you are using the .NET Framework version 1.1 or later, changing
your Visual Basic .NET application’s code so that it supports themes is fairly
straightforward. This can be done by following two approaches: invoking the
EnableVisualStyles static method or using a manifest file.
The EnableVisualStyles method was introduced in the .NET Framework version 1.1
and allows your application to enable visual styles (if the operating system supports
it). The method invocation causes all controls in your applications to be drawn using
visual styles. Therefore, it is important to call this method before any controls are
drawn in your application. To demonstrate this, the following code example can be
added before invoking the InitializeComponent() method for the preceding ex-
ample.
Application.EnableVisualStyles()
Application.DoEvents()
' This call is required by the Windows Form Designer.
InitializeComponent()

Furthermore, you will have to set the FlatStyle property of all controls that support
it to System. Running the same application again yields a completely different look
than the original example, as shown in Figure 18.15.

Figure 18.15
A .NET application with the standard Windows XP look and feel

Another option you can use to apply themes to your application is to produce a
manifest file. The manifest file includes information that will let your application
know which version of the common controls library to use. By specifying that the
application should use version 6.0 of the common controls library, you can be
assured that all your controls will be drawn according to the selected theme.
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 511

To create the manifest file, copy the following text to a file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<assemblyIdentity
version="1.0.0.0"
processorArchitecture="X86"
name="Executable Name"
type="win32"
/>
<description>Application description</description>
<dependency>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity
type="win32"
name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
version="6.0.0.0"
processorArchitecture="X86"
publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
language="*"
/>
</dependentAssembly>
</dependency>
</assembly>

You will have to save the file with the same name of your application and
append the extension “.manifest.” For example, if the application is named
WindowsApplication1.exe, you would save the manifest file as
WindowsApplication1.exe.manifest and place it in the same directory where the
executable resides. You also have to set the Flatstyle property for any control Sys-
tem. Running the application by using the manifest file shows the controls display-
ing the Windows XP styled theme the operating system currently has, as shown in
Figure 18.15.
Each of the options previously mentioned have their own strengths and weaknesses.
The manifest file does not involve writing code in your application to work, but
using it risks having the user delete the manifest file and render your application
themeless. The EnableVisualStyles procedure is easy to implement, but it requires
the modification of your source code.
The question of whether you should support themes in your application depends
on how complete you would like your application to look. As previously mentioned,
themes in Windows XP are on by default. An application that does not support
themes may send the wrong message to your users; it might appear as if it was
unfinished or not fully supported.
512 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Localization and Resources

Both Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET support localization of your applica-
tions. That is, they support mechanisms to produce different presentations of your
application for different languages. Using a single code base, you can distribute
versions of your application in English, Spanish, and any other language you want.
If you plan to dynamically determine what language your application will run in,
you must call some Win32 functions in Visual Basic 6.0 to determine the current
locale. The following code demonstrates this.
' Declare Win32 functions for getting locale information
Private Declare Function GetLocaleInfo Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetLocaleInfoA" _
(ByVal Locale As Long, ByVal LCType As Long, ByVal lpLCData As String, ByVal
cchData As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetUserDefaultLCID Lib "kernel32" () As Long

' Return a 3 letter abbreviation of the current locale

Function GetLocale() As String
Static locale_name As String
If locale_name = "" Then
Dim length As Long
Dim locale_id As Long
Dim buf As String * 1024
locale_id = GetUserDefaultLCID()
length = GetLocaleInfo(locale_id, &H3, buf, Len(buf))
locale_name = Left(buf, length - 1)
End If
GetLocale = locale_name
End Function

In Visual Basic .NET, this same information can be read from the CultureInfo object
in the current thread. This is demonstrated in the following code.
' Return a 3 letter abbreviation of the current locale
Function GetLocale() As String
Return Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture.ThreeLetterWindowsLanguageName()
End Function

Resource Files
In Visual Basic 6.0, resource files are used to store the language specific data that
your application uses. This data can be strings, images, or other types of resources. A
Visual Basic 6.0 project can only contain a single resource file.
One way to add localization features to your application is to place versions of all
your data for the different supported languages in a single resource file. If you do
that, you can separate the localized data by placing them in separate string tables,
for example, but because only one string table can be stored in an executable at a
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 513

time, it is more common to place all the strings in a single table and use suitable
offsets to access them.
' Determine the offset to use for the localized resources
Private Function GetOffsetForLocale() As Long
GetOffsetForLocale = 100
If GetLocale() = "ENC" Then
GetOffsetForLocale = 200
ElseIf GetLocale() = "ESC" Then
GetOffsetForLocale = 300
End If
End Function

Private Sub Form_Load()

Picture1.Picture = LoadResPicture(GetOffsetForLocale() + 1,
LoadResConstants.vbResBitmap)
Label2.Caption = LoadResString(GetOffsetForLocale() + 1)
End Sub

Alternatively, you can store each language in different resource files; the resource
files are compiled into independent DLLs. At run time, you dynamically load the
DLL that contains the localized resources you need.
Dim objResoures As Object
Set objResoures = CreateObject("MyApp" & Hex$(GetLocale()) & ".Resources")
If objResoures Is Nothing Then
objResoures c = CreateObject("MyAppENU.Resources") ' Default Locale
End If
' Load resources from objResoures

Visual Studio .NET provides a much more integrated level of support for localiza-
tion than Visual Studio 6.0 did. If you set the Localizable property of your form to
True, Visual Studio creates a resource file for that form and stores the text strings for
different languages in separate resource files that are automatically compiled into
satellite DLLs. These DLLs are loaded dynamically and automatically at run time,
depending on the current locale of the user’s computer. Alternatively, and for more
control, you can do all this manually if you have to. For more information about
how to do this, see “Walkthrough: Localizing Windows Forms” in Visual Basic and
Visual C# Concepts on MSDN.
Visual Studio .NET does not provide any direct support for adding images to these
resource files; however, the .NET Framework SDK provides the source code for a
resource editor named ResEditor that does support images. Alternatively, you can
embed all the images into the main assembly as resources. However, this could be
overkill if you have a lot of images for different locales and you do not expect to
need more than one locale per installation.
514 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For more control over the assemblies that contain your resources, you have to use a
class named ResourceManager from the System.Resources namespace. You create a
separate instance of this class for each assembly that contains resources, and this
class manages the loading of all resources from that assembly. To create a
ResourceManager and retrieve resources from an assembly, you can use code
similar to the following.
' You have to import the namespaces System.Reflection
' and System.Resources.

' Gets a reference to the assembly that contains the

' resources.
Dim myResourceAssembly As Assembly
myResourceAssembly = Assembly.Load("ResourceAssembly")

' Creates the ResourceManager.

Dim myManager As New ResourceManager("ResourceNamespace.myResources",
myResourceAssembly)

Dim myString As System.String

Dim myImage As System.Drawing.Image
myString = myManager.GetString("StringResource")
myImage = CType(myManager.GetObject("ImageResource"), System.Drawing.Image)

ToolTips
In Visual Basic 6.0, you could associate a ToolTip with a control by setting the
ToolTipText property of that control. If a control had its ToolTipText property set to
a non-empty string, it would display the text when the mouse was allowed on rest
on that control. To disable the ToolTips for a form, it was necessary to go through all
the controls in that form and set their ToolTipText properties to the empty string.
Without using Win32 calls, this was about the extent of the functionality that was
available to Visual Basic 6.0 programmers.
In Visual Basic .NET, ToolTips work a little differently. Each form has its own
ToolTip component. ToolTips are attached to controls by calling the SetToolTip()
method of the ToolTip component.
Additionally, in Visual Basic .NET, some new possibilities for easily customizing the
behavior of your ToolTips are available.
Disabling ToolTips
You can disable all the ToolTips in a form with a single command in Visual Basic
.NET. The Active property determines whether the ToolTips register in this ToolTip
component are displayed. In Visual Basic 6.0, you could do this only by iterating
through all the components in a form and learning the ToolTip for each control. Of
course, you still do that in Visual Basic .NET, but it is more efficient to just set the
ToolTip component’s Active property to False.
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 515

' Visual Basic 6.0

For Each Control in Me.Controls
Control.ToolTipText = ""
Next

' Visual Basic .NET

toolTip1.Active = False

Changing the ToolTip Delay

New to Visual Basic .NET is the possibility to change the delays associated with the
ToolTips for a form. To change the amount of time that the mouse must remain still
over a control before the ToolTip is displayed, you can modify the
ToolTip.InitialDelay property. The default time for this property is half a second. To
change the amount of time that the ToolTip remains visible after it displays, change
the AutoPopDelay property, which is set to five seconds by default. However, the
ToolTip will disappear immediately after the mouse leaves the region the ToolTip
applies to. A property named ReshowDelay determines the length of time it takes
for subsequent ToolTips to appear as the pointer moves around the form.
A separate property can be used to set all of the preceding properties appropriately.
This property is named AutomaticDelay and when you set this property, the same
value is automatically copied into the InitialDelay property, a value that is ten times
as large is placed in the AutoPopDelay property, and finally, a value that is one fifth
as large is copied into the ReshowDelay property. This is demonstrated in the
following code example.
' Set the delay property as measured in milliseconds
toolTip1.AutomaticDelay = 500
' Specify the length of time before ToolTip appears
toolTip1.InitialDelay = 500
' Specify the length of time before ToolTip disappears
toolTip1.AutoPopDelay = 5000
' Specify the length of time before ToolTip appears after moving to a new control
toolTip1.ReshowDelay = 100

For Visual Basic 2005:

Visual Studio 2005 adds additional possibilities for customizing ToolTips,
including the ability to change the color of the ToolTip or even to allow you to
paint the entire ToolTip yourself. For more information, see “ToolTip Class” in
the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN.
516 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Business Components (Enterprise Services)

The .NET Framework provides enterprise services for building highly scalable
solutions. From the code itself, you can set properties required for enterprise ser-
vices components or even deployment settings can be settled from the code. This is a
great advantage for developers because you have the possibility of handling all
those settings within the code.
This section provides guidelines to improve the architecture of an upgraded applica-
tion to take advantage of the .NET Framework Enterprise Services.

Advancing the Application Architecture

It is important to know which properties are available in the Enterprise Services, so
you first must know that Enterprise Services divides COM+ catalog properties into
two categories:
● Properties the developer primarily determines, such as Transactions.

● Properties the administrator primarily determines, such as Identity.

Properties developers determine are exposed as attributes in the

System.EnterpriseServices namespace and may be added to the assembly by
applying these attributes to the assembly, classes, interfaces or methods.
Properties the administrator determines may be set through the Component Services
administration tool after the assembly is registered or by using the COM+ Adminis-
trative interfaces.
Enterprise Services is a powerful technology that is very useful when building
complex applications that require specific technologies such as transactions, pooling,
or queuing.
One of the most confusing aspects of Enterprise Services is when to use them. If
your existing systems use COM+ extensively, you should use Enterprise Services
when upgrading your applications to .NET. However, if you do not currently use
COM+, you may be wondering how to start using them and what the benefits are.
The following sections detail these considerations.
Using Enterprise Services and Attributes
Before starting to work with enterprise applications, there are some basic attributes
that an enterprise application must have. These are explained here.
To create a .NET class for an enterprise service component, the class must derive
from the System.ServicedComponent class to exploit COM+ services. To do this, it
is necessary to import the .NET Enterprise Services namespace. For some special-
purpose .NET namespaces, it is necessary to add a new reference to the correspond-
ing assembly because that they are not included by default. This is the case for the
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 517

System.EnterpriseServices namespace, so a reference to the associated assembly

must be added.

To add a reference to this assembly
1. In Solution Explorer, select the project where the reference is going to be added.
2. Right-click the References folder, and then click Add Reference.
3. Click the .NET tab. In the components list, look for System.EnterpriseServices
and double-click it, as shown in Figure 18.17.

Figure 18.16
Adding a reference to the System.EnterpriseServices assembly

4. Click OK.
After the reference is added, the System.EnterpriseServices namespace can be
imported in your application to allow your class to extend from
System.EnterpriseServices.ServicedComponent. This is demonstrated in the
following code.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices
Public Class _myClass
Inherits System.EnterpriseServices.ServicedComponent

It is possible to specify several attributes for the class, depending on the specific
requirements for your COM+ application. The following code specifies how to
declare attributes on the class.
<ObjectPooling()> Public Class _myClass
518 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The next sections describe the characteristics and possibilities that you can use to
take advantage of Enterprise Services using the Microsoft .NET Framework.
COM+ is, in large part, a merging of Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) and Micro-
soft Message Queuing (also known as MSMQ) into the base framework of COM. It is
basically the unification of COM, MTS, and Message Queuing, in addition to COM
extensions, MTS extensions, and the addition of other services.
These services include self-describing components, queued components, events,
security, transactions, and load balancing.
Self-Describing Components
The .NET Framework allows developers to specify attributes for COM components
that will become part of the component’s description. These class attributes are run-
time traits that are applicable to components. System administrators can specify
attributes using administrator tools. At design time, developers can use .NET
Framework class attributes to specify these characteristics for a self-describing
component. For example, a designer might stipulate that a component requires
transaction, as shown here.
<Transaction>Public Class _myClass
Inherits System.EnterpriseServices.ServicedComponent
<AutoComplete()> Public Sub MyRoutine()

End Sub
End Class

This characteristic allows the class to manage transactions without manually declar-
ing any transaction management like commit or rollback transactions. This defini-
tion automatically detects the database operations to handle all the transactions in a
transparent way with no additional code.
When a component is instantiated, an attribute can be passed to it. The attribute can
be a configuration file that indicates to the component which system resources must
be used, including database systems and application servers. For more information
about the types of attribute classes that can be specified, see
“System.EnterpriseServices Namespace” in the .NET Framework Class Library on
MSDN.

Technology Updates
The following sections detail the technology updates available to your application
with respect to Enterprise Services.
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 519

Working with Threads

COM+ manages threads for you. Every COM component has a ThreadingModel
attribute that you can specify when you develop the component. This property
determines how the component’s objects are assigned to threads for method execu-
tion.
Threads can be associated with two possible types of apartments:
● Single Threaded Apartments (STA)

● Multi Threaded Apartments (MTA)

STAs specify that only one thread is being executed. They are implemented as
hidden windows that receive messages and dispatch method calls to the objects
residing in the apartment. There can be multiple objects in an STA and there can be
multiple STAs in a process.
MTAs have a pool of executing threads. Synchronization must be considered in this
scenario. Operating system synchronization mechanisms such as semaphores,
critical sections, or mutexes can be used. MTAs are restricted to one per process.
All COM objects that reside in a multithreaded apartment can receive method
invocations directly from any of the threads that belong to the same apartment.
Threads in a multithreaded apartment use a model referred to as free-threading.
The different types of processes can be defined as follows:
● A process that consists of just one STA is referred to as a single-threaded process.
● A process that has two or more STA and no MTA is referred to as an apartment
model process.
● A process that has a MTA and no STA is referred to as a free-threaded process.

● A process that has a MTA and one or more STA is referred to as a mixed model
process.
In reality, all processes are apartment model processes, and some apartments have a
single thread while others have multiple threads. The threading model applies to an
apartment, not to a process. It can also apply to a class of objects, but not a compo-
nent, such as a DLL; instead, it applies to the object classes within the DLL. Different
classes in a DLL can have different threading models.
A process can use both the apartment and free-threaded models, as long as it uses
only one free-threaded apartment. It can have more than one single threaded apart-
ment. Invocations to objects in the STAs will be automatically synchronized by
Win32 and data will have to be marshaled whenever an apartment barrier is crossed.
For more information about threading models, see “Processes, Threads, and Apart-
ments” on MSDN.
520 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

When the Thread Neutral Apartment model (TNA) is used, the components are
automatically marked as Free Threaded or Apartment. When this model is used,
components inherit the same thread type as the thread that made the invocation.
When a thread executes a method contained in a COM object, and the method
creates a new object, MTS suspends the current thread and creates a new one to
handle the new object. In the TNA model, apartments can have multiple threads.
The following code example demonstrates how to set the apartment state of a thread
in Visual Basic 2005; the methods SetApartmentState and GetApartmentState are
only supported in Visual Basic 2005.
Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic
Imports System
Imports System.Threading

Public Class ApartmentTest

Shared Sub Main()

Dim newThread As Thread = New Thread(AddressOf ThreadMethod)

newThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.MTA)

' The following line is ignored because

' ApartmentState can only be set once.
newThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA)

Console.WriteLine("ThreadState: {0}, ApartmentState: {1}", _

newThread.ThreadState, newThread.GetApartmentState())

newThread.Start()

' Wait for newThread to start and go to sleep.

Thread.Sleep(300)
Try
' This causes an exception because newThread is sleeping.
newThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA)
Catch stateException As ThreadStateException
Console.WriteLine(vbCrLf & "{0} caught:" & vbCrLf & _
"Thread is not In the Unstarted or Running state.", _
stateException.GetType().Name)
Console.WriteLine("ThreadState: {0}, ApartmentState: " & _
"{1}", newThread.ThreadState, newThread.GetApartmentState())
End Try

End Sub

Shared Sub ThreadMethod()

Thread.Sleep(1000)
End Sub

End Class
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 521

For more information about COM interoperability and thread programming in

.NET, see “Interop Marshaling Overview” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide
on MSDN.
Working with Transactions
The transaction features of COM+ are a repackaging of MTS. COM+ provides a new
interface with individual get/set methods for each bit: SetComplete,
EnableCommit, SetAbort, and DisableCommit.
Distributed transactions can also be thought of as automatic or declarative transac-
tions in .NET. Performance is only one aspect of the decision making process related
to your strategy for transaction management in your application. The other consid-
erations are ease of development and flexibility and future expansion.
If you use a SqlTransaction object or OleDbTransaction object to manage transac-
tions, you are going to have to manage the transaction yourself. You must consider
how you will flow that transaction between objects and which object will be the root
of the transaction responsible for calling Commit or Rollback. At first, this may not
seem like a difficult issue, but if you have several objects that require different
transactions and could have database triggers, or dependencies between that object
and complex operations on your code? This task will become a little messy, and
transactions will help you to ensure that you do not require any special logic to
determine when the object is the root of a transaction and when it is not.

For Visual Basic 2005:

The .NET Framework version 2.0 includes a new transaction programming
paradigm. This functionality is included in the System.Transactions
namespace and provides features such as asynchronous work, events, security,
concurrency management, and interoperability.
For more information about the System.Transactions, see “Introducing
System.Transactions in the .NET Framework 2.0” on MSDN.

Another important point to consider is the flexibility of the application. What if in

the future the inventory tables move to a separate database? What if the inventory
object is moved to a remote server? What if one of the objects wants to dispatch to a
transactional message queue? In these cases, a system built with manual transaction
management will have problems. If the system was built from the ground up using
Enterprise Services to provide transaction management, none of these contingencies
will require you to change the code. In each case, the system will automatically
manage and flow the transaction between all the resource managers whether they
are SQL databases or other transactional resources such as message queues. Addi-
tionally, with Enterprise Services you can create a component that participates in a
distributed transaction using the Compensating Resource Manager (CRM). This
provides new opportunities for executing business logic when the transaction
outcome is known.
522 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Performance
The performance and robustness gains that can be obtained when using .NET
Enterprise Services and COM+ are directly related to the scalability provided by
these technologies. In a scalable system, the performance and the response time that
a client perceives is not degraded when the quantity of client requests is increased.
In COM+, this is achieved with features such as load balancing, object pooling, and
improved transaction management.
For detailed information about .NET Enterprise Services performance, see “.NET
Enterprise Services Performance” on MSDN.
Queuing
Message Queuing (also known as MSMQ) constitutes a platform that supports
flexible and reliable communication between applications. A task is asynchronously
invoked when it is called without waiting for it to terminate and produce a result.
Using this type of execution allows applications to have better responsiveness and
improved usage of the available resources. This mode of processing can be achieved
using COM+ Queued Components and Message Queuing. For more information
about Message Queuing, see the “Message Queuing and Queued Components”
section in Chapter 15, “Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications.”
When using normal execution mode, the callers of a COM+ component method will
wait until the method returns. Conversely, when a component is used in queued
mode, the client-side stub will store interactions with the component and when the
component is released, the interactions are delivered as Message Queuing messages
with the appropriate properties for transaction management and recovery among
others. When the destination queue receives the messages, the interactions are
interpreted and executed.
If you want to create a queued component in your application, first declare the
interface that you want to call asynchronously through queued components and put
the InterfaceQueuing attribute on the interface. The methods of this interface must
not use any return values or ByRef arguments.
Imports System.EnterpriseServices

<InterfaceQueuing()> Public Interface IClass1

Sub MyProcess(ByVal i As Integer)
End Interface

Your queued interface must be declared as public. If it is not, when your assembly is
registered with COM+, it will not include the queued interface in the registration.
You have to specify that this assembly will be a queued component. This is done in
the assembly file using the ApplicationQueuing attribute.
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 523

When an attribute is declared, the assembly will specify this queued component
must have a special behavior and it is applied to all the objects inside the component.
<Assembly: ApplicationQueuing()>

After that you must provide an implementation of this interface in a server applica-
tion. The ApplicationQueuing attribute instructs the server application to listen on
a queue. The following code demonstrates how to implement a queued interface.
Public Class Class1
Inherits EnterpriseServices.ServicedComponent
Implements IClass1

Public Sub MyProcess(ByVal i As Integer) Implements IClass1.MyProcess

' Add the code.
End Sub
End Class

It is important to consider that the queued components infrastructure does not

support serializable objects. As a result you must consider the following conditions:
● Pass simple types (such as int, double, or string).

● Serialize the object(s) to XML using the XML serializer and pass them as strings.

● Serialize the object(s) to binary using the binary serializer and pass them as a byte
array (a simple type).
Security in COM+
COM+ has security features similar to the features available in MTS, with the addi-
tion of the new security infrastructure provided by Windows XP. The application,
component, and method levels can contain access controls. The user has control over
the user accounts and groups associated to roles. These facilities allow developers to
define logical security models based on the heterogeneous services offered by the
underlying platform.
Microsoft Active Directory constitutes the main security component in Windows XP.
Although Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and NT LAN Manager (NTLM) are sup-
ported, Active Directory uses Kerberos as the primary security service. The PKI
Kerberos extensions are implemented by Active Directory and allow users to be
authenticated with X.509 certificates. Kerberos ticket-granting ticket (TGT) and
session keys can be obtained when one of the X.509 certificates has been obtained.
Load Balancing
The COM+ load balancing architecture allows you to define a router on a server
that forwards object creations to a computer that has low utilization. After the object
is created, method calls go to the same object even when it is stateless. There are
wizards for all common tasks and a single Application Explorer window for man-
agement.
524 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

COM+ Events
The COM+ Events service is an automated, loosely coupled event system that stores
event information from different publishers in the COM+ catalog. Subscribers can
query this store and select the events that they want to hear about. For more infor-
mation about events, see the “COM+ Events” section in Chapter 15, “Upgrading
MTS and COM+ Applications.”
For complete information about the System.EnterpriseServices namespace in .NET,
see “System.EnterpriseServices Namespace” in the .NET Framework Class Library on
MSDN.

Summary
Taking advantage of the benefits available in Visual Basic .NET and the .NET Frame-
work in general means advancing your upgraded application with new features and
technologies. This chapter presented some suggestions for possible application
advancements based on the type of application. Whether it is a Windows applica-
tion, a business application, or some other category of application, the information
provided should give you an idea of the types of advancements you can make from
an application-category perspective.
Advancement is also possible for Web applications. The next chapter will provide an
overview of possible advancements for Web applications.

More Information
For more information about the ErrorProvider control, see “ErrorProvider Class” in
the .NET Framework Library on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html
/frlrfsystemwindowsformserrorproviderclasstopic.asp.
For more information on localizing, see “Walkthrough: Localizing Windows Forms”
in Visual Basic and Visual C# Concepts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vbwlkWalkthroughLocalizingWindowsForms.asp?frame=true.
For more information on ToolTips, see “ToolTip Class” in the .NET Framework Class
Library on MSDN:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/ecft989x(en-us,vs.80).aspx.
For more information about the types of attribute classes that can be specified, see
“System.EnterpriseServices Namespace” in the .NET Framework Class Library on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html
/frlrfsystementerpriseservices.asp.
 Chapter 18: Advancements for Common Application Scenarios 525

For more information about threading models, see “Processes, Threads, and
Apartments” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/com/html/cb62412a-d079-
40f9-89dc-cce0bf3889af.asp.
For more information about COM interoperability and thread programming in
.NET, see “Interop Marshaling Overview” in the “.NET Framework Developer’s
Guide” on MSDN:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/eaw10et3(en-us,vs.80).aspx.
For more information about the System.Transactions, see “Introducing
System.Transactions in the .NET Framework 2.0” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html
/introsystemtransact.asp.
For detailed information about .NET Enterprise Services performance, see “.NET
Enterprise Services Performance” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dncomser/html
/entsvcperf.asp.
For complete information about the System.EnterpriseServices namespace in .NET,
see the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html
/frlrfsystementerpriseservices.asp.
19
Advancements for Common
Web Scenarios
Web applications are commonplace in modern computing. They allow a business
to maintain data and services in a central location while also permitting access from
anywhere in the world. This makes them a popular type of application to create.
Visual Basic .NET provides many classes, objects, and language features that make
it possible to rapidly build robust and powerful Web applications. This chapter
provides an introduction to these features so that you can decide how to take advan-
tage of them in your own applications.

Web Applications and ASP.NET

ASP.NET enables the rapid creation of Web applications and Web components that
use Web Forms and XML Web services. Visual Basic .NET Web Forms expands the
DHTML model to provide richer dynamic user-interface capabilities as well as client-
side validation. In Visual Basic .NET, ASP.NET Web Application projects are used to
create Web applications. ASP.NET offers significant improvements over ASP in the
areas of performance, state management, scalability, configuration, deployment,
security, output cache control, Web farm support, and Web service infrastructure.
Developers can use Web Forms or Web services when they create an ASP.NET
application, or combine them in any way they see fit. Each is supported by the same
infrastructure that allows you to use authentication schemes, cache frequently used
data, or that customizes your application’s configuration. In particular:
● Web Forms allow you to build powerful forms-based Web pages. When building
these pages, you can use ASP.NET server controls to create common UI elements,
and program them for common tasks. These controls allow you to rapidly build a
Web Form out of reusable built-in or custom components to simplify the code for
a page.
528 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● An XML Web service provides the means to access server functionality remotely.
Using Web services, businesses can expose programmatic interfaces to their data
or business logic, which in turn can be obtained and manipulated by client and
server applications. Web services enable the exchange of data in client-server or
server-server scenarios, using standards such as HTTP and XML Messaging to
move data across firewalls. Web services are not tied to a particular component
technology or object-calling convention. As a result, programs written in any
language, using any component model, and running on any operating system can
access Web services.
The following descriptions highlight key features of ASP.NET:
● ASP.NET provides a model that enables Web developers to write logic that runs
at the application level. Developers can write this code in the Global.asax text file
or in a compiled class deployed as an assembly. This logic can include applica-
tion-level events, but developers can easily extend this model to suit the needs of
their Web application.
● ASP.NET provides application and session-state facilities.

● For advanced developers who want to use APIs as powerful as the ISAPI pro-
gramming interfaces that were included with previous versions of ASP, ASP.NET
offers the IHttpHandler and IHttpModule interfaces. Implementing the
IHttpHandler interface gives you a means of interacting with the low-level
request and response services of the IIS Web server and provides functionality
much like ISAPI extensions, but with a simpler programming model. Implement-
ing the IHttpModule interface allows you to include custom events that partici-
pate in every request that is made to your application. For more information
about the IHttpHandler and IHttpModule interfaces, see the “HTTP Modules”
section later in this chapter.
● All ASP.NET code is compiled instead of interpreted, which allows early binding,
strong typing, and just-in-time (JIT) compilation to native code. ASP.NET is also
easily factorable, which means that developers can remove modules (for example,
a session module) that are not relevant to the application that they are develop-
ing. ASP.NET also provides extensive caching services, both built-in services and
caching APIs. It also ships with performance counters that developers and system
administrators can monitor to test new applications and gather metrics on exist-
ing applications.
● ASP.NET offers the TraceContext class, which allows you to write custom debug
statements to your pages as you develop them. They appear only when you have
enabled tracing for a page or an entire application. Enabling tracing also appends
details about a request to the page, or, if you specify, to a custom trace viewer that
is stored in the root directory of your application.
● The .NET Framework and ASP.NET provide default authorization and authenti-
cation schemes for Web applications. You can easily remove, add to, or replace
these schemes, depending on the needs of your application.
 Chapter 19: Advancements for Common Web Scenarios 529

● ASP.NET configuration settings are stored in XML-based files, which are human
readable and writable. Each of your applications can have a distinct configuration
file and you can extend the configuration scheme to suit your requirements.

Architectural Advancements
This section provides an overview of the ASP.NET subsystem and infrastructure.
Figure 19.1 shows the relationships among the security systems in ASP.NET.

Web Clients

ASP.NET IIS
Applications

.NET
Framework

Microsoft Windows Operating System

Figure 19.1
The ASP.NET security systems relationships

As shown in Figure 19.1, Web clients use the Microsoft Internet Information Services
(IIS) to communicate with ASP.NET applications. IIS interprets and optionally
authenticates the request. If Allow Anonymous access is set to true, no authentica-
tion occurs. IIS also finds the requested resource (such as an ASP.NET application),
and, if the client is authorized, it returns the appropriate resource.
ASP.NET incorporates a variety of features and tools that allow you to design and
implement high-performance Web applications. These features and tools include:
● A process model that has improvements over the model in ASP.

● A feature that automatically detects changes in ASP.NET pages, dynamically

compiles changed pages, and stores the newly compiled files for reuse in subse-
quent requests.
● ASP.NET-specific performance counters.

● Web application testing tools.

530 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The ASP.NET model provides a number of built-in performance enhancements. In

particular, there are two enhancements involved in processing HTTP requests:
● When an ASP.NET page is requested for the first time, an instance of the Page
class is dynamically compiled. In earlier versions of ASP, page code was inter-
preted for requests in the order that they appeared on the page. The common
language runtime JIT compiles ASP.NET managed page code to the native code
of the processing server at run time.
● When the Page instance has been compiled for the first request, it is cached on
the server. For each subsequent request for that page, the cached instance of the
class is executed. After the initial request, the Page class is recompiled only when
the original source for the page or one of its dependencies has changed.
In addition, ASP.NET caches internal objects, such as server variables, to speed user
code access. As a part of the .NET Framework, ASP.NET benefits from the perfor-
mance enhancements provided by the common language runtime (CLR), including
the previously mentioned JIT compiling, a fine-tuned common language runtime for
both single and multiprocessor computers, and more.
These enhancements, unfortunately, cannot protect you from writing code that does
not perform well when a large number of HTTP requests are processed simulta-
neously by your application. You must test your application to ensure that it meets
the demands of its users.

Master Pages
Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 master pages enable you to apply the same page layout to
multiple content pages in a Web application. Master pages provide you with a
method of creating a consistent look and style for a Web site.
The pages in most Web applications have standard elements, such as logos, naviga-
tion menus, and copyright notices. You can place all of these elements within a
single master page. If you base the content pages in your application on this master
page, all of the content pages will automatically include the same standard elements.
This feature represents a template mechanism that provides site-level page tem-
plates, a system for fine-grained content replacement, programmatic and declarative
control over which template a page should use, and integrated designer support. It
consists of two conceptual elements: master pages and content pages. Master pages
acts as the templates for content pages, and content pages provides content to
populate pieces of master pages that require “filling out.” A master page is essen-
tially a standard ASP.NET page except that it uses the extension of .master and a
<%@ master %> directive instead of <%@ page %>. This master page file serves as
the template for other pages, so typically it will contain the top-level HTML ele-
ments, the main form, headers, footers, and such. Within the master page, you add
instances of the ContentPlaceHolder control at locations where you want content
 Chapter 19: Advancements for Common Web Scenarios 531

pages to supply page-specific content. For more information about master pages, see
“ASP.NET Master Pages Overview” on MSDN.

HTTP Modules
HTTP modules and HTTP handlers are an integral part of the ASP.NET architecture.
Each request that is made is processed by multiple HTTP modules (for example, the
authentication module and the session module) and is then processed by a single
HTTP handler. After the handler has processed the request, the request flows back
through the HTTP modules. Modules are called before and after the handler ex-
ecutes. They serve the following functions:
● Modules enable developers to intercept, participate in, or modify each individual
request.
● Modules implement the IHttpModule interface, which is located in the
System.Web namespace.
It is possible to use HTTP modules to extend ASP.NET applications by adding pre-
and post-processing to each HTTP request that comes into an application. For
example, if you want custom authentication facilities for your application, the best
technique is to intercept the request when it comes in and then process the request in
a custom HTTP module.

Configuring HTTP Modules

HTTP modules are configured in the ASP.NET configuration files, which are XML-
based and can be edited in any text or XML editor. Like other .NET configuration
files, the ASP.NET configuration file is divided into sections that are identified by
various tags. The <httpModules> configuration section handler is responsible for
configuring the HTTP modules within an application. It can be declared at the
computer, site, or application level. The following example shows how a typical
<httpModules> section handler is configured.
<configuration>
<system.web>
<httpModules>
<add type="[COM+ Class], [Assembly]" name="[ModuleName]" />
<remove type="[COM+ Class], [Assembly]" name="[ModuleName]" />
<clear />
</httpModules>
</system.web>
</configuration>

The <httpModules> tag must be included in the main <configuration> section

under the <system.web> subsection, as previously shown. The <add> tag indicates
that an HttpModule is to be added to an application. The <remove> tag indicates
that an HttpModule is to be removed from the application. The <clear> tag removes
all of the HttpModules from an application.
532 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Creating HTTP Modules

To create an HTTP module, you must implement the IHttpModule interface. The
IHttpModule interface has two methods that include the following signatures.
void Init(HttpApplication);
void Dispose();

The Init method is called when the module attaches itself to the HttpApplication
object and Dispose is called when the module is detached from HttpApplication.
The Init and Dispose methods represent the module’s opportunity to hook into a
variety of events that are exposed by HttpApplication. These events include the
beginning of a request, the end of a request, a request for authentication, and so
forth. For more information about HTTP Modules, see “HTTP Modules” on MSDN.

Web Services
Web services represent an important evolutionary step in the building of distributed
applications. At present, older systems are isolated and often incompatible blocks.
This makes business-to-business or business-to-client integration almost impossible
because there are a lot of technological walls between them. This is where the
importance of a common technology arises. Web services can make older systems
available on the Web, reusing existing software and opening the doors to systems
integration. This section provides an overview of the Web services technology and
explains how to incorporate it into your newly upgraded application.
There is not a universal definition of a Web service or a minimum standard for the
requirements and services offered by one. What is commonly accepted is that a Web
service is a software system that is designed to support interactions between differ-
ent computers in a network.
Communication that takes place between Web service applications and components
is encoded with an XML format. Because XML is an open standard that is supported
on several platforms, Web services are not platform specific and can be used to
communicate between applications that are based in different languages and plat-
forms. For example Visual Basic .NET applications can communicate with Java
applications and Windows applications can communicate with UNIX applications.
Additional features of a Web service include:
● A publicly exposed interface with all of the members that can be accessed by a
client application or component. This interface can be described in a standard
language by using an XML format. The Web Service Description Language
(WSDL) is the most widely accepted language for this purpose.
 Chapter 19: Advancements for Common Web Scenarios 533

● A mechanism to publish the services offered by a component that can be located

by parties who are interested in the service provided. The most accepted direc-
tory of Web services that are currently available is Universal Description, Discov-
ery, and Integration (UDDI).
One of the most important innovations in Web services is the use of XML as a
transport medium for remote procedure calls. Previous technologies, such as tradi-
tional Remote Procedure Calls (RPC), used HTTP for such a purpose. By using XML
as a standard, different applications can easily communicate data and service invo-
cations. For an example of a publicly available Web service, see “Microsoft MapPoint
Web Service” on the Microsoft Web site.
The .NET Framework Class Library includes the WebService class that provides
access to ASP.NET Web service objects. This class can serve as the base class for XML
Web services. For more information about the WebService class, see “WebService
Class” on MSDN.

Web Services Benefits

Web services technology offers an excellent opportunity for the integration of
systems at the internal corporate level. It can also improve customer-to-client com-
munication and interaction. From a business point of view, other benefits include:
● Improved customer satisfaction because of new opportunities to access up-to-
date information.
● Increased sales by improvements to the process of online purchases.

● Decreased costs by reducing the burden of excess calls on phone centers.

● Shared information between store locations and businesses.

Architecture Advancements
The following section explores the architecture advancements that Web services
provide.

Service Interfaces
Offering a software service through the Internet is not new idea. Over the past de-
cade, many companies have produced software systems that provide information to
specific clients through the internet, such as virus scanner updates and virus defini-
tion files. Why then are the new Web services so important in the software industry?
What other new technologies and protocols are involved with Web services?
The answer to both of these questions involves standardization. With new stan-
dards, such as XML and SOAP, you can set the foundation for several platforms and
communicate between them. Today, software components can communicate with
peers by using a structured language (XML) and through SOAP.
534 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The following standards are the most common ones used in Web services today:
● Emerging standards. These include:

● XML agreements for industry data exchange.

● Security. This includes authentication (Microsoft WS-Security is an example).

● Transactions. This includes management of a set of interdependent actions

(XAML and OASIS BTP are examples).
● Processes. This includes complex business interactions descriptions
(Microsoft’s WS-Routing is an example).
● Existing standards. These include:
● SOAP. This protocol requests a Web service.

● Web Service Description Language (WSDL). This is a standard for document-

ing what a Web service does and how to use it
● Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI). This is a standard
for listing WSDL documents in a directory for automatic search.
● Established standards. These include:
● Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). This is an Internet
network protocol.
● Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This protocol is used to transfer data
between serves and clients in hypertext/hypermedia.
● File Transfer Protocol (FTP). This method moves files between two Internet
sites.
● Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). This protocol is used for sending
electronic mail messages between computers.
● Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). This method is used to identify any point
of content on the web, whether it is a page of text, a video or sound clip, a still
or animated image, or a program.
● XML standard for exchanging data.

Web Service Discovery

In addition to the standards that are presented in the previous section, Microsoft
introduces two new components that take an important role in the construction of
Web services on .NET. These are .asmx and .disco files.
The .asmx file represents the addressable entry point for Web services that are
created with managed code. The way you access this file through HTTP determines
the type of response that you receive. For example, if you append “?WSDL” to the
URL of your Web service, it will instantly create and return the appropriate WSDL
file. The following code example is an HTML page that has a reference to methods
that are exposed by a Web service.
 Chapter 19: Advancements for Common Web Scenarios 535

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<head>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" href="Service1.asmx?disco"/>
<title>Service1 Web Service</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="content">
<p class="heading1">Service1</p><br>
<span>
<p class="intro">The following operations are supported.
For a formal definition, please review the
<a href="Service1.asmx?WSDL">Service Description</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="Service1.asmx?op=HelloWorld">HelloWorld</a>
</li>
<p>
</ul>
</span>
</body>

Web service discovery is the process of locating and interrogating Web service
descriptions. You do this as a preliminary step prior to accessing a Web service. It is
through the discovery process that Web service clients learn that a Web service
exists, what its capabilities are, and how to properly interact with it. A discovery file
is an XML document with a .disco file name extension. You do not need to create a
discovery file for each Web service. The following code is a sample discovery file for
the securities Web service in the previous example.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<discovery xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://
www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/disco/">
<contractRef ref="http://tempuri.org/WebService2/Service1.asmx?wsdl"
docRef="http://tempuri.org/WebService2/Service1.asmx" xmlns="http://
schemas.xmlsoap.org/disco/scl/" />
<soap address="http://tempuri.org/WebService2/Service1.asmx" xmlns:q1="http://
tempuri.org/WebService2/Service1" binding="q1:Service1Soap" xmlns="http://
schemas.xmlsoap.org/disco/soap/" />
</discovery>

You can name this file Service1.disco and save it to the same directory as the Web
service. For more information about the procedure to register, discover and access a
Web service, see the “Consuming a Web Service” section later in this chapter.
If you create a Web service in the /webreference/machinename directory, it is best to
enable dynamic discovery. Dynamic discovery will automatically scan for all the
*.disco files in all of the subdirectories of /webreference/machinename.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<dynamicDiscovery xmlns="urn:schemas-dynamicdiscovery:disco.2000-03-17">
</dynamicDiscovery>
536 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

By analyzing the discovery file you can find where the Web service resides on the
system. Unfortunately, both the .disco file method and dynamic discovery method
require that you know the exact URL of the Web service in advance. If you cannot
find the discovery file, you will not be able to locate the Web service. One way to
overcome this problem is to publish a Web service so that it can be located by poten-
tial users. Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) is a new specifi-
cation that describes mechanisms that you can use to publish existing Web services.
UDDI is an open, Internet-based specification that can be used as a building block to
enable businesses to quickly, easily, and dynamically find and transact business by
using their preferred application.

Creating a Web Service

Creating a Web service is a straightforward process. The most important part of it is
being clear about what you want to publish.
When Visual Studio .NET creates a Web service, the code is a simple class with
special attributes, as shown here.
Imports System.Web.Services

<System.Web.Services.WebService(Namespace := "http://tempuri.org/WebService2/
Service1")> _
Public Class Service1
Inherits System.Web.Services.WebService
<WebMethod()> _
Public Function HelloWorld() As String
Return "Hello World"
End Function

<WebMethod()> _
Public Function HelloMe() As String
Return "Hello Me"
End Function

End Class

To create a Web service, you start by making an .asmx file, either through Visual
Studio .NET or your favorite text editor. As is shown in the previous code example,
a Web service is created as an ordinary class. The class inherits from the
System.Web.Services.WebServices class. The methods that have the
<WebMethod()> attribute before them indicate that the method should be accessible
through the Web service.
Notice the following details in the prior code example:
● The two Web service-accessible methods are predicated with <WebMethod()>.

● The System.Web.Services.WebService attribute specifies the namespace

where the Web service will be published. Note in the example that the URL
 Chapter 19: Advancements for Common Web Scenarios 537

http://tempuri.org/WebService2/Service1 is a placeholder that should be replaced

with the actual URL of the Web service.
● The Web service is named Service1, as shown by the class name.
After you create the .asmx file and have stored it in a Web-accessible directory, you
can view the methods by visiting the page directly through your Web browser.
As the creator of the Web service, your job is done — you have created the Web
service and it is now ready to be published. But before you publish the Web service,
be aware that the methods that are published on the Web service can not receive
complex objects or non-serializable objects. If your code has any methods that
receive these kinds of objects, you have to change the implementation of the meth-
ods or make the objects serializable so that they are accessible from the Web service.
The following section explains how to consume a Web service.

Consuming a Web Service

For a Web site to consume a Web service, a rather complicated and terse communica-
tion must occur between the client Web site and the Web site that provides the Web
service.
To enable a Web site to consume a Web service you first need to add a Web reference
to your application. The best way to do this is through the Visual Studio .NET IDE.
The following example procedure adds a reference to the Web service created in the
section “Creating a Web Service” earlier in this chapter.

Adding a Web reference to your application
1. Open the client application.
2. On the Project menu, click Add Web Reference.
3. In the Add Web Reference dialog box, click Web services on the local machine.
4. In the list of available Web services, click Service1.
5. In the text box labeled Web service name, enter a name for this new reference.
For this example enter HelloWorldWS. You will use this name to refer to the Web
service from the Visual Basic .NET code.
6. Click on the Add Reference button.
For more information about adding Web references, see “Publishing and Discover-
ing Web Services with DISCO and UDDI” on MSDN.
After the Web reference is added to the application, the Web service can be con-
sumed by that application. The consumer application must decide which of the
producer’s methods it wants to call. If there are input parameters, these parameters
must be converted into XML or some other serializable format to be passed along as
was previously mentioned in the “Creating a Web Service” section earlier in this
chapter. An HTTP request is made from the consumer to the producer to specify the
538 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

method they want to call and passes along the parameters in either a SOAP request,
through a QueryString, or in POST headers.
The producer receives the incoming request, un-packages the input parameters, and
calls the appropriate method of the specified class. This method, when complete,
returns a value, which is packaged up and sent back to the consumer in an HTTP
response. The consumer receives this response and un-packages the return value,
completing the Web service call.
You do not want to worry about the HTTP message-passing semantics when you are
using Web services. To avoid this issue, you can use a proxy class. Proxy classes
serve as an intermediate step between the program (or Web page) on the consumer
and the actual Web service on the producer. For each method in the producer’s Web
service, there is a method in the proxy class. It is the responsibility of the proxy class
to do all of the complicated message-passing tasks. This essentially hides the com-
plexity in the class, and your Web page or Windows application can simply call the
methods of this proxy class and not concern itself with the underlying semantics
that are involved in calling a Web service. For more information about Web services
creation and usage, see “Consuming Web Services” on MSDN.
It is not necessary to create the proxy yourself; in fact, Visual Studio does all of this
work for you automatically. When you click on the Add Reference button Visual
Studio creates a proxy for you that is named HelloWorldWS.Service1. To perform
an operation on this newly referenced Web service, you only need to create an
instance of the proxy class and invoke its methods just as you would with a regular
class. The following code invokes the HelloWorld() method of the Web service from
the example and displays the results in a Windows Forms label named Label1.
Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object,_
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
Dim ws As HelloWorldWS.Service1
ws = New HelloWorldWS.Service1
Label1.Text = ws.HelloWorld()
End Sub

Technology Updates
The following sections detail the technology updates available through Web ser-
vices.

Web Services Enhancements (WSE)

The Web Services Enhancements (WSE) is a .NET class library that augments the
.NET Framework and related technologies to provide an implementation of various
Web service specifications.
WSE is designed to simplify the development and deployment of secure Web ser-
vices by helping Visual Studio .NET and .NET Framework developers apply a
 Chapter 19: Advancements for Common Web Scenarios 539

security policy, establish long-running secure conversations, retrieve and validate

security tokens, and more. The latest version of WSE at the time of this writing is 2.0
and includes a number of enhancements over earlier versions of WSE to more easily
apply these features. Some of these enhancements, such as the WSE 2.0 support for
the newly-approved OASIS standard version of WS-Security, mean WSE 2.0 cannot
exchange secured SOAP messages with WSE 1.0. WSE 2.0 also introduces the use of
WS-Addressing which deprecates WS-Routing used in WSE 1.0. The good news is
that you can use the WSE 2.0 assemblies in the same applications as your WSE 1.0
assemblies so that a single application can communicate with both WSE 1.0 and
WSE 2.0 Web services.
Web Services Security
WS-Security is not a complete security solution in and of itself. It is a protocol for
exchanging security information between message senders and receivers. Develop-
ers need to design an appropriate security solution and deal with potential threats,
such as replay attacks.
The Web Services Enhancements (WSE) supports security tokens based on the
following credentials:
● Kerberos version 5 ticket

● User name and password

● X.509 certificate

Attachments
WSE 2.0 supports attaching files to SOAP messages outside the SOAP envelope;
these files are not serialized as XML. This can be beneficial when sending large text
or binary files because XML serialization is a very costly process and can result in
files much larger than the originals. Direct Internet Message Encapsulation (DIME)
is a lightweight, binary message format that WSE 2.0 uses to encapsulate SOAP
messages and their attachments in a single message.
WS-Routing
WS-Routing is a specification used by participants in a service network to move
messages from a source to a destination. WS-Routing is the heart of a SOAP router,
which often acts as an intermediary, passing information between SOAP routers and
to other service network participants.
In many cases, participants other than the router (such as a SOAP server) will also
implement the WS-Routing specification. This enables SOAP services to pipe their
output directly to another service as input.
WS-Routing uses routing tables to determine the path that the message should take.
Another protocol, WS-Referral, is used to update those routing tables.
WS-Referral describes the format of messages that can be used to add or delete
routes in these routers.
540 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Summary
Web applications provide a means to exchange data and to remotely invoke services
across the Web. They make it possible to provide access to data and services to
significantly more users than a typical desktop application. The significance of this
possibility has served as the catalyst for the increase in Web applications and Web
services.
If your applications are not currently Web accessible, enhancing them with Web
services, or even turning them into Web services, is not beyond possibility. This
chapter has discussed Web technologies and language features available in Visual
Basic .NET that will enable you to make your applications usable over the Web.
Yet another perspective on application advancement is to consider technological
features that are desirable in any application. The next chapter will look at advance-
ments that will help make your applications more secure, manageable, and
scaleable.

More Information
For more information about Master Pages see “ASP.NET Master Pages Overview”
on MSDN:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/wtxbf3hh.aspx.
For more information about HTTP Modules, see “HTTP Modules” in MSDN
Magazine:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/05/asp/default.aspx.
For an example of a publicly available Web service see “Microsoft MapPoint Web
Service” on Microsoft.com:
http://www.microsoft.com/mappoint/products/webservice/default.mspx.
For more information about the WebService class, see “WebService Class” in the
.NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html
/frlrfSystemWebServicesWebServiceClassTopic.asp.
For more information about adding Web references, see “Publishing and
Discovering Web Services with DISCO and UDDI” in MSDN Magazine at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/02/xml/default.aspx.
For more information about Web Service creation and usage see “Consuming Web
Services” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/sdk/htm
/ebiz_prog_webservices_yydh.asp.
20
Common Technology Scenarios
Many technology scenarios apply to all applications, regardless of the application’s
purpose. These scenarios include requirements for security, manageability, and
performance. Ensuring that an application protects the system from accidental or
malicious actions depends on providing good security. Managing an application
goes beyond simply installing it on a user’s computer. As computer hardware
performance continues to increase, the demands made on applications that run on
them also increase. This means that application performance and scalability are
serious considerations for modern applications.
This chapter examines each of these scenarios and provides information about how
each is addressed in Microsoft Visual Basic .NET.

Application Security
The security features in the Microsoft .NET Framework were designed, in part,
to make it much easier for developers to write secure code. This section examines
some of the features available in Visual Basic .NET to enhance the security of your
applications.

Using Identities and Authentication

Security is one of the most important features to consider when you build .NET
applications. Application developers must consider several situations that may
occur when an application is used in a production environment. Security attacks are
very common, and nobody wants to have an unsecured application running in their
organization. The .NET Framework provides classes that help to manage security
situations. They make it easy to implement role-based security in your application.
542 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Implementing and enforcing security consists of two parts: authentication and

authorization. This is achieved by implementing custom principal and identity
classes based on the IPrincipal and IIdentity interfaces.
Identities represent users and contain properties that hold information (such as the
user name) about that user. The classes for working with identities reside in the
System.Security.Principal namespace. This namespace contains two classes:
GenericIdentity and WindowsIdentity. By using these classes, you can determine
the properties of a user. The namespace also includes the IIdentity interface that you
can use to create custom identities, which extend the base identity type to suit the
specific needs of your application.
The following is an example of an implementation of the IIdentity interface.
Import System.Threading
Import System.Security.Permissions
Public Class MyIdentity
Implements System.Security.Principal.IIdentity

Public Shared strAuthenticationTypeString As String = "NTLM"

Public strUserName As String
Private _userInfo As Hashtable

Public ReadOnly Property AuthenticationType() As String _

Implements System.Security.Principal.IIdentity.AuthenticationType
Get
Return strAuthenticationTypeString
End Get
End Property

Public ReadOnly Property IsAuthenticated() As Boolean _

Implements System.Security.Principal.IIdentity.IsAuthenticated
Get
Return True
End Get
End Property

Public ReadOnly Property Name() As String _

Implements System.Security.Principal.IIdentity.Name
Get
Return _userInfo(strUserName)
End Get
End Property

Private Sub New(ByVal userInfo As Hashtable)

Me._userInfo = userInfo
End Sub

Public Shared Function strCreateMyIdentity(ByVal userInfo As Hashtable) _

As MyIdentity
Return New MyIdentity(userInfo)
End Function

End Class
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 543

The UserIdentity type implements the IIdentity interface which requires you to
implement three properties:
● Name. This returns the name of the identity. You need to call the shared function
strCreateMyIdentity() and pass it a hash table with all of the user information.
This method then returns an instance of your identity.
● IsAuthenticated. This returns a value, whether or not the user has been authenti-
cated. If you allow anonymous access, you set it to false for anonymous users.
● AuthenticationType. This returns the type of authentication. WindowsIdentity
returns NTLM, while GenericIdentity returns an empty string or the type speci-
fied when you instantiated GenericIdentity.
A Principal object is a holder for all the roles the user belongs to (according to the
active authentication mechanism). Any .NET class that implements the IPrincipal
interface is a valid Principal object. The IPrincipal interface exposes the Identity
property (which returns the underlying Identity object) and the IsInRole method.
The following code example shows how to implement an IPrincipal interface. This
class works with the IIdentity class previous defined.
Import System.Threading
Import System.Security.Permissions
Public Class MyPrincipal
Implements System.Security.Principal.IPrincipal

Private Groups As Hashtable

Private Rights As Hashtable
Private MyIdentity1 As MyIdentity

Public ReadOnly Property Identity() As System.Security.Principal.IIdentity _

Implements System.Security.Principal.IPrincipal.Identity
Get
Return MyIdentity1
End Get
End Property

Public Function IsInRole(ByVal role As String) As Boolean _

Implements System.Security.Principal.IPrincipal.IsInRole
Return Groups.ContainsValue(role)
End Function

Public Function HasPermissions(ByVal Permission As String) As Boolean

Return Rights.ContainsValue(Permission)
End Function

Private Sub New(ByVal SecGroups As Hashtable, ByVal SecRights As Hashtable, _

ByVal userInfo As Hashtable)
Me.Groups = SecGroups
Me.Rights = SecRights
MyIdentity1 = MyIdentity.strCreateMyIdentity(userInfo)
End Sub
544 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Public Shared Function CreateSecPrincipal(ByVal SecGroups As Hashtable, _

ByVal SecRights As Hashtable, ByVal userInfo As Hashtable) _
As MyPrincipal
Return New MyPrincipal(SecGroups, SecRights, userInfo)
End Function

Protected Overrides Sub Finalize()

MyBase.Finalize()
End Sub
End Class

The Security.Principal type implements the IPrincipal interface, which requires that
you implement the Identity property and the IsInRole() method. Also, this type has
a private constructor to prevent you from instantiating an instance of this type. You
have to call the shared function CreateSecPrincipal(), pass a hash table with the user
information and the roles that the user belongs to, and the security rights (permis-
sions) that the user has in your implementation.
The constructor for this type calls CreateUserIdentity() from your custom identity
class, passing along the user information, and then holds on to the identity it re-
ceives. CreateSecPrincipal() returns an instance of your security principal to you.
The Identity property returns the identity object associated with the security
principal.
After you define these classes, you can use them as shown in the following code
example.
Import System.Threading
Import System.Security.Permissions
Public Class Example
Public Shared Sub Main()

Dim MyID As New System.Security.Principal.GenericIdentity("hvalverde")

Dim roles As String() = {"Manager", "Administrator"}
Dim GP As New System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal(MyID, roles)

Thread.CurrentPrincipal = GP
Try
doSomething()
Catch e As Exception
Console.WriteLine("Error:")
Console.WriteLine(e.ToString())
End Try
GP = New System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal(MyID, _
New String() {"Administrator"})
Thread.CurrentPrincipal = GP
doSomething()
End Sub
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 545

<PrincipalPermissionAttribute(SecurityAction.Demand, Role:="Administrator")> _
Shared Sub doSomething()
Console.WriteLine("You are Adm")
End Sub
End Class

The .NET Framework class library contains two Principal objects:

WindowsPrincipal and GenericPrincipal. When you use a WindowsIdentity,
WindowsPrincipal pair, the Principal role list is built using the Windows groups to
which the Windows user belongs.
With principal and identity objects, you can authenticate users and authorize them
to (or prevent them from) accessing application functionality as appropriate for each
user’s role.

Using Cryptography
The .NET Framework provides a set of cryptographic objects that support well-
known algorithms and their common uses, including hashing, encryption, and
generating digital signatures. These objects are designed to allow you to easily
incorporate these basic capabilities into more complex operations, such as signing
and encrypting a document.
The .NET Framework uses cryptographic objects to support internal services, but
these objects are also available to developers who need cryptographic support. The
.NET Framework provides implementations of many such standard cryptographic
algorithms and objects.
The System.Security.Cryptography namespace in the .NET Framework provides
several cryptographic services. The cryptographic algorithms supported include:
● Rivest Shamir Adelman (RSA) and Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) public
key (asymmetric) encryption. Asymmetric algorithms operate on fixed buffers.
They use a public key algorithm for encryption and decryption.
● Data Encryption Standard (DES), TripleDES, and RC2 private key (symmetric)
encryption. Symmetric algorithms are used to modify variable length buffers and
perform one operation for periodical data input.
● Message Digest 5 (MD5) and Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA1) hashing. MD5 is a
one-way hash algorithm. It always produces a 128-bit hash value for variable
length input data.
The .NET Framework offers an extensive collection of encryption algorithms that
can be used in different situations. Symmetric algorithms can be used to encrypt
streams of data, such as files or communication channels, and have relatively good
performance. Asymmetric encryption provides the strongest protection, but it is
generally slower than symmetric encryption.
546 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The following example shows a Cipher class that contains methods for file encryp-
tion and decryption. The example uses the DES encryption algorithm. This algo-
rithm uses a single key for encryption and decryption; therefore, it belongs to the
category of symmetric encryption algorithms. (For more information about the DES
encryption algorithm, see “The DES Encyption Algorithm” on the Ius Mentis Web
site.) The Cipher class has a method named SetKey that specifies the key for the
algorithm to use. Users of the class must keep the original key in a secret and safe
place because it is needed to decrypt the encrypted file. Notice that the Decrypt
method differs from Encrypt only by the invocation of cipherObj.CreateDecryptor
instead of cipherObj.CreateEncryptor. The chainVec variable is used as an addi-
tional parameter for the encryptor/decryptor. It provides additional protection by
introducing part of the information in the previous encrypted block into the current
block. This feature is known as chaining ciphering.
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Text
Imports System.Security.Cryptography
Public Class Cipher
Public encryptKey(7) As Byte
Private chainVec() As Byte = {&HAB, &HCD, &HEF, &H12, &H34, &H56, &H78, &H90}

Sub SetKey(ByVal keyBase As String)

Dim encoder As New ASCIIEncoding
Dim arrByte(7) As Byte
Dim i As Integer = 0
Dim res() As Byte
encoder.GetBytes(keyBase, i, keyBase.Length, arrByte, i)

Dim SHAHash As New SHA1CryptoServiceProvider

res = SHAHash.ComputeHash(arrByte)

'Update the encryption key

For i = 0 To 7
encryptKey(i) = res(i)
Next i
End Sub

Sub Encrypt(ByVal inputFile As String, ByVal outputFile As String)

Try
Dim dataBuffer(4096) As Byte
Dim totFileLen As Long
Dim BytesWrittenTot As Long = 8
Dim blockSize As Integer
Dim fileIn As New FileStream(inputFile, _
FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read)
Dim fileOut As New FileStream(outputFile, _
FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write)
Dim cipherObj As New DESCryptoServiceProvider
Dim encryptedStream As New CryptoStream(fileOut, _
cipherObj.CreateEncryptor(encryptKey, _
chainVec), CryptoStreamMode.Write)
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 547

fileOut.SetLength(0)
totFileLen = fileIn.Length

While BytesWrittenTot < totFileLen

blockSize = fileIn.Read(dataBuffer, 0, 4096)
encryptedStream.Write(dataBuffer, 0, blockSize)
BytesWrittenTot = Convert.ToInt32 _
(BytesWrittenTot + blockSize / _
cipherObj.BlockSize * cipherObj.BlockSize)
End While

encryptedStream.Close()
Catch e As Exception
'Handle exception
End Try
End Sub

Sub Decrypt(ByVal inputFile As String, ByVal outputFile As String)

Try
Dim dataBuffer(4096) As Byte
Dim totFileLen As Long
Dim BytesWrittenTot As Long = 8
Dim blockSize As Integer
Dim fileIn As New FileStream(inputFile, _
FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read)
Dim fileOut As New FileStream(outputFile, _
FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write)
Dim cipherObj As New DESCryptoServiceProvider
Dim encryptedStream As New CryptoStream(fileOut, _
cipherObj.CreateDecryptor(encryptKey, _
chainVec), CryptoStreamMode.Write)

fileOut.SetLength(0)
totFileLen = fileIn.Length

While BytesWrittenTot < totFileLen

blockSize = fileIn.Read(dataBuffer, 0, 4096)
encryptedStream.Write(dataBuffer, 0, blockSize)
BytesWrittenTot = Convert.ToInt32( _
BytesWrittenTot + blockSize / _
cipherObj.BlockSize * cipherObj.BlockSize)
End While

encryptedStream.Close()
Catch e As Exception
'Handle exception
End Try
End Sub
End Class

When you incorporate cryptography in your application, you may want to consider
using the Microsoft patterns & practices Security Application Block. This application
block allows you to choose a security option based on your system requirements.
548 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

You can use the Security Application Block in a variety of situations, such as using a
database to authenticate and authorize users, retrieving role and profile information,
and caching user profile information. The Security Application Block has the follow-
ing features:
● It reduces the requirement to write boilerplate code to perform standard tasks.

● It helps maintain consistent security practices, both within an application and

across the enterprise.
● It eases the learning curve for developers by using a consistent architectural
model across the various areas of functionality provided.
● It provides implementations that you can use to solve common application
security problems.
● It is extensible; it supports custom implementations of security providers.

For more information about security and cryptography, see “Security Application
Block,” “Cryptography Application Block,” and “Cryptography Simplified in
Microsoft .NET” on MSDN.

Application Manageability
The .NET Framework provides enhancements that allow you to improve the man-
ageability of your application. These enhancements are described in the following
subsections.

Using Configuration Files

You can use configuration files to configure .NET applications without recompiling
them. These configuration files help you to store application variables and configu-
ration values, just as you could with earlier versions of Visual Basic (by using .ini
files and later, registry settings). In addition, Visual Basic .NET configuration files
allow you to keep properties for visual components so they can be dynamically
changed by just editing a text file.
Configuration files can contain different types of information, depending on the
type of application that will use them. A configuration file for a .NET client applica-
tion will be significantly different from those for a .NET server application: the
configuration file will contain different sections, attributes, and values.
Typically, you need to perform the following tasks when you configure a client
application that communicates with a remote server application:
● Configure the client application security policy. By default, applications that
run in an intranet are not allowed to access other servers in the intranet. You
must set the required permissions to allow the client to access other servers.
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 549

● Configure assembly binding. If the application uses shared third-party compo-

nents, you might need to indicate specific versions of the components to be used
by the client application.
● Configure remoting. You must indicate the server address to the client applica-
tion. You can use the .NET Framework Configuration tool to complete this task.
For more information about using this tool, see “.NET Framework Configuration
Tool (Mscorcfg.msc)” on MSDN.
After you apply the configuration settings, you must deploy the resulting configura-
tion file to the computers that will use the application. In the example, these are
client computers. The following XML sample specifies the configuration settings
discussed in this section.
<configuration>
<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="MySpecificVersionComponent"
publicKeyToken="e9b4c4996039ede8"
culture="en-us"/>
<publisherPolicy apply="no"/>
</dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>

<system.runtime.remoting>
<application name = "myApplication">
<client url = "tcp://server/clientApplication"
displayName="Client Application">
<activated type = "ClientClassInstance,ClientClass"/>
</client>
</application>
</system.runtime.remoting>
</configuration>

Notice that the dependentAssembly node indicates the component that the client
application depends on.
The configuration file for a server application usually includes settings for the
objects to be exposed to remote clients, life times for client-side objects, and the
polling frequency for objects that are going to be released.
Configuration (.config) files are plain XML files with a defined structure. Typically,
they reside in the same folder that contains your application’s executable (.exe) file.
You can add a configuration file to your application from Visual Studio .NET by
selecting Add New Item on the File menu, and then selecting Application Configu-
ration File.
550 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Configuration files contain XML elements, which are logical data structures that set
configuration information. For example, the <runtime> element is specified in the
format <runtime>child elements</runtime>. Configuration settings are specified
using predefined attributes, which are name/value pairs inside the corresponding
element.
The following example specifies the version and href attributes for the <codeBase>
element, which indicates an assembly’s location. Note that the configuration file’s
content is case-sensitive.
<codeBase version="2.0.0.0"
href="http://www.litwareinc.com/myAssembly.dll"/>

You can add new entries to the <appSettings> section of the configuration file, to
define the following:
● User-defined settings. These are configuration settings that your application
uses. The application reads these settings from the
System.Configuration.AppSettingsReader class.
● Dynamic properties. These are Windows Forms control properties that are
assigned a value from a configuration file entry. You can change the values for
these properties by modifying the .config file. You do not need to recompile the
application in order to apply the changes.
The following example shows how the AppSettingsReader is used to read data
contained in the application’s configuration file.
…
Dim myReader As System.Configuration.AppSettingsReader()
Dim myInstance As New MyClass()
myInstance.StringProp = CType(myReader.GetValue("DynamicClass.StringProp", _
GetType(System.String)), String)
…

Notice that the AppSettingsReader.GetValue method receives the key of an entry in

the configuration file and the type used to parse the data. The content of the con-
figuration file for this example is shown in the following example.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="DynamicClass.StringProp" value="This is a test">
</appSettings>
</configuration>
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 551

In general, you need to follow these steps to retrieve data from the configuration file
manually:
1. Create an instance of System.Configuration.AppSettingsReader.
2. Use the AppSettingsReader.GetValue method to retrieve the value for the
specified key.
3. Convert the object returned by the GetValue method to the appropriate data
type.
For more information about application configuration files for machine-level and
security settings, see “Application Configuration Files,” “Application Configuration
Scenarios,” “System.Configuration Namespace,” and “Configuration Application
Block” on MSDN.

Using Deployment and Update Features

After you upgrade your application to Visual Basic .NET, you can take advantage of
the deployment process features provided in the .NET Framework. The .NET Frame-
work offers different ways to deploy your application, including:
● XCOPY deployment. This is the easiest way to deploy an application built on the
.NET Framework. To use XCOPY, you copy the assemblies to the installation
path. This is a good option if your application does not require additional files to
be installed or any customization to be performed on the client computer.
● Setup projects. The .NET Framework provides a more powerful way to deploy
your application than XCOPY deployment. Setup projects allow you to deploy
the application and any necessary files. They also provide a detailed structure of
the target file system. In these projects, you can also specify the following:
● Custom actions to be executed on the target computer

● Launch conditions

● Registry settings

● Messages and information displayed during the installation process

● No-touch deployment. This option allows you to make the assemblies of your
application available online on a Web server. Target (client) computers can con-
nect to the server and download the latest version of those assemblies each time
the application is executed. The assemblies are copied to the server or Web
directory that is trusted by the .NET runtime and by the Internet browser on the
client computer. Client computers then access that Web directory by using its
URL in the browser, and the .NET Framework takes charge of downloading the
assemblies as they are required. No-touch deployment requires client computers
to have a permanent Web connection to the server.
For more information about setup projects and .NET deployment, see “Setup
Projects” and “No-Touch Deployment in the .NET Framework” on MSDN.
552 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Using Performance Counters

The .NET Framework provides a series of performance counters that are quite useful
for optimization and diagnostic purposes. A predefined set of the counters is avail-
able in Visual Studio .NET Server Explorer. To use them, you must drag and drop
them on your application. Among other information, the predefined performance
counters provide valuable data about the following aspects of your application:
● State of the .NET common language runtime (CLR), including memory, security,
exceptions, and other state data
● System, including processes, threads, and other information

● Physical devices, including memory, processor, and other devices

● SQL Server, including databases, locks, statistics, and other information

You can use performance counters for your application after you upgrade it to
Visual Basic .NET. For more information, see “Performance Counters” in the .NET
Framework General Reference on MSDN.

Using Tracing and Logging

The .NET Framework tracing and logging mechanisms are available through two
classes in the System.Diagnostics namespace: Trace and Debug. Both classes
contain the same properties and methods. The difference between them is that
Debug is available only when the application runs in Debug mode, while Trace is
available in both Debug and Release modes. This means that the code you write
using the Debug class cannot be executed in the Release configuration.
Using Trace and Debug, you can output logging information about system events,
errors, and failures. Output can also be conditional: Trace and Debug generate
messages only if certain conditions are met or if an expression evaluates to true.
You can redirect output generated by Trace and Debug calls to the Output window,
the system’s Event Log, or to a text file by using the TraceListener class. You can
disable or inhibit the generated messages (depending on their severity) by using the
BooleanSwitch and TraceSwitch classes available in System.Diagnostics.
To learn more about Trace and Debug, see “Trace Class” and “Debug Class” in the
.NET Framework Class Library on MSDN.

Application Performance and Scalability

Performance and scalability are very important in real world applications. Often,
one of these factors will impact the other. You must decide which is more important
to your needs.
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 553

There are sections of an application that are critical to the overall performance.
These sections can be contained in frequently invoked functions or in loops. When
the quantity of tasks performed in these sections increases, the overall performance
of the application is noticeably degraded. It is vital that you identify these perfor-
mance bottlenecks before you can improve the application’s overall performance.
During application development, you should measure and identify potential perfor-
mance issues so that you can avoid resource performance tuning tasks at the end of
the development process.
For more information about performance considerations in software development,
see Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability on MSDN.
There are several common performance considerations that you should consider
when you build .NET applications. Some of the most important are discussed in this
chapter.

Exception Handling Considerations

Exception handling is a key aspect of developing applications on the .NET Frame-
work. It allows you to easily and gracefully recover from errors that could easily
crash an application. However, exception handling can be expensive in terms of
system resources. For this reason, you should exercise restraint when using excep-
tions in your applications.

String Handling Considerations

When a string is altered, the original string is garbage collected, and a new object is
created to hold the changed string. This may not be an issue for a small number of
changes, but an excessive number can tax the system.
The .NET Framework includes the StringBuilder class, which is a special class
designed to be used when you manipulate string objects. The StringBuilder class
includes methods for altering the contents of a string. It is contained in the
System.Text namespace. For more information, see the “Replacing Strings with
StringBuilders” section in Chapter 11, “Upgrading String and File Operations.”

Database Access Considerations

The .NET Framework recommends that you tune for database access by using only
the functionality that you need, and that you design for a disconnected approach.
With this approach, you make several connections in sequence, instead of holding a
single connection open for a long time. In addition, Microsoft recommends an n-tier
strategy for maximum performance, as opposed to a direct client-to-database con-
nection strategy. Consider this recommendation as part of your design philosophy,
because many of the technologies in the .NET Framework are optimized to take
advantage of a multi-tiered architecture.
554 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

You should also consider the following recommendations:

● Use the optimal managed provider, such as the SQL-specific provider, instead of
generic providers.
● Use a DataReader object instead of a DataSet object whenever you do not need
to store data for later navigation. A DataReader offers improved performance
because it has less overhead than a DataSet.
● Use Mscorsvr.dll for multiprocessor computers. This library offers optimizations
that scale when more processors are available.
● Use stored procedures whenever possible. They offer increased performance
because they are optimized and do not need to interpreted, compiled, or trans-
mitted to client computers.
● Be careful about using dynamic connection strings. Connection pooling (dis-
cussed later in this chapter) creates a connection pool based on unique connection
strings. When dynamic connection strings are used, they may result in different
strings for the same connection which will not be recognized by the connection
pool. Thus, any potential performance increase will be lost.
● Avoid auto-generated commands, which must frequently connect with the server
to obtain metadata to carry out the command. Each time a connection occurs
performance is reduced.
● Beware of ADO legacy design. Whenever you execute a command, every record
specified in the query is returned.
● Keep your datasets compact. Keep only the records that are needed, because the
more records you have in the dataset, the more memory is required to store them,
even if they are not used.
● Use sequential access whenever possible. This is especially important for large
data types. Sequential access will only read a small chunk of the data does not
have the latency that reading in a large data type does.
For more information about database access and performance, see “Performance
Tips and Tricks in .NET Applications” on MSDN.

Multithreading and the BackgroundWorker Component

Multithreading, or free-threading, refers to the ability of a program to execute
multiple threads of operation simultaneously.
Multithreading can be a powerful tool to use in component programming. By
writing multithreaded components, you can create components that perform com-
plex calculations in the background while leaving the user interface free to respond
to user input.
The .NET Framework offers more than one option for multithreading in compo-
nents. The functionality in the System.Threading namespace is one option. The
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 555

Asynchronous Pattern for Components is another option. The BackgroundWorker

component is an implementation of the Asynchronous Pattern. It provides that
advanced functionality encapsulated in a component for ease of use.
For more information about multithreading and the BackgroundWorker compo-
nent, see “BackgroundWorker Component Overview” and “Asynchronous Pattern
for Components” on MSDN.

Caching
One of the new features in ASP.NET is a system for caching page and application
data, so that the application does not need to perform the same expensive process
each time a user views a page. Caching can be performed on a per-page, or on a per-
user control basis.
The performance, primarily in terms of speed, of a Web page drives user satisfac-
tion. If your goal is to increase traffic on a Web site, you cannot afford to have slow
Web pages.
One of the ways to improve throughput is to use caching for Web pages. Simply
defined, caching means storing frequently used items in memory. Caching is a well-
tested and successful technique for performance improvement. HTML pages can be
cached to improve their loading speed. A more indirect example of caching is con-
nection pooling, which provides an efficient way to manage connections and share
them across different service requests. In connection pooling, whenever a connection
request is received, the connection pool checks if there is an existing idle connection
that can be used to fulfill the request. Thus, new connections are not created unless
there are no existing connections available. The .NET Framework supports caching
of the ASP.NET response page that is generated by requests and supports storing
individual objects in memory.
The following are some of the key concepts for caching ASP.NET pages:
● Know how to set the expiration policy.

● Know where to set the location of the cache.

● Know when you should cache multiple versions of a page.

● Know when you should cache portions of ASP.NET pages.

● Determine when you should cache application requests.

● Always notify an application when an item is removed from the cache.

For more information about caching, see “Caching ASP.NET Pages” in the .NET
Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN.
556 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Communication and State Management

When you build an application for deployment on the Internet or an intranet, it is
important that the application is both open and scalable. To achieve this goal, you
must design your application so that it can communicate and connect with different
platforms and with other applications deployed in the environment.
Protocols and communication technologies play a critically important role in achiev-
ing this connectivity. The major protocols used for inter-machine communication are
Distributed COM (DCOM) and Remote Method Invocation (RMI), but these proto-
cols are not easy to use when you have to work between different networks or over
the Internet. For these reason, other protocols — such as SOAP — are becoming more
reliable and efficient.
Applications are not designed to be deployed on one computer only. A good appli-
cation will be deployed on many computers and on many networks. To allow these
computers to communicate, the protocol and infrastructure configuration are signifi-
cant, both in terms of their security implications and the complexities of facilitating
cross-computer, cross-network interaction.
The following subsections discuss some of the best known and most used communi-
cation protocols and technologies, and focus on the security implications inherent in
each.

Moving From DCOM to HTTP

DCOM is a technology based on remote procedure call (RPC). This section provides
an overview of the upgrade process necessary to move applications based on DCOM
to HTTP.
When you use DCOM, you may encounter problems when it has to work through
a firewall. This occurs because DCOM needs to use some ports that are normally
disabled. However, enabling the RPC port mapper (port 135) can open the door to
possible disclosure attacks.
In addition, using DCOM in tunneling mode (DCOM over HTTP) can have negative
security implications because it can provide a covert channel exploitable by intruders.
The following sections explain some techniques for working around these security
implications, including the use of marshaling, Web proxies, and service agent
technologies.
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 557

Using Marshaling
The process of packaging data to be sent from one object to another is known as
marshaling. Marshaling is the process of converting information for communication
between threads. In COM, marshaling is used when data moves across context
boundaries such as operating system processes or computers.
The most common practice for marshaling is to precede marshaled objects with data
type information. You can do this in several different ways. The following list
summarizes three approaches:
● XML marshaling. This approach uses XML nodes and attributes to represent type
information and XML text to hold values. The XML result can be sent as plain text
or as a structure that allows the reconstruction of the transmitted objects.
● Text marshaling. This uses plain text to represent data. Simple parsing on the
receiving application can be used to reconstruct the object.
● Binary marshaling. This uses a binary header that contains data type and size
information.
XML and text marshaling are readable by humans, and they generally have poor
performance. The process of constructing an object from XML or text can be costly
for large or numerous objects. In contrast, binary marshaling is very efficient but not
readable by humans. You must weigh the performance needs against readability
needs to help you decide which approach is best for your situation.

Creating Web Proxies

Web proxies are components that reside on the client computer. They facilitate the
client’s communication with a Web service and are responsible for transparently
issuing requests to the Web service and interpreting the results for the client.
Web proxies communicate with XML Web services by using the SOAP protocol. You
can use Visual Studio.NET or the Web Services Descriptive Language Tool (WSDL or
Wsdl.exe) to automatically create Web proxies for the .NET Framework. These tools
can query the desired Web service to discover how to interact with it. Based on the
results of the query, the tools build the proxy class, which can be used in client
applications to facilitate interaction with the Web service. You can specify the lan-
guage used for creating the class at creation time; for example, you can specify
Visual Basic .NET as the target language. You can then view the resulting class file in
Visual Studio or any other source code editor, which gives you the ability to modify
it if necessary. You can then include the proxy class in your client application.
558 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Using Service Agents

A service agent is a service that helps your application work with other services.
Service agents are frequently supplied by the provider of the target service. The
agent runs topologically close to the application consuming the service. It helps both
to prepare requests sent to a service and to interpret responses from the service.
Service agents offer advantages, such as ease of integration because of the simplified
service interface, which makes consuming Web services as simple as using a local in-
process object. Although you can easily achieve this same effect by using WSDL-
generated proxies, service agents have advantages that you cannot achieve with a
proxy from a WSDL file. These advantages include the following:
● Error handling. Service agents can be designed to recognize the errors that a
service can produce, which can greatly simplify integration efforts.
● Data handling. A service agent can cache data from the service in a correct and
knowledgeable manner. This can greatly improve response times from a service,
reduce load on the service, and permit applications to work when disconnected
(offline).
● Request validation. Service agents can check the input document of a service
request to ensure correctness prior to submission, allowing obvious errors to be
caught without the lag time and server load of a roundtrip. On the other hand,
the service still requires validating all requests on receipt.
● Intelligent routing. Some services can use agents to send requests to a specific
service instance based on the content of the request.
Service agents also have support for operating in both online and offline modes. The
agents can detect when a remote service is unreachable, and switch to offline mode
without any intervention from the applications that are consuming the agents. As
stated in the “Windows Applications and Windows Forms Smart Clients” section in
Chapter 18, “Advancements for Common Scenarios,” this offers a huge advantage to
smart client users.

Replacing Message Queuing with System.Messaging

The System.Messaging namespace provides classes that allow you to connect to,
monitor, and administer message queues on the network and send, receive, or peek
at messages. This namespace provides developers with the ability to send and
receive messages primarily through two classes: Message and MessageQueue. The
Message class encapsulates any data you are sending, as well as properties to
control the routing, formatting, and security of the message. MessageQueue classes
are used to represent the individual queues and contain the methods for working
with the queues, such as Send() and Receive().
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 559

By using Message Queuing and the System.Messaging namespace, .NET developers

can create highly scalable, reliable applications that are loosely coupled and share
only the name of a common queue.
For more information about the upgrade of Message Queuing API access to the
System.Messaging namespace, see the “MSMQ and Queued Components” section
in Chapter 15, “Upgrading MTS and COM+ Applications.”

Note: It is important to note that MSMQ 3.0 provides functionality not available in the
System.Messaging namespace. For example, Message Queuing can provide information about
the quantity of messages contained in a queue. If you need this functionality, you will need to
implement it by using other .NET Framework functionality (for example a .NET Framework
ServicedComponent that traces the quantity of messages in a queue).

For more information about the System.Messaging namespace, see

“System.Messaging Namespace” in the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN.

Upgrading ODBC and OLE DB Data Access Components

By using Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), developers can connect and
access data from different sources, including relational and XML data sources. The
components available in MDAC include ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), Open Data-
base Connectivity (ODBC), and OLE DB. You can use these components in combina-
tion with appropriate providers and drivers to access many different types of data
sources.
This section provides an overview of ODBC and OLE DB data access components in
the .NET Framework. ADO.NET is covered in detail in the next section.
The ODBC and OLE DB components can be described as follows:
● ODBC. The Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) interface is a C
programming language interface that allows applications to access data from a
variety of database management systems. Applications that use this API can
access relational data sources only.
● OLE DB. OLE DB is a comprehensive set of low-level COM interfaces for access-
ing a diverse range of data in a variety of data stores. OLE DB providers exist for
accessing data in database systems, file systems, message stores, directory ser-
vices, workflow, and document stores.
The .NET Framework data providers offer numerous advantages over the extensive
low- level data access components. The data access architecture has been simplified
to provide improved performance without loss of functionality. Additionally, the
.NET Framework data providers are executed inside the managed environment
provided by the CLR. Interaction with COM components is not necessary.
560 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Visual Basic 6.0 offers a variety of techniques for accessing ODBC data sources. For
example, you can use Data Access Objects (DAO) with ODBC connections. You
could use the ODBCDirect DAO option to access remote ODBC data sources. Alter-
natively, you could use Remote Data Objects (RDO) to access ODBC data sources.
RDO implements a code layer on top of the ODBC API. Yet another possibility is to
directly interact with the ODBC API through the ODBC handles provided by RDO.
In Visual Basic 6.0, you can access OLE DB data sources by using ADO, which is the
programmer interface to OLE DB. This interface exposes virtually all OLE DB
functionality.
To upgrade a Visual Basic 6.0 application that accesses ODBC or OLE DB data
sources to Visual Basic .NET, you must upgrade the programmer interface used to
interact with the data source. Depending on the data source, this interface will be
DAO, RDO, or ADO. Information on how to upgrade DAO, RDO, and DAO code is
provided in Chapter 12, “Upgrading Data Access.” However, if the resources are
available to do so, it is recommended that you upgrade any data access interfaces to
ADO.NET.
To upgrade the underlying data provider component, you must use one of the .NET
framework data providers. This remainder of this section explains this process.

The ODBC .NET Data Provider

.NET Framework data providers are used for connecting to a database, executing
commands, and retrieving results. The results obtained can be directly processed,
stored in an ADO.NET DataSet, or transmitted through the different application
tiers.
The ODBC .NET data provider is an additional component that can be referenced by
.NET applications. It provides access to native ODBC drivers and was designed to
be compliant with all ODBC drivers including the following:
● Microsoft SQL ODBC driver

● Microsoft ODBC driver for Oracle

● Microsoft Jet ODBC driver

Each of these drivers has been tested by Microsoft and is known to work with the
ODBC.NET data provider.
The .NET Framework data provider for ODBC is recommended for middle-tier
applications that use ODBC data sources. Note that this data provider is not in-
cluded in .NET Framework version 1.0. However, to download this component, see
“ODBC .NET Data Provider” in the Microsoft Download Center.
This data provider uses the Microsoft.Data.Odbc namespace. You need to add the
corresponding assembly as a reference in your Visual Basic .NET project so that the
component will be accessible from your application.
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 561

The following code example shows how a connection string is setup for an
ODBC SQL Server data provider and how the connection is used to create a simple
command.
…
Dim cn As OdbcConnection = New OdbcConnection _
("DRIVER={SQL Server};SERVER=MySQLServer;UID=sa;" & _
"PWD=mypassword;DATABASE=northwind;")
Dim mystring As String = "select * from MyTable"
Dim cmd As OdbcCommand = New OdbcCommand(mystring)
cn.Open()
…
cn.Close()
…

The OLE DB .NET Data Provider

The OLE DB .NET data provider has native access to OLE DB through COM interop,
and supports both local and distributed transactions.
The following list presents the data providers that have been tested with ADO.NET:
● Microsoft OLE DB provider for SQL Server

● Microsoft OLE DB provider for Oracle

● OLE DB provider for Microsoft Jet

This data provider is recommended for middle-tier applications that use Microsoft
SQL Server version 6.5 or earlier. All other OLE DB providers that support the OLE
DB interfaces used by the .NET Framework data provider for OLE DB are also
supported. This data provider is also recommended for single-tier applications that
use the Microsoft Access database. For more information about OLE DB interfaces,
see “OLE DB Interfaces Used by the .NET Framework Data Provider for OLE DB” in
the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN.
The following code example shows how a connection string is setup for an OLE DB
SQL Server data provider and how the connection is used to create a simple com-
mand.
…
Dim cn As OleDbConnection = New OleDbConnection( _
"Provider=SQLOLEDB;Data Source=localhost;" & _
"Integrated Security=SSPI;Initial Catalog=northwind")
Dim mystring As String = "select * from MyTable"
Dim cmd As OleDbCommand = New OleDbCommand(mystring)
cn.Open()
…
cn.Close()
…
562 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Accessing Oracle Databases from the .NET Framework

Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) provides components that use ODBC
and OLE DB interfaces to access Oracle databases. Although the Oracle ODBC data
provider is still supported in the current release of MDAC, it is recommended that
you use another .NET-supported Oracle data provider for new and upgraded
applications.
By using the appropriate connection string, you can access an Oracle data source
with the ODBC .NET data provider, as shown in the following code example.
Dim cn As OdbcConnection cn= New OdbcConnection ( _
"Driver = {Microsoft ODBC for Oracle};" & _
"Server=myOracleserver;uid=myuid;pwd=mypwd")

Another alternative is to use the OLE DB .NET data provider. The following code
shows a sample connection string for this upgrade option.
Dim cn As OleDbConnection = New OleDbConnection( _
"Provider=MSDAORA.1;User ID=myUID;password=myPWD; " & _
"Data Source=myOracleServer;Persist Security Info=False")

The .NET Framework Data Provider for Oracle

When you upgrade a middle-tier or single-tier application that uses an Oracle
database version 8.1.7 or later, it is recommended that you use the .NET Framework
data provider for Oracle. This data provider allows developers to access Oracle data
sources through Oracle client connectivity software and supports local and distrib-
uted transactions.
The classes that correspond to this data provider are located in the
System.Data.OracleClient namespace and are contained in the
System.Data.OracleClient.dll assembly. You must include this assembly as a refer-
ence to use the data provider functionality. The .NET Framework data provider for
Oracle is not included in .NET Framework version 1.0. However, you can download
the data provider from the Download & Code Center on MSDN.

Upgrading ADO to ADO.NET

ADO is a set of classes that allows users to access and manipulate data from a
variety of sources through an OLE DB provider. With ADO, you can build both
client/server and Web-based applications.
Some of the core services ADO provides are the following:
● Connecting to a data provider
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 563

● Executing commands or calling stored procedures

● Searching and navigating data
● Retrieving data
Visual Studio .NET offers a new and completely redesigned collection of classes for
data access that considers modern application requirements of distribution, reliabil-
ity, and scalability. This new data access model is ADO.NET and, in addition to the
ADO features, provides the following advantages:
● Interoperability. All data in ADO.NET is transported in XML format. The data is
provided as a structured text document that can be read by anyone on any
platform.
● Scalability. ADO.NET promotes the use of disconnected datasets, with automatic
connection pooling bundled as part of the package.
● Productivity. ADO.NET can improve overall development time. For example,
typed DataSets help you work more quickly and allow you to produce more bug-
free code.
● Performance. Because ADO.NET provides disconnected datasets, the database
server is no longer a bottleneck and application performance is improved.
ADO.NET includes the DataSet and DataTable classes, which implement database-
independent data containers. It also provides database-oriented tools, such as SQL
and OLE DB commands, managed data providers and connections, data readers,
and data adapters. ADO.NET allows your application to work with data, regardless
of the data source, data format, or physical location. It provides a new object model
and features a data-centric design that differs from the ADO database-centric ap-
proach.
To achieve a smooth transition from ADO to ADO.NET, you must first understand
that ADO.NET is significantly different from ADO. You must also have an under-
standing of the ADO.NET philosophy.

ADO.NET Overview
ADO.NET allows developers to access data sources in a uniform way. ADO.NET can
access data from sources such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and other data
sources exposed through OLE DB or XML. Applications can use ADO.NET to access
these data sources and retrieve, manipulate, and update data.
The ADO.NET components have been designed to factor data access from data
manipulation. There are two central groups of functionality in ADO.NET that
accomplish this: the DataSet component, and the .NET Framework data provider,
which is a set of components including the Connection, Command, DataReader,
and DataAdapter objects.
564 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The ADO.NET DataSet is the core component of the disconnected architecture of

ADO.NET. The DataSet is explicitly designed for data access independent of any
data source. The DataSet contains a collection of one or more DataTable objects
made up of rows and columns of data, as well as primary key, foreign key, con-
straint, and relation information about the data in the DataTable objects.
The other core element of the ADO.NET architecture is the .NET Framework data
provider. The data provider components are explicitly designed for data manipula-
tion and fast, forward-only, read-only access to data. The Connection object pro-
vides connectivity to a data source. The Command object enables access to database
commands to return data, modify data, run stored procedures, and send or retrieve
parameter information. The DataReader provides a high-performance stream of
data from the data source. Finally, the DataAdapter provides the bridge between the
DataSet object and the data source. The DataAdapter uses Command objects to
execute SQL commands at the data source to both load the DataSet with data and
update changes made to the data in the DataSet back to the data source.

Differences Between ADO and ADO.NET

In ADO, the in-memory representation of data is the Recordset. In ADO.NET, it is
the DataSet. A Recordset works as a single table. In contrast, a DataSet is a collec-
tion of one or more tables. In this way, a dataset can mimic the structure of the
underlying database. Because the DataSet can hold multiple, separate tables and
maintain information about relationships between them, it can hold much richer
data structures than a recordset, including self-relating tables and tables with many-
to-many relationships. A more direct option is to replace Recordsets with DataTable
objects. The DataTable class corresponds to a single table, as does Recordset does,
and should be considered the first upgrade option for a Recordset. This guide
focuses on using DataSet because it is a more powerful collection.
Transmitting an ADO.NET DataSet between applications is much easier than
transmitting an ADO disconnected Recordset. To transmit an ADO disconnected
Recordset from one component to another, you use COM marshaling. To transmit
data in ADO.NET, you use a DataSet, which can transmit an XML stream.
In ADO, you scan sequentially through the rows of the recordset using the ADO
MoveNext method. In ADO.NET, rows are represented as collections, so you can
loop through a table as you would through any collection or access particular rows
by using an ordinal or primary key index. DataRelation objects maintain informa-
tion about master and detail records and provide a method that allows you to get
records related to the one you are working with.
In ADO.NET, you open connections only long enough to perform a database opera-
tion, such as a Select or Update. You can read rows into a dataset and then work
with them without staying connected to the data source. In ADO, the Recordset can
provide disconnected access, but ADO is designed primarily for connected access.
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 565

There is one significant difference between disconnected processing in ADO and

ADO.NET. In ADO, you communicate with the database by making calls to an OLE
DB provider. In ADO.NET, you communicate with the database through a data
adapter, which makes calls to an OLE DB provider or the APIs provided by the
underlying data source.

ADO vs. ADO.NET Components

The following sections map some of the most used ADO objects and their counter-
parts in ADO.NET. Keep in mind that the recommendations described should be
used only as guidelines for most code transformations when upgrading from ADO
to ADO.NET. There may be differences in the behaviors between these components;
therefore, if you choose to consider using any of these suggestions, it is recom-
mended that you review the documentation for the particular component to deter-
mine if the new behavior will meet your needs.

Upgrading ADODB.Connection
This class represents an open connection to a SQL Server database. The equivalent in
ADO.NET is SQLConnection in the SqlClient context and OleDbConnection in the
OleDb context.

Upgrading ADODB.Command
The Command object is used to execute general commands on the data within the
database. ADODB.Command has a direct equivalent in SqlCommand or
OleDbCommand. This is one of the simplest objects in ADO; therefore, the equiva-
lent members between both classes are easily identifiable.

Upgrading ADODB.Parameter
This class represents a parameter to ADODB.Command. The behavior in ADO.NET
is basically the same, and the class works as a parameter for SQL commands and
OLEDB commands.

Upgrading ADODB.Recordset
The functionality of ADODB.Recordset is spread across more than one class in
ADO.NET. ADO.NET has three classes to manage information from the database:
● DataReader. This provides a fast, forward-only, read-only stream of data from a
database.
● DataTable. This represents one table of in-memory data. It has the ability to store
and manage a group of homogeneous rows.
● DataSet. This provides an in-memory relational representation of data: a com-
plete set of data that works completely disconnected from the database. It is
566 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

necessary to have a DataAdapter to create a DataSet. With this adapter, you can
update the data source if the DataSet is updated.
In most cases, a DataTable is a more direct upgrade for a Recordset. When a single
and homogeneous group of data is stored in a Recordset, the DataTable is the most
appropriate upgrade option. However, when your application works with multiple
tables or hierarchies of results, the recommended upgrade option is a DataSet.
Regardless of which option you choose, you must manually upgrade the
ADODB.Recordset objects to objects of the new DataSet or DataTable classes.

Note: The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion includes support for the automated
migration of Recordsets to DataSets. It also supports the most commonly used ADO compo-
nents in typical usage patterns. For information about obtaining the Visual Basic Upgrade
Wizard Companion, as well as additional migration tools and services, go to the ArtinSoft
Web site.

If you have been working with ADO for any length of time, you have probably
memorized all of the Recordset facts and now assume that this is how data access is
supposed to work. Although there are changes in ADO.NET, there are some advan-
tages and improvements to using the DataSet, which is the core data object in
ADO.NET. The following summarizes some of the important basic information
about the DataSet:
● A DataSet can represent an entire relational database in memory, complete with
tables, relations, and views.
● A DataSet is designed to work without any continuing connection to the original
data source.
● Data in a DataSet is loaded all at one time, instead of being loaded on demand.

● There is no concept of cursor types in a DataSet.

● DataSets have no current record pointer. You can use For Each loops to move
through the data.
● You can store many edits in a DataSet, and write them to the original data source
in a single operation.
● Although the DataSet is universal, other objects in ADO.NET come in different
versions for different data sources.

Note: The DataTable class has been greatly extended in .NET Framework version 2.0. The
extensions are aimed at making this class capable of standalone functionality. As an example,
the DataTable class includes the ability to serialize a DataTable object.

As shown in the previous list, the most significant changes between ADO and
ADO.NET are related to the differences between Recordset and DataSet. If you plan
to pursue this upgrade path, it is recommended that you first learn more about the
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 567

differences between ADO and ADO.NET. For more references and information
about ADO.NET, see:
● “Overview of ADO.NET” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN.

● “Comparison of ADO.NET and ADO” in Visual Basic and C# Concepts on MSDN.

● “Microsoft ADO.NET (Core Reference): Sample Code” in the Microsoft Down-

load Center.
● “MSDN TV: First Look at ADO.NET 2.0” in the Microsoft Download Center.

Summary
Developing applications goes beyond just solving a particular business problem. To
build robust and powerful applications, you must include features that are separate
from the actual business requirements, but are nonetheless vital. Ensuring that users
are properly identified and authenticated for sensitive operations is important.
Creating applications with high performance and that are easy to scale as needs
increase will keep them useful over a long period of time. Other key considerations
are the need to keep applications up-to-date and easy to configure. This chapter has
provided an introduction to these and similar scenarios that you should consider
when upgrading your applications. Many new features available in Visual Basic
.NET make it easier to address these situations, making this an ideal time to consider
adding them to (or expanding them in) your applications.

More Information
For more information about the DES encryption algorithm, see “The DES Encyption
Algorithm” on the Ius Mentis Web site:
http://www.iusmentis.com/technology/encryption/des/.
For more information about security and cryptography, see the following articles on
MSDN:
● “Security Application Block”:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html
/security1.asp.
● “Cryptography Application Block”:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html
/crypto1.asp.
● “Cryptography Simplified in Microsoft .NET”:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html
/cryptosimplified.asp.
568 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For more information about using the .NET Framework Configuration Tool, see
“.NET Framework Configuration Tool (Mscorcfg.msc)” in .NET Framework Tools on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cptools/html/
cpconNETFrameworkAdministrationToolMscorcfgmsc.asp.
To learn more about performance counters for your application after you upgrade it
to Visual Basic .NET, see “Performance Counters” in the .NET Framework General
Reference on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpgenref/html/
gngrfperformancecounters.asp.
For more information about using the .NET Framework configuration tool, see
“.NET Framework Configuration Tool (Mscorcfg.msc)” in .NET Framework Tools on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cptools/html/
cpconNETFrameworkAdministrationToolMscorcfgmsc.asp.
For information about application configuration files, see “Application Configura-
tion Files” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/
cpconapplicationconfigurationfiles.asp.
For more information about the System.Configuration namespace, see
“System.Configuration Namespace” in the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/
frlrfsystemconfiguration.asp.
For more information about application configuration scenarios, see “Application
Configuration Scenarios” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/
cpconnetapplicationconfigurationscenarios.asp.
For information about the Configuration Application Block, see “Configuration
Application Block” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/config.asp.
For more information about setup projects, see “Setup Projects” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vsintro7/html/
vbconSetupProjects.asp.
For more information about .NET deployment, see “No-Touch Deployment in the
.NET Framework” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html/
vbtchNo-TouchDeploymentInNETFramework.asp.
 Chapter 20: Common Technology Scenarios 569

To learn more about Trace and Debug classes, see “Trace Class” and “Debug Class”
in the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/
frlrfsystemdiagnosticstraceclasstopic.asp
and:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/
frlrfSystemDiagnosticsDebugClassTopic.asp.
For more information about performance considerations in software development,
see Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability, on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/scalenet.asp.
For more information about database access and performance, see “Performance
Tips and Tricks” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html/
dotnetperftips.asp.
For more information about multithreading and the BackgroundWorker compo-
nent, see “BackgroundWorker Component Overview” on MSDN:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/8xs8549b(en-us,vs.80).aspx.
For more information about multithreaded programming see “Asynchronous
Pattern for Components” on MSDN:
http://winfx.msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dv_fxmclicc/html/
792aa8da-918b-458e-b154-9836b97735f3.asp.
For more information about caching, see “Caching ASP.NET Pages” in the .NET
Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/
cpconaspoutputcache.asp.
For more information about the System.Messaging namespace, see
“System.Messaging Namespace” in the .NET Framework Class Library on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/
frlrfsystemmessaging.asp.
To download the .NET Framework data provider for ODBC component, go to
“ODBC .NET Data Provider” in the Microsoft Download Center:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6ccd8427-1017-4f33-a062-
d165078e32b1&displaylang=en.
For more information about OLE DB interfaces, see “OLE DB Interfaces Used by the
.NET Framework Data Provider for OLE DB” in the .NET Framework Developer’s
Guide on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/
cpconoledbinterfacessupportedbyoledbnetdataprovider.asp.
570 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

To download the .NET Framework data provider for Oracle, go to the Download &
Code Center on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads.
For information about obtaining the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion, as
well as additional migration tools and services, visit the ArtinSoft Web site:
http://www.artinsoft.com.
For more information about ADO.NET, see:
● “Overview of ADO.NET” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html
/cpconoverviewofadonet.asp.
● “Comparison of ADO.NET and ADO” in Visual Basic and C# Concepts on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html
/vbconadopreviousversionsofado.asp.
● “Microsoft ADO.NET (Core Reference): Sample Code” in the Microsoft Down-
load Center:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bae2de67-0062-4bf5-b120-
f970865be92e&DisplayLang=en.
● “MSDN TV: First Look at ADO.NET 2.0” in the Microsoft Download Center:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=df7f7dc1-512f-4d07-b04f-
17dde0fd318a&DisplayLang=en.
21
Testing Upgraded Applications
Testing an upgrade project is just as critically important as testing a development
project, although the test effort required for testing an upgraded application may
be significantly less than that required for testing a new application with similar
requirements developed from the beginning.
To test an upgraded application, testers can take two different approaches, depend-
ing on their level of experience in testing upgraded applications. The first approach
requires relatively more experience and less test effort than the second option.
In the first approach, it is assumed that the code automatically upgraded by the
upgrade wizard works properly except in places where errors, warnings, and issues
(EWIs) are present. In this approach, the test effort is focused on testing the fixes for
the EWIs. However, even when EWIs are fixed, there can be functional holes whose
pattern can be very different from those present in a normal development project. A
tester who has considerable experience in testing upgraded applications can identify
the functional holes by reviewing the code and the design of the application. There
are no standard processes or guidelines for this, and all the steps are based on
experience.
In the second approach, a more traditional test strategy and test process is followed,
although this will likely require more test effort than the first approach. This ap-
proach is recommended for testers with limited experience testing upgrade projects.
This chapter emphasizes this second approach.
The bigger the application to be upgraded, the smaller the savings in cost and effort
for testing will be. In addition to the size of the application, the test effort and cost
depend on the upgrade strategy, the upgrade plan, the test strategies applied and
the count and complexity of upgrade issues listed by the Visual Basic Upgrade
Wizard and/or the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant. There are a handful of test
strategies to choose for testing an upgraded application. The test strategies are based
on test practices followed in different software development methodologies. They
572 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

all have a common core testing process, but they are different in how they integrate
the testing process into the upgrade process. Each upgrade strategy can be a “best-
fit” with only one of the test strategies.
This chapter explains which test strategy is the “best-fit” for each upgrade strategy.
It deals with the test strategies, test process, test planning, and different tasks in
testing.

Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000

The Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000 application will be used to illustrate the concepts
presented in this chapter. Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000 (FMStocks 2000) is an ASP/
Visual Basic 6.0 application developed for Microsoft Windows 2000 that simulates a
public stock trading Web site on the Internet. The online stock trading scenario has
been extended by adding an online bookstore. FMStocks 2000 consists of the follow-
ing use cases:
1. Logon for existing user
2. Logon for new user
3. Logout
4. Symbol or company lookup
5. Display of account balance
6. Display of portfolio
7. Chart portfolio
8. Buy a stock
9. Sell a stock
10. View shopping cart
11. Browse products
12. Checkout
The projects that make up the business logic layer of FMStocks 2000 are:
● FMStocks_Bus.vbp. This project contains the business code for the online stock
trading functionality. It includes four class modules: Account, Broker, Ticker, and
Version. It references the FMStocks_DB component.
● FMSStore_Bus.vbp. This project contains the business code for the online book-
store functionality. It includes two class modules: Product and ShoppingCart. It
references the FMSStore_DB and FMSStore_EvtSub2 components.
● FMSStore_Events.vbp. This project defines the interface for creating events for
external order processing for the online bookstore functionality.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 573

● FMSStore_EvtSub2.vbp. This project implements the event for external order

processing for the online bookstore functionality. It references the
FMSStore_Events component defined in the FMSStore_Events.vbp project.
The projects that make up the data access layer of FMStocks 2000 are:
● FMSStore_DB.vbp. This project contains the data access code for the online
bookstore functionality. It includes two class modules: Product and
ShoppingCart. It references the FMSStore_DB component defined in the
FMStocks_DB.vbp project.
● FMStocks_DB.vbp. This project contains the data access code for the online stock
trading functionality. It includes seven class modules: Account, Broker, DBHelper,
Position, Ticker, Product, and ShoppingCart.

Test Objectives
The objective of testing is to ensure that the upgraded application meets the upgrade
objectives. If the upgrade objective is only to achieve functional equivalence, the test
objective would be to test for functional equivalence. However, if the application is
upgraded for performance and/or security enhancement, testing must include
performance and security. Furthermore, if the application is being advanced beyond
functional equivalence with new features, the test effort must include functional,
performance, and security testing of these new features. Globalization testing should
also be a part of test effort if it is one of the upgrade objectives.
Because the primary focus of this guidance has been how to reach functional equiva-
lence in upgrading from Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Microsoft Visual Basic .NET,
this chapter focuses on testing for functional equivalence.

Testing Process
The testing process includes a basic set of steps that are to be followed regardless of
the test or upgrade strategies used. These steps form the core of testing and are
listed here:
● Create a test plan and test code

● Create a test environment

● Review the design

● Review the code

● Modifying existing test cases and code, or create additional test cases and code

● Perform unit testing – white box testing

● Perform black box testing

● Perform profiling – white box testing

574 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

These steps are performed on the upgraded application to validate that it conforms
to functional specifications or functional equivalence with the original Visual Basic
6.0 version of the application.
The testing process may also include the optional design review, globalization
testing, performance testing, and security testing. These are only required if they are
included in the upgrade objectives.
The next sections describe each of these steps.

Create Test Plan and Test Code

The test plan documents the test cases that will be used to test the upgraded applica-
tion. It also helps in planning and estimating the actual test effort that is required to
prepare the test code and to execute the tests. Finally, the test plan helps in tracking
the tests and their results, especially when there are multiple iterations or changes in
specifications. Test plans are usually prepared very early in the upgrade life cycle.
The information required to prepare a test plan include:
● The upgrade project plan.

● Use cases.

● Functional specifications.

● The original Visual Basic 6.0 source code or the upgraded Visual Basic .NET
source code.
The methodology for creating test cases depends on the type of testing that will be
performed. Test cases for design review, white box testing, and code review are
prepared by reviewing the source code. Test cases for black box testing are prepared
based on the use cases and the functional requirements. In the case of the upgrade
project, if test cases are already available for the Visual Basic 6.0 version of the
application, these test cases can be upgraded for the Visual Basic .NET version.
The guidance on how to identify the test cases for each step of the testing process is
explained in the respective topics later in this chapter. However, you should keep in
mind that as the upgrade proceeds, the test plan may be updated to modify existing
test cases or to include new test cases. The test plan may also be modified to account
for changes in functional specifications that occur during the upgrade.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 575

The test plan usually consists of two documents; the detailed test plan (DTP) and the
detailed test case (DTC) documents. The DTP is a list of the test cases that are in-
dexed and prioritized based on the criticality of each test case. It contains summaries
about each test case. This information includes a brief description of the feature,
project, and/or component that is to be tested using the test case. The DTC contains
detailed information about the test cases and is mapped to the DTP index. It in-
cludes detailed information about the test cases, such as steps to be followed to
execute a test case, the expected result, the actual result, status of the test case
execution (pass/fail), and the data/resources required to execute a test case. The
DTC has to be updated with the actual result and the status of test execution each
time a test case documented in the DTC is executed. The DTP and DTC documents
are also updated whenever changes are made to any test cases.
Table 1 shows the test plan for the black box testing of the login use case of
FMStocks 2000.
Table 1: Test Plan for the Black Box Testing of the Login Use Case for FMStocks 2000

Scenario 1 To test the functionality of Login Procedure For Existing User

Priority High
Comments
1.1 High To test that both Login and Home page are displayed in correct format.
That is, all links, the font, and the contents are same as those of the
existing application in Visual Basic 6.0.
1.2 High To test that if user enters a valid e-mail name and password, the user
is redirected to the home page.
1.3 High To test that if SQL Server is not running, the following message is
displays: “Cannot open database connection.”
1.4 High To test if the entered e-mail name and/or password are invalid, the
following message displays: “Invalid e-mail and password combination.
Please try again.”

Table 2 on the next page shows a sample test case for black box testing the login
functionality of FMStocks 2000. Note that the test case also includes the following
columns: Data Required, Actual Result, and Test OK (Y/N). They are not included in
this table because they contained no information in this case.
576 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Table 2: Sample Test Case for testing the Login Functionality for FMStocks 2000
Test Priority Condition to be tested Execution details Expected results
case
1.1 High To test that both login Compare the login Users should not feel
and home page are and home page with any difference in the
displayed in the correct the corresponding look and feel, fonts,
format. That is, all links, pages in the Visual functionality, content,
the font, and the con- Basic 6.0 version of and so on, between
tents are the same as FMStocks 2000 and the login and home
those of the existing verify the following pages in the upgraded
application in Visual points: version and the
Basic 6.0. Content corresponding pages
General look and feel in the Visual Basic 6.0
of the Web page version of FMStocks.
Location of input fields
Font
Links to other pages
Functionality
1.2 High To test that if user Enter the following The user should be
enters a valid e-mail e-mail name and pass- able to enter the site
name and password, word on the login page and should be
the user is redirected to redirected to the
home page E-mail: ta450 home page.
Password: ta

Test code to actually perform testing is created after the test cases are finalized. The
test code usually consists of code to automate the execution of the test cases, sample
test projects, test stubs, profiling and monitoring code, and other code to support the
testing process. Test code is required for both white box and black box testing.

Create Test Environment

The test environment is generally comprised of the upgraded component or applica-
tion to be tested, the basic software required to execute the application or compo-
nent, the testing tools, and the test code. For testing an upgraded Visual Basic .NET
application, the test environment should include the following items:
● The upgraded application or component to be tested

● Basic software for execution of the application, which consists of the following
items:
● The .NET Framework 1.1 and Visual Studio .NET 2003

● Visual Basic 6.0 (in the case of iteration based test strategy or test driven
upgrade strategy)
● Design review and code review tools (such as FxCop) and documents
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 577

● Unit testing tools (such as NUnit)

● Profiling tools, which may include the following tools:
● CLR Profiler

● Enterprise Instrumentation Framework (EIF)

● Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)

● Performance testing tools, which may include the following tools:

● Application Center Test (ACT) for ASP.NET applications

● Performance counters

For more information about testing tools, see the “Tools for Testing Visual Basic
.NET Applications” section later in this chapter.
The test environment should be similar to the target/production environment,
especially for black box testing, because the behavior of the application can change,
depending on the environment the application will be deployed in.

Review the Design

This is an optional step that is not carried out unless design optimization is an
upgrade objective or if the application is being upgraded to take advantage of
features that are specific to the Microsoft .NET Framework, such as performance
or security enhancements. Design review can be performed for several reasons,
including:
● To verify that the design satisfies the functional specifications. This verification is
performed only for the new features that are being added and advancements
being made to the application. This verification is performed by verifying
whether each functional feature in the functional specifications can be satisfied by
the design of the application.
● To verify that the design includes the best practices from a performance and
scalability point of view. This verification is performed only if performance
enhancement is one of the upgrade objectives or if the application is being up-
graded to take advantage of features that are specific to .NET. For more informa-
tion, see Chapter 4, “Architecture and Design Review of .NET Application for
Performance and Scalability,” of Improving .NET Application Performance and
Scalability on MSDN.
● To verify that the design includes the best practices from a security point of view.
This verification is performed only if security enhancement is among the upgrade
objectives. For more information about design review for security enhancement,
see “Architecture and Design Review for Security” on MSDN.
● To verify that the design uses best practices for globalization: This verification is
performed only if globalization is an upgrade objective.
● To verify that the design uses best practices for code maintainability.
578 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Review of Code
Code review of the upgraded application is actually a part of white box testing.
However, there are so many aspects associated it that it merits mentioning as a
separate step instead of grouping it with white box testing.
Test cases for code review are created at the same time as the test cases for unit
testing. To prepare the test cases for code review, either design documents are
required or the Visual Basic 6.0 code must be analyzed to document the design. The
assessment tool can be used to provide analytical information about the Visual Basic
6.0 code.
Review of the upgraded code includes:
● Validating that the implementation conforms to the design. This validation is
performed only for the features that are advancements in the upgraded applica-
tion or for design changes in the upgraded application. The tester must have the
design documents to validate that the implementation adheres to the design.
● Validating that the naming standards and commenting standards have been
followed in the code. There are several standard coding conventions recom-
mended for Visual Basic and .NET Framework code that provide various guide-
lines such as capitalization styles, case sensitivity, indentation, acronyms and
abbreviations. Your organization may also have its own coding standards. Adher-
ing to coding standards makes code easier to understand and maintain.
For information about recommended coding standards in your Visual Basic .NET
code, see “Program Structure and Code Conventions” on MSDN.
● Validating that performance and scalability guidelines have been followed in the
code. This validation is performed only if performance enhancement is an up-
grade objective or if advancements have been applied the upgraded application
that might impact performance.
For more information about code review for performance and scalability, see
Chapter 13, “Code Review: .NET Application Performance,” of Improving .NET
Application Performance and Scalability on MSDN.
● Validating that the guidelines for writing secure code have been followed. This
validation is performed only if security enhancement is an upgrade objective or if
the upgrade application has been advanced with .NET Framework technologies
that might impact security. Security code reviews help in identifying areas in
code that have security vulnerabilities because of failure to adhere to security
guidelines. Some of the areas where the tester pays special attention to during
code review are the following:
● Review for hard coded information such as user names, passwords, and
connection strings.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 579

● Review whether proper permissions are in place for privileged operations and
secure resources so that any other code accessing it must request permission to
access them.
● Review for buffer overflows.
● Review for cross-site scripting attack vulnerabilities.
For more information about security code review, see Chapter 21, “Code
Review,” of Improving Web Application Security: Threats and Countermeasures on
MSDN.
● Validating that globalization-related guidelines have been followed. This valida-
tion is performed only if globalization is a part of the upgrade objectives. For
more information about best practices for globalization, see “Best Practices for
Developing World Ready Applications” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide
or “Best Practices for Globalization and Localization,” both of which are available
on MSDN.
● Validating that the implementation has followed guidelines for code maintain-
ability. The implementation is reviewed to verify that object-oriented principles
have been followed. Unreachable or obfuscated code is detected and identified as
a defect during code review.
● Validating that proper exception handling has been implemented in the code.
Some of the exception handling guidelines that need to be verified are the follow-
ing:
● The exception handling code control should not control application logic.

● The exception handlers should add some value such as logging the error
message, cleaning up resources, customizing the exception message, or wrap-
ping the exception in a custom exception. Exceptions should not be handled
without a justifiable, documented reason.
● Exceptions should not be re-thrown unless absolutely necessary because
throwing exception is expensive.
● Exceptions should not be swallowed. Exceptions should be allowed to traverse
back through the call stack to the outer layer unless the functionality requires
otherwise.
● Exception handler Finally blocks should clean resources as appropriate.

● Logging the error message in exception handlers is recommended.

● Specific exceptions should be handled before general exceptions.

● Custom application exceptions should be preferred over standard exceptions.

For more information about the exception management architecture, see the
Exception Management Architecture Guide on MSDN.
580 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Identifying failure scenarios or additional test scenarios. During the code review,
the code is examined for failure scenarios, especially those related to resource
contention, increased resource utilization, invalid inputs, and so on. For example,
a loop in a method may work properly with only positive numbers as its upper
limit and fail with negative numbers. If the upper limit number for the loop is
provided as an argument to the method, the method may fail if a negative num-
ber is provided as the argument. If this is detected during code review, a defect is
logged and a test case for unit testing is created for this scenario.
In general, if areas in code are suspected to result in issues such as resource
management contention, deadlocks, or invalid inputs, test cases are created
around them to facilitate unit testing, profiling, or black box testing.
The upgraded code is also reviewed to find additional test scenarios for the
following conditions:
● Boundary conditions

● Invalid input

● Thread safety and deadlock conditions

Performing Unit Testing – White Box Testing

White box testing is testing based on analysis of the implementation details and the
program logic of the component or application tested to identify potential failure
scenarios. White box testing includes unit testing and profiling the upgraded appli-
cation. Profiling will be explained later in this chapter.
Unit testing involves testing a single component. The components of the upgraded
application are unit tested to detect failure scenarios in loops, conditional constructs,
and internal subroutines. Unit testing also focuses on testing if upgrade EWIs have
been properly fixed without affecting functionality or introducing new defects. Unit
testing is also performed to make sure that the behavior of a method in an upgraded
component is the same as that of the corresponding method in the original Visual
Basic 6.0 version of the component.
The test cases for unit testing are obtained by reviewing either the Visual Basic 6.0
source code or the upgraded Visual Basic .NET source code, depending on the test
strategy and by reviewing the assessment tool report for the upgrade EWIs. The test
cases and the test code are prepared during the test planning stage, but they may be
modified during the code review stage. Additional test cases and test code may also
be added during the code review stage.
In an upgrade project, if test cases for unit testing are present for the Visual Basic 6.0
version of the application, they are upgraded and reused for the Visual Basic .NET
version of the application. Similarly, the existing Visual Basic 6.0 test code is up-
graded to Visual Basic .NET.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 581

Unit testing is usually automated with the help of developer tools. One example of a
tool that helps to automate unit testing in the .NET Framework is NUnits, which is
discussed in the “Tools for Testing Visual Basic .NET Applications” section later in
this chapter.
Table 3 shows a sample test plan and test cases for unit testing for FMStocks 2000.
Table 3: Test Plan for Unit Testing the FMSStore_Cart.ShoppingCart Class

Scenario 1 Class FMSStore_Cart.ShoppingCart

Priority High
Comments
1.1 High Public Function GetByKey(ByVal AccountID As Integer, ByVal SKU As
Integer) As ADODB.Recordset
1.2 High Public Sub Add(ByVal AccountID As Integer, ByVal SKU As Integer)
1.3 High Public Sub Buy(ByVal AccountID As Integer)
1.4 High Public Function ListByAccount(ByVal AccountID As Integer) As
ADODB.Recordset
1.5 High Public Sub SetQuantity(ByVal AccountID As Integer, ByVal SKU As
Integer, ByVal Quantity As Short)
1.6 High Public Function TotalByAccount(ByVal AccountID As Integer) As
ADODB.Recordset
1.7 High Public Sub EmptyShoppingCart(ByVal AccountID As Integer)

Table 4 on the next page shows a sample test case for unit testing the
FMSStore_Cart.ShoppingCart class. Note that there is an additional column, named
Test OK (Y/N), which is not included in this table because it has no entries in this
case.
582 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Table 4: Sample Test Case for the FMSStore_Cart.ShoppingCart Class

Test Priority Condition to be tested Execution details Data required
case
1.1a High Public Function All input parameters NUnit Test Case:
GetByKey(ByVal in the valid range.
AccountID As Integer, Input Parameters:
ByVal SKU As Integer) AccountID = 5249 GetByKey_Valid
As ADODB.Recordset - SKU = 1004009
All parameters within
valid range Expected Output:
RecordSet with the
following values in the
fields
Quantity = 1
SKU = 1004009
Price = 29.95
Description = The
Secrets of Investing in
Technology Stocks

Actual Output:
1.1b High Public Function AccountID parameter NUnit Test Case:
GetByKey(ByVal higher than the valid GetByKey_
AccountID As Integer, range. AccountInValid
ByVal SKU As Integer) Input Parameters:
As ADODB.Recordset - AccountID = 5250000
AccountID parameter SKU = 1004009
higher the valid range
Expected Output:
Empty RecordSet

Actual Output:

Black Box Testing

In black box testing, the implementation details of the component or application to
be tested are unknown. Black box testing simulates the end-user/client experience
and tests the response of the upgraded applications to end-user or client actions. The
objectives of black box testing are:
● To test for functional equivalence of the upgraded application with the original
Visual Basic 6.0 version of the application.
● To test that the upgraded application has achieved the upgrade objectives.

● To test that the upgraded application can respond properly to normal and excep-
tional usage scenarios. For invalid inputs, the upgraded application should
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 583

provide error messages that are clear and present sufficient information to the
user to enable diagnosis of the error.
● To test performance and security features, if required.

Black box testing includes all of the following:

● Validation testing. This includes testing that the component or application
satisfies the documented specifications and customer/client needs.
● External interface testing. This includes testing that publicly-accessible methods
and properties of a component exhibit the expected behavior.
● Boundary condition testing. This includes testing boundary values for param-
eters. For example, if a method requires that an integer value greater than 0 be
provided as a parameter, boundary condition testing would test values near this
boundary, such as -1, 0, and 1.
● Destructive testing. This includes testing extreme scenarios where failure of the
application is guaranteed, but the application should be able to gracefully handle
the failure. This testing involves removing or deleting aspects of the execution
environment of the application, such as removing permissions to access re-
sources, deleting the database accessed by the component, and disabling the
network. The application is expected to handle these scenarios without losing
data or permanently changing the state of the data. It should also have the
capacity to rebound after the proper execution environment is completely re-
stored.
● Load testing. This includes tests to verify that the upgraded application meets
the desired performance objectives without overshooting its allocated budget
of resources such as memory, I/O, and processor and network utilization. Load
testing is performed only for the application advancements or if performance
enhancement is an upgrade objective.
● Stress testing. This evaluates the upgraded application’s behavior when the load
on the application is pushed beyond normal values. The objective is to verify that
the application is able to properly handle failures under heavy load conditions.
Stress testing is performed only if performance enhancement is an upgrade
objective or if the application has been advanced with new .NET Framework
technologies.
● Security testing. This is used to test whether the upgraded application has
security vulnerabilities. Test cases for the security testing are based on the threat
models and countermeasures that were developed based on the design review
of the upgraded application. Security testing verifies that the countermeasures
effectively counter the threats to the application. It also determines whether all
the threats have been identified. All potential types of input that may break the
security, such as inputs that may cause buffer overflows and SQL Injection
inputs, are used for security testing. Security testing is performed if security is an
upgrade objective.
584 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Globalization testing. This includes tests to verify if the upgraded application is

capable of globalization. Globalization testing is performed if globalization is an
upgrade objective.
In black box testing, the test environment should be as close to the target environ-
ment as possible because the behavior of the upgraded application may change
based on the environment the application is deployed in. Thus, it is necessary for the
test environment to match the deployment environment of the application to avoid
differences in behavior.
Black box testing is performed based on the requirements, functional specifications,
and use cases. The test cases for black box testing should be documented during the
creation of the test plan.
Table 5 shows the test plan for the black box testing of the “buy a stock” use case for
FMStocks 2000.
Table 5: Test Plan for Black Box Testing of the “Buy a Stock” Use Case for FMStocks 2000

Scenario 1 To test the functionality of buying stock

Priority High
Comments
8.1 High To test that the Buy A Stock page is displayed when the “buy a stock”
link on the left side of the screen is clicked.
8.2 High To verify that the Buy A Stock page’s appearance, look and feel, fonts,
and all other user interface features are similar to the corresponding
page in ASP.
8.3 High To verify that after the user enters the ticker and the valid number of
shares, the shares are allocated to the user, and the market price
of the shares is debited from the user account.
8.4 High To verify that if an invalid ticker is entered, the following message
displays: “The ticker symbol you entered is not valid. Please try again.”
8.5 High To verify that if an invalid number of shares is entered, such as
negative values or decimal numbers, no transaction takes place and
the following message displays: “Invalid number of shares.”
8.6 High To verify that if there is not enough money in the user’s account to buy
the entered number of shares, no transaction takes place and the
following message is displayed: “Don’t have enough cash in your
account to purchase the requested shares.”
8.7 High To test that if SQL server is not running, the following message
displays: “Cannot open database connection.”
8.8 High To test that if the SQL connection is lost during in the midst of the
transaction, the transaction is still atomic.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 585

Table 6 shows a sample test case for black box testing the “buy a stock” use case of
FMStocks 2000. Note that the test case also includes the following columns: Data
Required, Actual Result, and Test OK (Y/N). They are not included in this table
because they contained no information in this case.
Table 6: Sample Black Box Test Case for the “Buy a Stock” Use Case for FMStocks 2000
Test Priority Condition to be tested Execution details Expected results
case
1.1 High To test that both login Compare the login Users should not feel
and home page are and home page with any difference in the
displayed in the correct the corresponding look and feel, fonts,
format. That is, all links, pages in the Visual functionality, content,
the font, and the Basic 6.0 version of and so on, between
contents are the same FMStocks 2000 and the login and home
as those of the existing verify the following pages in the upgraded
application in Visual points: version and the
Basic 6.0. Content corresponding pages
General look and in the Visual Basic 6.0
feel of the Web page version of FMStocks.
Location of input
fields
Font
Links to other pages
Functionality
1.2 High To test that if user Enter the following The user should be
enters a valid e-mail e-mail name and able to enter the site
name and password, password on the and should be
the user is redirected login page redirected to the
to home page home page.
E-mail: ta450
Password: ta

White Box Testing – Profiling

Profiling is the process of gathering statistical information about an application
during run time, such as the time and resource usage of an application and the
execution tree exercised. This information can be analyzed for different purposes,
such as identifying components that can be optimized to improve speed or resource
use.
In the context of white box testing, the upgraded application is profiled to identify
failure scenarios and issues based on resource management, memory allocation,
resource contentions, code coverage, and deadlocks. In the cases resource manage-
ment, deadlocks, and resource contention issues, profiling is not performed on the
entire application; it is performed only on those parts of the application where it is
586 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

suspected that these issues occur as identified during black box testing or code
review.
Profiling an upgraded application monitors the application at run time. In conjunc-
tion with code coverage testing, profiling can be used to detect dead code (code that
never gets called or executed). Code coverage testing executes test cases that exercise
the entire execution tree. These test cases are designed to cause every possible path
of execution to occur at least one time. Note that code coverage testing is not critical
from the functional equivalence perspective because extra functionality in a compo-
nent or application will not affect the behavior of the required functionality. During
code coverage testing, the application can be profiled to identify the methods that
are called. Because the code coverage testing exercises all possible execution paths,
any methods that are never called during this testing can be identified as dead code.
Profiling is also performed to identify excessive utilization of a resource such as
network I/O, disk I/O, memory usage, and CPU. Excessive resource use indicates
that the code is blocking resources disproportionately to other applications. Profiling
helps to detect such code. This type of profiling is performed if the upgraded appli-
cation consumes too much memory or takes longer than expected to complete
execution during black box testing. In such instances, profiling can be limited to
isolated components that are suspected of causing the issue to identify the cause.
The code can also be profiled to ensure that there no memory leaks or fragmentation
of the heap. This type of profiling is beyond the scope of this chapter. For more
information about memory profiling using the .NET Common Language Runtime
profiler, see “How To: Use CLR Profiler” in Improving .Net Application Performance
and Scalability on MSDN.

An Overview of Test Strategies

Test strategies are based on testing practices followed in different software develop-
ment methodologies such as the waterfall model and iterative development model.
These strategies can also be applied to different types of upgrade projects. The test
process is fairly consistent across the different strategies, but the test planning and
the test effort varies for these strategies. This section examines several different test
strategies that can be applied in upgrade projects.

Test Strategy Based on the Waterfall Methodology

One possible testing strategy is based on the waterfall development methodology. In
this strategy, after a single project of the entire application is upgraded, the up-
graded project is unit tested. Then after all projects of the application are upgraded,
all the upgraded projects/components are integrated to get a working version of the
application, which is then system tested for functional equivalence. This test strat-
egy is illustrated in Figure 21.1.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 587

Manual Changes
to each project
Defects
Test Planning + Code Review
+ Unit Testing
After all projects Defects
have been upgraded
and unit tested Integration

Black Box
Testing

Profiling

Figure 21.1
Graphical representation of the waterfall upgrade process

This test strategy suits the complete upgrade strategy best. In the complete upgrade
strategy, all the components/projects of the application are upgraded before they are
integrated to get a complete working version. This complete application is then
system tested for functional equivalence. For information about the complete up-
grade strategy, see the “Complete Upgrade” section of Chapter 2, “Practices for
Successful Upgrades.”
In the complete upgrade strategy, a working version of the application is not created
until late in the upgrade life cycle. For this reason, the complete upgrade strategy
fits with the test strategy that is based on the waterfall model. However, this is also a
disadvantage because problems in the system testing phase are more costly to fix
because they are harder to isolate at the system level than at the unit level. Because
of this, it is recommended that you restrict the usage of this test strategy to relatively
simple applications with a small number of components.
If an upgraded application has been advanced using .NET features such as replacing
ADO with ADO.NET, the advancement would have required a design phase. Any
flaw related to the design during the system testing phase is costly to fix, so applica-
tions with advancement features are not suitable for this test strategy. Furthermore,
this test strategy does not accommodate uncertainties in the application that may
have been passed down to the testing phase. In this test strategy, it is required that
the previous upgrade phase is completely frozen with no uncertainties lingering
588 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

until the test phase. If the application includes advancements that may have some
uncertainties, this strategy is not the best strategy to use.
This test strategy is the best strategy for upgrading FMStocks 2000. Based on the
source code metrics and the project files overview generated by the assessment tool,
FMStocks 2000 is a medium-sized application that can be upgraded completely.
FMStocks 2000 has 4,943 lines of code divided between 22 files, 3 project groups, and
6 projects. For more information about the upgrade of the FMStocks 2000 applica-
tion, see Appendix D, “Fitch and Mather Stocks 2000 Upgrade Case Study.” This
case study also details the testing of this application, which follows the strategy
described in this section.
The general test process for this strategy is specified here:
1. During upgrade planning and after the upgrade strategy is decided, create test
plans and test cases for black box testing based on the functional specifications or
the original Visual Basic 6.0 version of the application. If test plans and test cases
already exist for the Visual Basic 6.0 version of the application, upgrade them for
testing the Visual Basic .NET version of the application. From the assessment
reports, set tentative effort estimate for unit testing because the test cases and test
plan for unit testing are not developed at this stage (although if unit test cases
exist for Visual Basic 6.0 version of the application, they can serve as the basis for
the estimates).
2. Perform the automated upgrade for each upgrade project.
3. Apply manual changes to each upgrade project, concentrating on fixing the EWIs.
4. Create test plans, test cases, and test code for unit testing the upgraded project.
5. Perform a design review if required.
6. Perform a code review.
7. Modify or add additional test cases and test code for unit testing or black box
testing based on the code review.
8. Perform unit testing, focusing on the EWIs.
9. After all the projects are upgraded and unit tested, integrate them and create a
working application.
10. Perform black box testing.
11. If any resource management or deadlock issues are suspected based on the black
box testing, perform profiling to identify the issues.
12. Fixes for defects found during code review, unit testing, black box testing, or
profiling must undergo a complete regression testing cycle of code review, unit
testing, black box testing, and profiling.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 589

Test Strategy Based on the Iterative Methodology

Another possible test strategy for upgrade projects is based on the iterative develop-
ment methodology. This test strategy overcomes the shortcomings of the waterfall-
based test strategy and is best used in complete upgrade projects for complex
applications and for staged upgrade projects for reasons explained later in this
chapter.
In a staged upgrade strategy, each project/component is upgraded and is integrated
with the system. The system consists of the .NET upgraded projects and the Visual
Basic 6.0 projects communicating through interoperability techniques. After each
project is upgraded, it is unit tested. After it passes testing, it is integrated with the
system and the entire system is tested for functional equivalence. This ensures that
a working system is present at all times.
In this strategy, the waterfall-based test strategy is repeated over a number of itera-
tions. One iteration is performed after each project is upgraded and integrated with
the system. Then the system is tested for functional equivalence. This test strategy
is best for the staged upgrade strategy and for the complete upgrade strategy for
complex projects with many components. This test strategy requires more coordina-
tion between the test team and the development team than the previous test strat-
egy. In particular, the testers must be knowledgeable about the upgrade plan to
know which component is to be upgraded at each point in the upgrade process.
As previously stated, in a complete upgrade strategy, a working system is developed
only during the last few phases of the project. Any bug detected in the last phases of
the upgrade cycle, including the system testing phase, will be costly to fix because
bugs that appear in an integrated application are more difficult to isolate than those
found in unit testing. This test strategy makes it possible to find bugs and take
corrective actions at the end of each iteration. Bugs detected at the end of each
iteration will be less costly to fix than those that are not identified until after the
upgrade is complete because each iteration will have isolated changes. Therefore, it
is recommended to upgrade large and complex projects using the iterative model
based test strategy. Here, the test team receives an upgraded project unit and tests it,
integrates it with the system, and then tests the complete system for functional
equivalence just as in the case of the staged upgrade strategy. Though the task of
integration is an overhead, it is required to ensure that the system is being thor-
oughly tested.
This strategy mitigates the risk of finding major flaws in the last few phases of the
upgrade cycle, but it introduces the overhead of system integration after each project
is upgraded in a complete upgrade strategy. It may also introduce an overhead if
there is any change in the projects that have already been upgraded and integrated.
Therefore, it is required that the test team implement an efficient change control
process to manage changes made to the system in between iterations.
590 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

FMStocks 2000 upgrade is not an appropriate candidate for this test strategy, but if it
was applied, the upgrade and testing steps would be as follows:
1. The ASP pages are upgraded to ASPX pages and integrated with the business
components.
2. The ASPX pages are tested for functional equivalence with the ASP pages.
3. FMStocks_Bus.vbp project is upgraded and integrated with the system. The
upgraded Visual Basic .NET version of FMStocks_Bus component replaces the
Visual Basic 6.0 version of FMStocks_Bus in the working system and is made to
interoperate with the FMStocks_DB component that has yet to be upgraded.
4. The upgraded FMStocks_Bus project is then unit tested, followed by the testing
of the integrated system for functional equivalence.
5. The FMSStore_Bus.vbp project is upgraded. The upgraded Visual Basic .NET
version replaces the original Visual Basic 6.0 version in the system. The upgraded
version of the component will then be made to interoperate with FMSStore_DB
and FMSStore_EvtSub2 components.
6. The upgrade process continues for another project in the FMStocks 2000 applica-
tion. After each project is upgraded, it is unit tested, integrated with the entire
system (using interoperability techniques if there are still Visual Basic 6.0 compo-
nents to be upgraded), and the entire system would be tested for functional
equivalence. This would be repeated for each project of the application until all
projects have been upgraded.
The test process for this strategy is specified here:
1. During upgrade planning and after the upgrade strategy is decided, create test
plans and test cases for black box testing based on the functional specifications or
the original Visual Basic 6.0 version of the application. Create test cases and test
code for unit testing based on the analysis and review of the Visual Basic 6.0
version of the application. If test plans, test cases, and test code already exist for
the Visual Basic 6.0 version of the application, upgrade them for testing the
Visual Basic .NET version of the application.
2. Perform automated upgrade for an upgrade project in an iteration cycle.
3. Perform manual changes to the upgraded project concentrated on fixing the
EWIs.
4. Integrate the upgraded project with the system.
5. Perform design review if required.
6. Perform code review.
7. Modify or add additional test cases and test code for unit testing or black box
testing based on the code review.
8. Perform unit testing, focusing on the fixes for EWIs.
9. Perform black box testing.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 591

10. If any resource management or deadlock issues are suspected based on the black
box testing, perform profiling to identify the issues.
11. Repeat the steps 2 through 10 for the remaining iteration cycles.
12. Fixes for defects found during code review, unit testing, black box testing, or
profiling must undergo a complete regression testing cycle of code review, unit
testing, black box testing, and profiling.

Test Strategy Based on the Agile Methodology

If the applications to be upgraded are large and very complex — such as if they are
composed of several projects or project groups, contain multiple cross-references
between projects or components, or have dependencies on external systems— the
test strategies mentioned earlier become less effective and reliable. This is also true if
the Visual Basic 6.0 application has to be advanced with .NET technologies, such as
replacing all business COM components with Web services. This situation becomes
more complicated if the requirements and specifications for the advancements are
not clearly defined.
A test strategy that is robust enough to handle the complexity and that absorbs
changes quickly and smoothly is required in these situations. The test strategy that is
based on the agile development methodology is the best choice in these situations.
The agile methodology is similar to the iterative methodology in that it progresses in
iterations, but the time periods for iterations are shorter. These time periods are also
typically considered strict delivery deadlines instead of planned goals (as is the case
in the iterative methodology). It incorporates the principles of the iterative method-
ology of development, test, and feedback. Test-driven development is a core practice
of the agile methodology. Test-driven development is the practice of developing a
test case and then building the functionality to satisfy the test case, which is fol-
lowed by refactoring of the implementation. This results in very short development
cycles. Extending the principles of the test-driven development to the upgrade
process requires using test cases to test a single feature and then fixing code until the
test cases for that feature are satisfied. This is followed by refactoring. This process is
the test-driven upgrade process.
In the test-driven upgrade process, the test cases reflect the functional specifications
of the system. These test cases do not change unless the requirements or specifica-
tions of the application change. The upgrade is performed to satisfy test cases, one
feature at a time. The test-driven upgrade process highlights the feedback concept.
The upgrade phase is periodically punctuated by test iterations, that is, each up-
grade iteration is followed by a test iteration. The test iteration provides a feedback
on the preceding upgrade iteration. Each iteration upgrades the functionality in an
incremental fashion, and the test iteration that follows tests the incremented func-
tionality and the complete system’s functionality. No other portion of the application
592 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

is upgraded until after only those sets of test cases not related to the targeted up-
grade feature fail.
In the test-driven upgrade process, the test cases are prepared in the early phases of
the project before the actual upgrade or the advancement work begins. The up-
graded code changes according to the test cases. The test cases include cases for unit
testing and system testing. They cover the entire functionality of the application and
are categorized into subsets based on the different use cases or functionalities of the
application. As mentioned earlier, the entire upgrade phase is divided into itera-
tions. In an upgrade iteration, only a small portion of the application is upgraded to
satisfy a subset of test cases and to upgrade a subset of entire the application’s
functionality. Feedback is then obtained about the upgraded code by testing it with
the complete set of test cases. If any test case in the subset of test cases to be satisfied
fails, the upgraded code is modified to make the failed test case pass. The iteration is
not complete until all the test cases in the target subset of test cases pass. If all the
test cases associated with the upgraded functionality pass, the code is refactored to
clean any duplication of design, dead code, identifiers and names, and comments.
Then the next upgrade iteration starts. In the next iteration of the upgrade phase,
another portion of the application is upgraded that builds on the functionality that
has been already upgraded. This iteration is again followed by a test iteration and
then code refactoring. Subsequent iterations increment the functionality and test the
incremented functionality. If the upgraded code breaks during a test iteration, the
code is modified to fix only those test cases associated with the current and previous
iterations. The upgrade of the feature is not considered complete until these test
cases pass. Further upgrade iterations are allowed only after that. If any change
occurs in the requirements in the middle of the upgrade process, the test cases are
updated accordingly and the upgraded code runs against the test cases. Because of
changes in the test cases, some of the test cases may fail and the upgraded code will
have to be modified to pass the failed test cases. This is how the test-driven upgrade
process operates.
This alternating periodic cycle of upgrade and test ensures that a change in the
requirements or the specifications in the middle of the upgrade phase has little
impact and can be easily absorbed. This makes the test strategy flexible to changes.
Furthermore, the requirements and specifications, especially for the application
advancements, can be evolved along with the progress of the upgrade. Because test-
driven upgrade can absorb changes effectively, it reduces the overhead of extensive
planning before upgrade. When the application is being advanced, there is a scope
for architectural change, and it is not required to sketch in detail the way the archi-
tecture is going to be modified. The practice of not allowing further upgrade itera-
tions until all defects or pending issues with the upgraded code are resolved ensures
robustness of the code even in complex applications.
In addition to the similarity of the practice of having multiple iterations of upgrade
and test, the other similarity between the test-driven upgrade and the iterative
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 593

model based test strategy is that a working version of the upgraded application is
maintained throughout the upgrade and test phase. However, the difference be-
tween the test-driven upgrade strategy and the iterative model-based test strategy is
the way the upgraded system is kept functional throughout the upgrade and test
phase. In the iterative model-based test strategy, the system is made functional by
interoperating with components that have not been upgraded. This introduced an
overhead of writing interoperability code to keep the system functional. In contrast,
the test-driven upgrade strategy does not have that overhead. Instead, the system is
divided into multiple functional units that can stand alone and each functional unit
is upgraded and integrated with existing upgraded functional units. To divide the
application into multiple functional units, it is necessary to categorize the compo-
nents or projects according to the different use cases or functionalities of the applica-
tion. For example, the FMStocks 2000 projects can be mapped with the different use
cases as follows:
● Login for existing user:

● FMStocks_Bus.vbp

● FMStocks_DB.vbp

● Login for new user:

● FMStocks_Bus.vbp

● FMStocks_DB.vbp

● Logout:
● FMStocks_Bus.vbp

● Symbol or company lookup:

● FMStocks_Bus.vbp

● FMStocks_DB.vbp

● Display of account balance:

● FMStocks_Bus.vbp

● FMStocks_DB.vbp

● Display of portfolio:
● FMStocks_Bus.vbp

● FMStocks_DB.vbp

● Chart portfolio:
● FMStocks_Bus.vbp

● FMStocks_DB.vbp

● Buy a stock:
● FMStocks_Bus.vbp

● FMStocks_DB.vbp
594 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Sell a stock:
● FMStocks_Bus.vbp

● FMStocks_DB.vbp

● View shopping cart:

● FMSStore_Bus.vbp

● FMSStore_DB.vbp

● Browse products:
● FMSStore_Bus.vbp

● FMSStore_DB.vbp

● Checkout:
● FMSStore_Bus.vbp

● FMSStore_DB.vbp

● FMSStore_EvtSub2.vbp

● FMSStore_Events.vbp

Although FMStocks 2000 is an unsuitable candidate for test-driven upgrade, if it is

upgraded using the test-driven upgrade strategy, the following steps will be fol-
lowed:
1. ASP pages will be upgraded to ASPX pages. The projects FMStocks_Bus.vbp and
FMStocks_DB.vbp will be upgraded.
2. The upgraded FMStocks_DB and FMStocks_Bus projects will be unit tested.
3. The following functionalities/use cases will be tested for functional equivalence:
● Login for existing user

● Login for new user

● Logout

● Symbol or company lookup

● Display of account balance

● Display of portfolio

● Chart portfolio

● Buy a stock

● Sell a stock

4. The projects FMSStore_Bus.vbp, FMSStore_EvtSub2.vbp, FMSStore_Events.vbp,

and FMSStore_DB.vbp will be upgraded.
5. The upgraded projects FMSStore_Bus.vbp, FMSStore_EvtSub2.vbp,
FMSStore_Events.vbp, and FMSStore_DB.vbp will then be unit tested.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 595

6. The following use cases will then be system tested:

● View shopping cart
● Browse products
● Checkout
● Login for existing user
● Login for new user
● Logout
● Symbol or company lookup
● Display of account balance
● Display of portfolio
● Chart portfolio
● Buy a stock
● Sell a stock

Tools for Testing Visual Basic .NET Applications

The current version of Visual Studio .NET does not provide tools specifically for
automating the testing of Visual Basic .NET applications. However, other tools do
exist for automating tests. This section examines some of the tools available.

NUnit
A popular tool for performing unit testing on applications in the .NET Framework is
named NUnit. NUnit provides a unit-testing framework that can be applied to any
.NET Framework language, including Visual Basic .NET. For more information and
to download NUnit, see the NUnit Web site.

FxCop
The FxCop tool is used to automate code review. The FxCop tool has various sets of
pre-defined rules that are similar to the guidelines provide in the “Review of Code”
section earlier in this chapter. The tool analyzes the application binaries to determine
whether the implementation adheres to the predefined rules. These rules are
customizable and can be extended. For more information about FxCop, see the
FxCop Team Page on the .NET Framework Community Website.
596 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Application Center Test (ACT)

Application Center Test is a performance testing tool. It is designed to stress Web
servers and to test the performance of ASP.NET applications. ACT simulates a large
number of users by opening multiple connections to the server so that a real-world
environment with thousands of simultaneous users accessing a Web site can be
simulated. Using ACT, a Web application can be load tested and stress tested.
Furthermore, functional testing can be performed using programmable dynamic
tests. ACT is included with the Enterprise Edition of Visual Studio .NET. For more
information about ACT, see “Microsoft Application Center Test 1.0, Visual Studio
.NET Edition” on MSDN.

Visual Studio Analyzer

Visual Studio Analyzer is a performance analysis tool that is used to analyze and
debug distributed applications. This tool analyzes components at a high level and
presents information that can be used to identify the components that fail in a
distributed environment. For more information about Visual Studio Analyzer see
“Visual Studio Analyzer” on MSDN.

Trace and Debug Classes

The .NET Framework comes with a pair of classes that can be used to print useful
debugging messages during execution to allow you to see the flow of your applica-
tion and to help you spot unusual behavior. These classes are Debug and Trace and
both are defined in the System.Diagnostics namespace.
Both classes are very similar and contain static methods to print arbitrary text
messages, print messages only when tested expressions evaluate to true, pause and
ask the user what to do when certain conditions do not evaluate to true, and format
the text messages using simple indentation commands.
The only difference between these classes is that by default the Debug method calls
are not compiled into the Release builds of your application, and Trace method calls
are compiled into the Release builds. You can change this behavior by defining
compiler directives on the compiler command line (or in your code — though this is
less likely) to include the Trace and Debug method calls whenever you want. This
debugging mechanism uses a technique named conditional compilation, which is
borrowed from the C programming language. When the compiler directives are not
defined, the use of the Trace and Debug classes is not even compiled into your final
code, so there is no performance hit in your final release. This is very helpful be-
cause it allows you to put the same amount of tracing information into your code
without having to be concerned about performance in the final release version.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 597

An additional advantage of these classes is that they can be configured to increase

and decrease the amount of information that they produce using external configura-
tion files. This allows you to adjust the information that is generated. You can even
release the application with the tracing information included, but you should turn
off the tracing so that it is not visible until you need it.

TraceContext Class
The TraceContext class provides functionality similar to the Trace and Debug
classes, but it provides this functionality for ASP.NET applications. This class con-
tains fewer methods but allows you to add conditional text to your HTML pages
that are generated by ASP.NET and formats them for viewing in your browser. The
page also automatically includes information that is related to your request and that
can help debug problems in your Web applications.

CLR Profiler
CLR Profiler is a tool used for profiling memory utilization by an application. CLR
Profiler profiles the interaction between the managed applications, the managed
heap, and the garbage collector. CLR Profiler is used to identify memory leaks. For
more information about CLR Profiler, see “How To: Use CLR Profiler” in Improving
.NET Application Performance and Scalability on MSDN.

Enterprise Instrumentation Framework (EIF)

EIF is used to instrument a .NET application so that it can be profiled and traced.
After it is profiled and traced, application metrics can be captured. EIF encapsulates
the functionality of event logging, Event Tracing for Windows (ETW), and Windows
Management Instrumentation (WMI). EIF provides the means to publish errors,
warnings and informational events. Even business-specific events can be published.
EIF is used to profile for code coverage testing. It is also used to profile for identify-
ing functional loopholes or specific failure scenarios that are caused by resource
contention or invalid inputs.
For more information about how to use EIF, see “How To: Use EIF” in Improving
.NET Application Performance and Scalability on MSDN.

Performance Counters
Another Windows service that the .NET Framework provides access to and that can
help meet your testing requirements is performance counters. Windows monitors
many different aspects of the .NET runtime and the rest of the operating system. You
can even define your own performance counters and then monitor those counters
from the Performance Monitoring tool (Perfmon.exe) or from within your own
applications.
598 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For more information about performance counters in .NET, see “Performance

Counters” in the .NET Framework General Reference on MSDN.
For more information about how to create and use custom performance counters,
see the following How Tos in the patterns & practices guide Improving .NET Applica-
tion Performance and Scalability on MSDN (the links for the How Tos are in the left
pane):
● “How To: Monitor the ASP.NET Thread Pool Using Custom Counters”

● “How To: Time Managed Code Using QueryPerformanceCounter and

QueryPerformanceFrequency”
● “How To: Use Custom Performance Counters from ASP.NET”

Summary
Testing is arguably the most important part of any software development project,
including upgrade projects. Carefully planned and executed testing processes help
to identify bugs in and verify the correctness of the software.
The options available for testing upgrade development are the same as those avail-
able for any type of software development. In fact, the test strategies themselves are
based on the various software development methodologies. The particular test
strategy you choose to apply when upgrading applications will depend on the
characteristics of the application you are upgrading. Whether you perform testing at
the end of the upgrade or in iterative stages throughout the upgrade process will
depend on the size and complexity of the application itself. For small or simple
applications, waiting until the upgrade has been completed will require the least
amount overhead and will, therefore, be more efficient. For larger and more complex
applications, a better approach is to perform testing on individual components as
each is upgraded, or to perform iterative testing. Although these approaches have
increased overhead because of increased test passes, the benefit is that they better
isolate bugs and other issues earlier in the upgrade when they are easier to fix.
Having a clear understanding of the steps of the test process will make testing more
efficient and increase the accuracy of the results.
This chapter has provided the details you need to make the best decisions about
how to test your upgraded applications and the steps to needed to perform those
tests.
 Chapter 21: Testing Upgraded Applications 599

More Information
For more information about upgrading performance, see Chapter 4, “Architecture
and Design Review of .NET Application for Performance and Scalability,” of
Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/
scalenetchapt04.asp.
For more information about design review for security enhancement, see
“Architecture and Design Review for Security” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/secmod/html/
secmod78.asp.
For information about recommended coding standards in your Visual Basic .NET
code, see “Program Structure and Code Conventions” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html/
vbconProgrammingGuidelinesOverview.asp.
For more information about code review for performance and scalability, see Chap-
ter 13 “Code Review: .NET Application Performance” of Improving .NET Application
Performance and Scalability on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnpag/html/ScaleNetChapt13.asp.
For more information about security code review, see Chapter 21, “Code Review,” of
Improving Web Application Security: Threats and Countermeasures on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/THCMCh21.asp.
For more information about best practices for globalization, see “Best Practices for
Developing World Ready Applications” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide or
“Best Practices for Globalization and Localization,” both of which are available on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/
cpconbestpracticesforglobalapplicationdesign.asp
or:
http://sdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/vsent7/html/vxconBestGlobalizationPractices.asp.
For ore information about the exception management architecture, see the Exception
Management Architecture Guide on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnbda/html/exceptdotnet.asp.
For more information about memory profiling using the .NET Common Language
Runtime profiler, see “How To: Use CLR Profiler” in Improving .Net Application
Performance and Scalability on MSDN:
http://sdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnpag/html/scalenethowto13.asp.
For mre information on NUnit, and to download the tool, see the NUnit Web site:
http://ww.nunit.org.
600 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For mre information about FxCop, see the FxCop Team Page on the .NET Frame-
work Community Web site:
http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/fxcop/.
For more information about ACT, see “Microsoft Application Center Test 1.0, Visual
Studio .NET Edition” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnbda/html/exceptdotnet.asp.
For more information about Visual Studio Analyzer see “Visual Studio Analyzer” on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vsavs70/html/
veoriVisualStudioAnalyzerInBetaPreview.asp.
For more information about CLR Profiler, see “How To: Use CLR Profiler” in Improv-
ing .NET Application Performance and Scalability on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/
scalenethowto13.asp.
For more information about how to use EIF, see “How To: Use EIF” in Improving
.NET Application Performance and Scalability on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/
scalenethowto14.asp.
For more information about performance counters in .NET, see “Performance
Counters” in the .NET Framework General Reference on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpgenref/html/
gngrfperformancecounters.asp.
For more information about how to create and use custom performance counters,
see the following How Tos in the patterns & practices guide Improving .NET Applica-
tion Performance and Scalability on MSDN (the links for the How Tos are in the left
pane):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/scalenet.asp
● “How To: Monitor the ASP.NET Thread Pool Using Custom Counters”

● “How To: Time Managed Code Using QueryPerformanceCounter and

QueryPerformanceFrequency”
● “How To: Use Custom Performance Counters from ASP.NET”
Appendix

A
References to Related Topics
In addition to the technical details involved in upgrade projects, there are some
topics that are important but secondary that you should keep in mind as you per-
form your upgrade. The topics included here are beyond the scope of this guide, but
they are important enough to be mentioned. Because the topics included here could
not be directly included in this guide, links to available online information is pro-
vided.

Visual Basic 6.0 Resource Center

Although Visual Basic .NET represents the future for the language, there are still
many developers that prefer to work in Visual Basic 6.0. The Microsoft Visual Basic
6.0 Resource Center is for developers in this category.
The resource center contains articles, links, and downloads explicitly targeted at
Visual Basic 6.0 developers. You can find tutorials, discussions, downloadable
components, and more.
The content available is not limited to pure Visual Basic 6.0 applications and compo-
nents. The site also contains information about how to use Visual Basic .NET compo-
nents and features in Visual Basic 6.0. It includes details about how to use your
Visual Basic 6.0 components in Visual Basic .NET. It even provides resources to help
you move from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET.
602 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Coding Standards
Code is much easier to understand and maintain when a set of standards are defined
and consistently applied to all code. Such standards typically include:
● Naming conventions for variables, subroutines, and other programmer-defined
identifiers.
● Indentation style.

● Module, class, and program structure.

● Comment and documentation styles.

Typically, a company will have its own standards defined and distributed to devel-
opers. If your company does not currently have standards in place, you should give
careful consideration to defining and using them. For information about defining
coding standards for Visual Basic .NET code, see “Program Structure and Code
Conventions” in Visual Basic Language Concepts on MSDN.

Choosing File I/O Options

Chapter 11, “Upgrading String and File Operations,” provided detailed information
about how to upgrade flat file access. Different options, including using the Micro-
soft Visual Basic Compatibility library and the use of file streams, were discussed.
It may be difficult to choose between the different options. A discussion of when to
choose streams over the compatibility library is beyond the scope of this guide. For
more information, see “Choosing Among File I/O Options in Visual Basic .NET” in
Visual Basic Language Concepts on MSDN.

More Information
The Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Resource Center, VBRun, is on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbrun/default.aspx.
For information about defining coding standards for Visual Basic .NET code, see
“Program Structure and Code Conventions” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html
/vbconProgrammingGuidelinesOverview.asp.
For more information about choosing I/O options, see “Choosing Among File I/O
Options in Visual Basic .NET” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html
/vatskchoosingamongfileiooptionsinvisualbasicnet.asp.
Appendix

B
Application Blocks, Frameworks, and
Other Development Aids
Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework offer numerous
new features that help developers make new applications or enhance applications
that already exist. This appendix explores some of the application blocks, frame-
works, and other development aids that are built into Visual Basic .NET.

Using Visual Basic .NET Application Blocks

Microsoft offers several application blocks for the .NET Framework. Application
blocks encapsulate certain key areas by adding a layer over the .NET Framework.
They also aid faster application development and promote certain favored practices.
Application blocks encapsulate an optimal way of doing things in the .NET Frame-
work. You can reuse the application blocks to reduce the amount of redundant code.
Application blocks are C# and Visual Basic .NET classes that are distributed as
Visual Studio projects. You can use them in any .NET application, including
ASP.NET Web applications. Application blocks are useful and powerful tools that
include source code and sample applications. You can use them to make applications
more maintainable, scaleable, and efficient.
The following list includes the available application blocks and toolkits:
● Caching Application Block. The Caching Application Block is a component of
Enterprise Library that provides a flexible and extensible caching mechanism.
You can use it in client-side and server-side .NET development projects.
● Configuration Application Block. The Configuration Application Block is a
component of Enterprise Library that makes it easier to build applications that
604 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

read and write configuration information from a variety of data sources. This
application block also includes a graphical tool to assist you in editing and
viewing application configuration data.
● Cryptography Application Block. The Cryptography Application Block is a
component of Enterprise Library that makes it easier to include cryptographic
functionality in .NET applications. This application block provides a simple
interface to the Data Protection API (DPAPI) and symmetric encryption and
hashing. It also uses the Enterprise Library configuration tool to simplify key
management.
● Data Access Application Block. The Data Access Application Block is a compo-
nent of Enterprise Library that reduces the amount of custom code that you need
to create, test, and maintain when you build data access layers in .NET applica-
tions.
● Exception Handling Application Block. The Exception Handling Application
Block is a component of Enterprise Library that makes it easier to implement
consistent exception handling policies at logical tiers in an application. You can
configure exception policies to perform tasks, such as logging exceptions, and
wrapping or replacing exception types.
● Guidance Automation Toolkit. The Guidance Automation Toolkit is an extension
to Visual Studio 2005 that allows architects to author rich, integrated user experi-
ences for reusable assets, including frameworks, components and patterns. The
resulting guidance packages are composed of templates, wizards and recipes that
help developers build solutions in a way that is consistent with the architecture
guidance.
● Logging and Instrumentation Application Block. The Logging and Instrumenta-
tion Application Block is a component of Enterprise Library that allows develop-
ers to instrument their applications with logging and tracing calls. Log and trace
messages can be routed to a choice of data sinks, including the Event Log, text
files or Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). This application block is
the successor of the Enterprise Instrumentation Framework (EIF).
● Security Application Block. The Security Application Block is a component of
Enterprise Library that builds on the capabilities of the Microsoft .NET Frame-
work to help you perform authentication and authorization, check role member-
ship, and access profile information.
● Smart Client Offline Application Block. The Offline Application Block enables
the smart client user to enjoy a seamless experience even when he or she works
offline. It provides approaches to detect the presence or absence of a network. It
also caches the required data so that the application can function while it is
offline, and synchronizes the client application state and the data with the server
when the application goes online again.
 Appendix B: Application Blocks, Frameworks, and Other Development Aids 605

● Updater Application Block Version 2.0. The Updater Application Block is a .NET
Framework component that you can use to detect, download, and apply client
application updates that are deployed in a central location. By using the Updater
Application Block, you can keep smart client applications up to date with little or
without any user intervention. You can also extend the Updater Application
Block to use custom classes for downloading files, and for performing post-
deployment configuration tasks.
● User Interface Process Application Block - Version 2.0. The User Interface
Process Application Block provides a simple, yet extensible framework for
developing user interface processes. It abstracts the control flow and state man-
agement out of the user interface layer and into a user interface process layer.
For more information about the application blocks and to download them, see
“patterns & practices Guidance: Application Blocks” on MSDN.

Building “My” Facades

The Visual Basic .NET My feature provides access to information and default object
instances that relate to the application and its run-time environment. This informa-
tion is organized in a format that is discoverable through IntelliSense and is logically
delineated according to its use.

Note: The My facades feature is available only in Visual Studio 2005.

The top-level members of My are exposed as objects. Each object behaves similarly
to a namespace or a class with shared members, and it exposes a set of related
members.
The central objects that provide access to information and commonly used function-
ality are:
● My.Application. This object provides properties, methods, and events that relate
to the current application or DLL. This object is available only in Console and
Windows Forms applications.
● My.Computer. This object provides properties for manipulating computer com-
ponents, such as audio, the clock, the keyboard, the file system, and so on. This
object is available in all types of Visual Basic .NET applications.
● My.User. This object provides access to information about the current user. It is
available in all types of Visual Basic .NET applications.
606 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The following code example shows how you can retrieve information by using My.
…
' Displays a message box that shows the full command line for the application.
MsgBox(My.Application.CommandLineArgs)

' Get a list of subfolders in a folder

My.Computer.FileSystem.GetDirectories _
(My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.MyDocuments, True,"*Logs*")
…

The My-feature objects also provide the following functionality:

1. My.Forms. This object provides properties that you can use to access an instance
of each Windows form that is declared in the current project. It is available only
in Windows Forms applications.
2. My.Log. This object provides a property and methods that you can use to write
event and exception information to the application’s log listeners. It is available
only in Web applications.
3. My.Request. This object gets the System.Web.HttpRequest object for the re-
quested page. It is available only in Web applications.
4. My.Response. This object gets the System.Web.HttpResponse object that is
associated with the System.Web.UI.Page. You can use this object to send HTTP
response data to a client. It also contains information about that response. It is
available only in Web applications.
5. My.Resources. This object provides properties and classes that you can use to
access the application’s resources. It is not available in Web applications.
6. My.Settings. This object provides properties and methods for accessing the
application’s settings. It is not available in Web applications.
7. My.WebServices. This object provides properties that you can use to create and
access a single instance of each XML Web service that is referenced by the current
project. It is not available in Windows Forms applications.
For more information about the My feature, see “Development with My” on MSDN.

Building Visual Studio .NET Snippets

In Visual Studio 2005, Visual Basic .NET includes a code library of approximately
five hundred pieces of IntelliSense code snippets. These code snippets are ready for
you to insert into your application. Each snippet performs a complete programming
task, such as creating a custom exception, sending an e-mail message, or drawing a
circle. You can insert IntelliSence code snippets into the source code with a few
mouse clicks.
 Appendix B: Application Blocks, Frameworks, and Other Development Aids 607

In addition to using the predefined code snippets, you can also create user-defined
snippets that suit your business needs. You can add these snippets to the library, and
then use them when you want.
Increase your productivity by using the IntelliSense code snippets to:
● Reduce the amount of time that you spend looking for code samples.

● Reduce the time that is required to learn to use unfamiliar features.

● Reuse code that you have already written.

Increase your productivity by using the code library to:

● Insert one of 500 prewritten snippets, or tasks, into the Code Editor.

● Create new tasks that you can reuse in your projects.

● Create new tasks to share with your workgroup and colleagues.

● Edit the tasks.

● Download more tasks from third parties.

These code blocks are available throughout Visual Studio. You can add them
through the shortcut menu of the Code Editor, or you can drag the XML code files
from Windows Explorer to your source-code file. For more information about Visual
Studio code snippets, see “Introduction to IntelliSense Code Snippets” on MSDN.

Mobile Applications and the .NET Compact Framework

The growing popularity of mobile computing devices, such as Personal Digital
Assistants (PDAs) and handsets, increases the need for developers to write applica-
tions that run across a range of mobile devices. This section provides an overview of
Microsoft’s mobile technologies and introduces the .NET Compact Framework as an
important environment to create mobile applications.

Microsoft Mobile Technology Overview

The market for mobile devices has expanded at a high rate over the last few years.
This trend is expected to continue. Industry analysts predict that by 2008 there will
be over 100 million converged devices and 2 billion mobile phone subscribers1.
These statistics motivate businesses to create new applications for mobile devices
and to adapt new versions of existing desktop applications to the mobile market.
Microsoft offers an extensive set of technologies that are aimed at mobile computing.
You can integrate and adapt these technologies to provide innovative solutions for
the mobile market. The following list includes the key technologies that are part of
the Microsoft Mobile effort2:
● Windows Mobile® 5.0. This development kit offers a consistent platform for
different devices. It includes tools, a common set of APIs, uniform data services,
608 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

common installers, and application security models for developing mobile

applications.
● Windows CE .NET. This is a full-featured operating system that is specially
tailored for mobile devices.
● The .NET Compact Framework. This is derived from the .NET Framework and
provides a managed code infrastructure and a general class library that provide
the most common functionality that is necessary to develop mobile applications
for devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones.
● SQL Server CE. This is a compact relational database that is used to rapidly
develop applications that extend enterprise data management facilities to mobile
devices. It has a development model and an API that are consistent with SQL
Server.
● ASP.NET Mobile controls. This technology, formerly known as Microsoft Mobile
Internet Toolkit (MMIT), extends the functionality of the .NET Framework and
Visual Studio .NET to build mobile Web applications by enabling ASP.NET to
deliver markup content to a wide variety of mobile devices.
● Windows XP Embedded. Windows XP Embedded is the successor to Windows
NT Embedded 4.0. Based on the same binary files as Windows XP Professional,
Windows XP Embedded enables you to rapidly develop reliable and full-featured
connected devices.
● Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC
Edition operating system runs on the Tablet PC, which is considered to be the
next step in the evolution of the PC. A Tablet PC provides all the performance
and features of today’s notebook computer in an ultra-light form, including the
ability to run full versions of standard Windows applications.

Overview of the .NET Compact Framework

The .NET Compact Framework is a redesigned version of the .NET Framework that
has been scaled down and optimized for resource-constrained devices. It provides a
subset of the features and classes that are available in the full .NET Framework. The
most important features of the .NET Compact Framework are its rich class library,
automatic memory management, and CPU independence.
The .NET Compact Framework allows developers to produce applications that
display, gather, process, and forward information. The data used by these applica-
tions can be local, remote, or a combination of both.
Mobile application development is highly simplified by the .NET Compact Frame-
work. It provides a uniform infrastructure that allows developers to create applica-
tions in a way that is similar to standard Windows applications and deploys them in
different types of devices. This allows Visual Studio .NET developers to port mobile
 Appendix B: Application Blocks, Frameworks, and Other Development Aids 609

applications to a wide variety of devices. These applications can be built with Visual
C# .NET or Visual Basic .NET.
The .NET Compact Framework has two main components: the common language
runtime (CLR) and the .NET Compact Framework class library. The CLR is respon-
sible for managing the execution of code and provides core services, such as
memory, thread, and safety management. The .NET Compact Framework is a
collection of classes that are used as the foundation for new applications.
The next few subsections highlight a few of the features of this framework. For more
detailed information about the .NET Compact Framework, see “.NET Compact
Framework” in the Smart Client Developer Center on MSDN.

Included Components
The .NET Compact Framework includes a subset of the classes that are defined in
the System.Windows.Forms and System.Drawing namespaces. These classes allow
developers to rapidly build user interfaces for mobile applications.
It is important to note that when you create a mobile version of a desktop applica-
tion, some of the user interface behavior is changed and restricted. However, when
you upgrade applications that were created in previous mobile application develop-
ment environments, such as eMbedded Visual Basic, most of the original functional-
ity is supported and improved with the new .NET Compact Framework.
The compact version of Windows Forms includes support for forms and most of the
controls found in the .NET Framework. Third-party components, bitmaps, and
menus can also be included. The following list presents the controls included in the
.NET Compact Framework:
● Button

● CheckBox

● ComboBox

● Control

● ContextMenu

● Cursor/Cursors

● DataGrid

● DomainUpDown

● Form

● HScrollBar

● ImageList

● InputPanel

● Label

● ListBox
610 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● ListView
● MainMenu
● Message Window (this is unique to the compact framework)
● NumericUpDown
● OpenFileDialog
● Panel
● PictureBox
● ProgressBar
● RadioButton
● SaveFileDialog
● StatusBar
● TabControl
● TabPage
● TextBox
● Timer
● ToolBar
● TrackBar
● TreeView
● VScrollBar
To adapt the .NET Framework to the size and performance restrictions that are
present in mobile devices, some of the properties, methods, and events have been
removed from the compact version of the framework. Additional functionality can
be defined by inheriting from the existing controls.
The .NET Compact Framework provides namespaces that contain additional func-
tionality that is equivalent to the .NET Framework or is specially designed for
mobile devices. These namespaces provide support for data access, XML services,
Web services, GDI, IrDA, and Bluetooth.

Removed Features
The .NET Framework was adapted to the resource limitations of mobile devices to
create the .NET Compact Framework. When you port an application to a mobile
platform, it is possible to extend the .NET Compact Framework to build additional
functionality that was removed from the .NET Framework. When you extend the
.NET Compact Framework classes according to the needs of specific applications,
you optimize the use of the limited resources that are available in mobile devices.
Additionally, you can use other components from different development communi-
ties in ported applications. For more information about third-party components, see
the IntelliProg Web site.
 Appendix B: Application Blocks, Frameworks, and Other Development Aids 611

The following list shows the primary features that are not included in the .NET
Compact Framework:
● Method overloads. Many overloaded method definitions that are available in the
.NET Framework were omitted to reduce the size of the .NET Compact Frame-
work.
● Controls. Some controls were omitted from the .NET Compact Framework. The
functionality of some of these controls is not typically needed on mobile devices.
You can replace missing controls with system components that are accessible
through the Windows CE API.
● XML functionality. The parsing and searching functionality that is provided by
the XPath namespace and the Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation
(XSLT) components was omitted.
● Database support. The data access components were reduced and replaced by
the SQL Server CE components. Unlike eMbedded Visual Basic, the .NET Com-
pact Framework does not support access to the local data store (sometimes called
CEDB or Pocket Access).
● Binary serialization. The BinaryFormatter and SoapFormatter classes were
omitted.
● Access to the Windows registry. The Microsoft.Win32.Registry namespace was
removed and must be replaced with the corresponding functionality in the
Windows CE API.
● Security. Functionality for role-based security was removed from the .NET
Compact Framework. Additionally, secure access verification to unmanaged code
was omitted.
● XML Web services. Cookie support was omitted and cryptographic functionality
has been limited.
● Printing. Support for printing was eliminated. You can use IR port communica-
tion and interaction with a desktop application as alternative ways to print data.
● GDI+. This functionality was omitted because Windows CE does not natively
support GDI+.
● Remoting. This functionality is not included in the .NET Compact Framework.

Default Project Settings

When you create a new mobile application, or port one application from another
mobile or desktop environment, it is important to know the default project settings
that are defined for mobile Visual Basic .NET applications.
Visual Studio .NET provides a consistent and uniform development environment for
building all types of applications. This includes mobile applications.
612 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Within the Visual Studio .NET IDE, mobile Visual Basic .NET applications are almost
indistinguishable from desktop Visual Basic .NET applications. The general project
settings (accessible by selecting Project \ Properties in the main menu) are orga-
nized in the same way and they have similar values. The only new section that is
included in mobile Visual Basic .NET project settings is the Device section (which
you can access in the Common Properties \ Device tab in the Project Settings
window). This new section indicates the target platform for your new or ported
application, and it allows you to port your mobile application to different devices.
It also allows you to test your application in different device emulators.
Another important difference between mobile and desktop applications is the group
of references that is added by default to every new project. More references are
included in desktop applications to provide the minimum assemblies necessary to
make a basic application work. Because mobile applications are more limited in
terms of available resources, fewer components are added by default to a new
mobile application project. Also, fewer components are available in general. For a
list of available components, see the previous subsection, “Included Components.”
You can include additional references for mobile applications in your project.

To add references for mobile applications
1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the Reference folder, and then click Add Refer-
ence. The Add Reference dialog box appears.
2. In the Add Reference dialog box, add the reference for the mobile application
you want in your project.

Porting from eMbedded Visual Basic

Microsoft eMbedded Visual Basic is a reduced version of Visual Basic. Its design
allows Visual Basic developers to apply their knowledge of the language toward
building Windows CE-based applications. eMbedded Visual Basic is not supported
by more recent mobile devices, such as Windows Mobile-based Smartphones or
Pocket PC 2003-based devices. Instead, Microsoft recommends building mobile and
embedded applications using the .NET Compact Framework for these devices. This
includes porting eMbedded Visual Basic applications to Visual Basic .NET for the
.NET Compact Framework.
Porting applications from eMbedded Visual Basic to Visual Basic .NET for the .NET
Compact Framework can yield significant advantages, such as the following:
● Better performance. Visual Basic .NET code is compiled instead of interpreted
like eMbedded Visual Basic code. This results in improved application perfor-
mance.
● Extensive class library. The .NET Compact Framework offers classes for the most
common tasks that are performed in mobile applications. You will find more
components and classes here than in eMbedded Visual Basic.
 Appendix B: Application Blocks, Frameworks, and Other Development Aids 613

● Improved development tools. Visual Studio .NET offers an unprecedented

development environment with tools and facilities that increase developer
productivity. The same IDE is used to develop both desktop and mobile applica-
tions, so developers do not have to be familiar with multiple IDEs to develop
different types of applications.
● Improved language. Visual Basic .NET is a language that was redesigned to take
advantage of the advancements in programming languages, such as object
oriented programming, exception handling, strong typing, and more.
When porting applications that are based on other eMbedded languages, such as
eMbedded Visual C++, more analysis and better understanding of the application
is required. When high performance, a minimal working set, and low-level device
control are a top priority, developers should continue using eMbedded Visual C++.
When time-to-market and a consistent programming model are your primary
concerns, the best choice is to use Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Compact Frame-
work.
Even though no tool exists to automatically upgrade mobile applications, other tools
can be used to accelerate the process of porting an eMbedded Visual Basic applica-
tion to the .NET Compact Framework. Considering that the eMbedded Visual Basic
language was derived from Visual Basic 6.0 and is comparable to VBScript (the
language used by ASP pages), you can use the automatic Visual Basic upgrade tools
that are discussed in this guide to upgrade fragments of mobile applications. Use the
following general procedure as a guideline for this approach. You can apply it to
each part of the application that you want to port.

To upgrade fragments of a mobile application
1. Modify the application, or parts of it, to make it work in Visual Basic 6.0. Be
aware that because eMbedded Visual Basic uses a subset of the Visual Basic
features, the Visual Basic 6.0 version of the application uses a reduced subset of
all the functionality that is normally available.
2. Upgrade the Visual Basic 6.0 application to Visual Basic .NET using the Visual
Basic Upgrade Wizard.
3. Create a new Visual Basic .NET mobile application in Visual Studio .NET and
include the Visual Basic .NET files that you obtained in the previous step.
4. Correct all of the pending upgrade issues and make the necessary adjustments to
make the application work.
5. Test the new application.
For more information about manually porting eMbedded Visual Basic-based appli-
cations to Visual Basic .NET, see “Moving from eMbedded Visual Basic to Visual
Basic .NET” on MSDN.
614 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Creating a Mobile Version of a Desktop Application

When you decide to create a new mobile application that is based on a desktop
application, it is necessary to port and review several aspects of the original applica-
tion. These aspects range from the user interface, to data access, and even to low-
level manipulation of the target device. This section provides an overview of the
steps that are necessary to port a desktop application to a mobile application. It also
discusses some of the tools that are available to port the application, and it details
the procedures to facilitate the port.
The application that you want to port can be either of these two application types:
● Mobile application. If the target platform of the original application was a
mobile device, the mobile environment constraints have already been taken into
account. This facilitates the upgrade to the .NET Compact Framework because
most of the work is concentrated in specific conversion issues. Otherwise, you
have to redesign the application to make it suitable for use on a mobile device.
● Desktop application. If your intention is to create a mobile version of your
desktop application, you should first perform a preliminary suitability study.
More than likely, a considerable part of the original application’s functionality
will require deep modifications or will even need to be removed from the mobile
version. In most cases this kind of mobile application works as a complement to a
desktop application. It might include a subset of the original functionality that is
sufficient for mobile computing purposes.
As in any Visual Basic porting project, the porting of an application to a mobile
platform requires that you execute of a series of steps that begin with preparing the
application and end in testing and debugging. For more information about the
suggested porting procedure, see Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process.”
Although the chapter discusses the upgrade process, the discussions apply equally
to porting projects.
The initial steps that are necessary to port an application so that it will compile and
run on a mobile platform are presented here. In-depth information about low-level
upgrades, and the testing and debugging of a mobile application, is beyond the
scope of this book, but pointers to more information about these processes is pro-
vided later in this chapter.
The following sections provide guidelines that you can use to port a Visual Basic
.NET application to the .NET Compact Framework.

Porting the User Interface

The user interface that is a likely aspect of your application that will require signifi-
cant change when you upgrade it to a mobile platform is the user interface. The
components that are available to build visual interfaces for mobile devices are much
smaller in comparison to those that are available for desktop applications.
 Appendix B: Application Blocks, Frameworks, and Other Development Aids 615

The user interface of your application is likely to require significant change when
you upgrade it to a mobile platform. The components that you can use to build
visual interfaces for mobile devices are much smaller in size than those that are
available for desktop applications. This implies that a mobile application will be
visually different from its desktop counterpart. Its behavior will also likely be
different because part of the application’s functionality must be implemented using
different visual elements. Yet, another visual difference is the size of the display on
mobile devices. Considering the reduced size of Pocket PCs or Windows CE devices,
you must review and adjust the user interface to efficiently use the available space.
In general, the look and style of the mobile application will be different with respect
to the original desktop application.

The Porting Process

The following process presents the steps that are necessary to port a Visual Basic
.NET application form to work on a mobile platform. This process shows the typical
adjustments that you need to make to convert the application’s user interface and
basic functionality.
Figure 1 shows an example of a form before it is converted.

Figure 1
A sample Visual Basic .NET form to be ported for use on a mobile device

This Form is contained in a file named Form2.vb and presents some sample product
settings that can be changed by the user and updated in a database. You can use the
following steps to create an initial version of the application. The resulting form is
executable on a mobile platform.
For this example, the original application files are located in the C:\MobileAppTest
directory. You should replace this directory with the actual location of files on your
system when it is appropriate to do so.
616 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

To convert the form to a compact framework version

1. Copy the application that you want to port to a working directory. Some of the
new files require modifications to make them work with the .NET Compact
Framework, so it is best to work with a copy to preserve the original code. For
this example, the original application files have been copied to the directory
C:\MobileAppTest.
2. Open Visual Studio .NET.
3. Create a new Visual Basic .NET mobile application in Visual Studio .NET by
following these steps:
a. On the File menu, click New, and then click Project.
b. In the Templates list, click Smart Device Application. This displays the Smart
Device Application Wizard window. Use the wizard to select the target
platform and the type of project you want to create. For this example, select
Windows CE as the platform and Windows Application as the project type.
4. The new project appears in Visual Studio .NET. By default, it includes a new
Form that is named Form1. You do not need Form1 because the original applica-
tion forms will be imported into the mobile project. Use the following steps to
remove Form1:
a. In Solution Explorer, right-click Form1, and then click Delete.
b. In the Delete Confirmation dialog box, click Yes to remove Form1.
5. Add the file that you want to convert to the mobile application project. Follow
these steps to convert the file:
a. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project folder and on the pop-up menu,
click Add, and then click Add Existing Item. The Add Existing Item dialog
box appears.
b. Browse to find the file that you want to convert, and then select the file. For
this example, select the Form2.vb file in C:\MobileAppTest.
6. A list of tasks appears in the Task List. They include tasks that relate to problems
that are caused by nonexistent properties, methods, and events. The general
strategy to fix these problems is to select each of the tasks and examine the source
code that it refers to. You can then either fix the code or remove it, depending on
whether the property, method, or event is needed. Table 1 presents common
problems and solutions that relate to user interface functionality.
 Appendix B: Application Blocks, Frameworks, and Other Development Aids 617

Table 1: User Interface Issues and Solutions When Converting a .NET Form to a Compact
Framework Form
Error Description Solution
SuspendLayout is not a member of Remove the statement.
SmartDeviceApplication1.Form2
Name is not a member of Remove the statement. If it is strictly necessary
System.Windows.Forms.SpecificControl. to identify dynamically created controls, you can
Applies for all controls derived from keep a variable to refer to the desired control
System.Windows.Forms.Control and to use in comparisons to find specific
controls.
TabIndex is not a member of Remove the statement.
System.Windows.Forms. SpecificControl.
Applies to all controls that are derived
from System.Windows.Forms.Control
Overload resolution failed because Change the corresponding control constructor
there is not an accessible New to accept call by using one of the available method
this number of arguments. overloads. Typically, you can replicate the
original functionality by accessing the
appropriate control methods and properties in
the form Load event handler or other initializa-
tion code.
Method / Property is not a member of Control initialization included in the
System.Windows.Forms. SpecificControl. InitializeComponent method cannot access
unsupported methods or properties. In most of
the cases, you can replicate the functionality of
unsupported members by accessing other
available methods after the controls have been
initialized.
ResumeLayout is not a member of Remove the statement.
SmartDeviceApplication1.Form2.

7. Change the project Startup object according to your needs. To do this, follow
these steps:
a. On the Visual Studio Main menu, click Project, and then click
SmartDeviceApplication1 properties.
b. In the Common Properties folder select the General tab.
c. In the Startup object field, select the name of the startup form or method. For
this example, select Form2.
618 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

8. Correct the resource files that you want to use in the .NET Compact Framework.
The .NET Compact Framework uses a different class to read the resources file.
Correct the resource file by modifying the Form2.resx file to replace the class
name with the appropriate .NET Compact Framework resource reader class. You
can make the modifications with a text editor or with the Visual Studio .NET IDE.
The original resource file is shown here.
<resheader name="reader">
<value>System.Resources.ResXResourceReader, System.Windows.Forms,
Version=1.0.5000.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089</
value>
</resheader>

Make the following changes to the content of the file.

<resheader name="reader">
<value>System.Windows.Forms.Design.CFResXResourceReader, System.CF.Design,
Version=7.0.5000.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a</
value>
</resheader>

9. Make an analogous change to the Form2.resx file to correct the resources writer
class. The following code shows the original file.
<resheader name="writer">
<value>System.Resources.ResXResourceWriter, System.Windows.Forms, Ver-
sion=1.0.5000.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089</value>
</resheader>

Make the following changes to the file.

<resheader name="writer">
<value>System.Windows.Forms.Design.CFResXResourceWriter, System.CF.Design,
Version=7.0.5000.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a</value>
</resheader>

10. Because of other class differences between the .NET Framework and the .NET
Compact Framework, it may be necessary to correct other types that are specified
in the resources file. You must change these classes to the corresponding class in
the .NET Compact Framework. For example, you have to modify the
System.Drawing.Size class, which is frequently used in .resx files. The following
code shows the original .resx file.
"System.Drawing.Size, System.Drawing, Version=1.0.5000.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"
 Appendix B: Application Blocks, Frameworks, and Other Development Aids 619

You must modify this line as is shown in the following code.

"System.Drawing.Size, System.CF.Drawing, Version=7.0.5000.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"

11. Compile the application. To do this, from the Main menu, click Build, and then
click Build Solution. Use the previous two steps to correct any other resource file
errors.
You can now deploy and execute the application on the corresponding mobile
device or an appropriate emulator. Figure 2 shows the converted form running on a
Windows CE emulator.

Figure 2
The ported application executing on a Windows CE emulator

Because the source and target languages are Visual Basic .NET, most of your
application’s source code should compile and run without problems. Most of the
difficulties arise when the application uses unsupported library components, such as
data access or GDI+. The following section provides suggestions to implement data
access functionality. You can comment unsupported functionality in the application
to produce a working base that you can later use as the starting point to redesign or
re-implement the functionality.

Synchronizing with Server Applications

Integrate mobile applications with other applications by using one of the following
patterns:
● Device Data to Server Data. With this pattern, the database on the mobile device
is synchronized directly with the enterprise database server. This option is
feasible when the data that you want to synchronize does not require additional
verification or transformations. You can achieve this kind of synchronization with
SQL Server CE .NET Remote Data Access and Merge Replication.
620 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Device Logic to Server Logic. With this pattern, a mobile application connects to
an application on the server computer. Because most synchronization requires
business logic, this is the most frequent option. You can achieve this kind of
synchronization with Web Services.
● Device Logic to Server Data. With this pattern, a mobile application can connect
directly to a data repository and obtain data as it is needed based on the applica-
tion logic. You can achieve this kind of synchronization with the SQL Server .NET
Data Provider.

When you port an eMbedded Visual Basic or Visual Basic .NET desktop application
to the .NET Compact Framework you should be aware of the extended communica-
tion capabilities that are offered by the new platform and additional options that are
offered by third parties.
When you implement synchronization functionality, one of the most common
choices is to use SQL Server CE Merge Replication. This technology allows your
application to synchronize data stored in a SQL Server CE subscription database
with its publisher. Use this option when mobile devices are not connected to the
enterprise network permanently and must perform synchronization when it is
convenient. In most of the cases, you can meet these conditions when you use
eMbedded Visual Basic applications.
The .NET Compact Framework SqlCeReplication class (which is available in the
System.Data.SqlServerCe namespace) is the data provider component that corre-
sponds to SQL Server CE. It allows the developer to programmatically activate
merge replication with a published database. For more information about publishing
databases, see “Replication with SQL Server 2000 Windows CE Edition” on MSDN.
The following example demonstrates the use of the SqlCeReplication class to
synchronize data in a mobile application with a published database.
…
Sub SynchronizeDB()
Dim rep As New SqlCeReplication( _
"http://myserver/pubsmr/sscesa20.dll", _
"CEDBTest", "ceDBtest", _
"MYSERVER", _
"pubs", _
"pubs", _
"Testing", _
" Data Source=\My Documents\PubsMR.sdf")
Try
' Check if the database file already exists
If (System.IO.File.Exists("\My Documents\PubsMR.sdf")) Then
' Add a new subscripton and create the local database file
rep.AddSubscription(AddOption.CreateDatabase)
End If
rep.Synchronize()
Catch ex As SqlCeException
 Appendix B: Application Blocks, Frameworks, and Other Development Aids 621

MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
Finally
rep.Dispose()
MessageBox.Show("Replication complete")
End Try
End Sub
…

The Synchronize method of the SqlCeReplication class retrieves the initial snap-
shot of data for your local SQL Server CE database if it is the first time the method is
invoked. After the data is initialized and the subscription is set up, new invocations
of Synchronize send and receive only the changes that have been applied to the
data.
After a mobile database and subscription are created you can use the classes that are
contained in the System.Data.SqlServerCe namespace to update, insert, and delete
data. All of these changes are applied the next time the Synchronize method is
invoked.
If your eMbedded Visual Basic application is targeted at the Pocket PC platform, it is
important to consider third-party components that allow access to the Pocket Access
database that is part of the Pocket PC platform. Applications that are written in
eMbedded Visual Basic are able to access the Pocket Access database by using a
Windows CE implementation of ADO (ADOCE). However, this COM component is
not easily accessible from the .NET Compact Framework and third-party compo-
nents must be used as an alternative. For more information about additional data
access components, see “Pocket Access and the .NET Compact Framework” on
MSDN.

More Information
For more information about the application blocks and to download them, see
“patterns & practices Guidance: Application Blocks” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/guidetype/AppBlocks/default.aspx.
For more information about the My feature, see “Development with My” on MSDN:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/5btzf5yk(en-us,vs.80).aspx.
For more information about Visual Studio code snippets, see “Introduction to
IntelliSense Code Snippets” on MSDN:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/18yz4be4(en-us,vs.80).aspx.
For more information about the .NET Compact Framework, see “.NET Compact
Framework” in the Smart Client Developer Center on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/prodtechinfo/devtools/netcf/.
622 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

For more information about third-party components, see the IntelliProg Web site:
http://www.intelliprog.com/.
For more information about manually porting eMbedded Visual Basic-based appli-
cations to Visual Basic .NET, see “Moving from eMbedded Visual Basic to Visual
Basic .NET” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnppcgen/html/
fromemb.asp.
For more information about publishing databases, see “Replication with SQL Server
2000 Windows CE Edition” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/replsql/replimpl_6pet.asp.
For more information about additional data access components, see “Pocket Access
and the .NET Compact Framework” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnroad/html/
road10222003.asp.

Footnotes
1. Enterprise Wireless Email Market, 2004-2008
http://www.gii.co.jp/english/rd25765_wireless_email.html
2. Understanding Mobile & Embedded
http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/understanding/
Appendix

C
Introduction to Upgrading ASP
Web developers have used Active Server Pages (ASP) technology for several years to
build Web sites and Web applications. The Microsoft .NET Framework provides the
infrastructure for a new way for developers to build sophisticated Web applications.
This new infrastructure is referred to as ASP.NET.
ASP.NET is not simply a new version of ASP; it has been entirely re-architected to
provide a robust infrastructure for building reliable and scalable Web applications
based on the .NET Framework.
When porting an ASP application to ASP.NET, you will need to decide how much
time you want to spend incorporating the new features of ASP.NET into the existing
ASP application. One option is to begin by converting the ASP pages to ASP.NET
automatically with the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant, and then to complete
the work by applying some manual changes. The other option is to perform a full re-
architecture of the application and take advantage of many of the new features of
.NET including ASP.NET Web controls, Microsoft ADO.NET, the Microsoft .NET
Framework classes, and more. Although the latter option can make your ASP.NET
pages more readable, maintainable, and feature-rich, it requires more time and effort
than simply using the migration assistant.
Converting existing ASP pages to ASP.NET pages is not as simple as changing the
file name extension from .asp to .aspx. Some important areas to consider when
upgrading your ASP applications include:
● Core API changes. ASP’s core APIs consist of a few intrinsic objects (such as
Request, Response, and Server) and their associated methods. With the excep-
tion of a few changes, these APIs continue to function correctly under ASP.NET.
624 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

● Structural changes. Structural changes affect the layout and coding style of
Active Server Pages. You need to be aware of several of these changes and ad-
dress them to ensure that your code will work in ASP.NET.
● Visual Basic language changes. There are some changes between Visual Basic
Scripting Edition VBScript and Microsoft Visual Basic .NET script to take into
account during the upgrade.
● COM-related changes. COM has not changed with the introduction of the .NET
Framework and ASP.NET; however, this does not mean that you do not need to
worry about COM objects and how they behave when you are using them from
ASP.NET. There are a few fundamental issues to consider.
● Application configuration changes. In ASP, all Web application configuration
information is stored in the system registry and the IIS metabase. In ASP.NET,
each application has its own configuration file.
● State management issues. You can continue to use the Session or Application
intrinsic object to store state information in ASP.NET. As an added benefit,
ASP.NET offers a few more options for storing state.
● Data access. Another key area you may need to focus on for your upgrade efforts
is data access. ADO.NET offers a powerful new way to store and access your
data.
ASP and ASP.NET can both coexist on the same Web server; that is, a Web site or
Web application within a site can contain both ASP.NET pages and ASP pages. This
can be very beneficial if you have to move a large, rapidly changing site to ASP.NET
one piece at a time. Additionally, if you are going to put forth the effort to move to
ASP.NET as a long-term investment, you may want to take advantage of the oppor-
tunity to make as many architectural and design improvements as you can. For
more information, see “Migrating to ASP.NET: Key Considerations” on MSDN.

Note: ASP.NET is supported in the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows 2000,
Microsoft Windows 2003, and Microsoft Windows XP Professional. ASP.NET applications are not
supported in Microsoft Windows NT. For more information, see “System Requirements for
Visual Studio .NET 2003” in the Microsoft Visual Studio Developer Center on MSDN.

Because both ASP and ASP.NET pages can be accessed from the same Web server,
you do not have to convert your existing ASP pages to ASP.NET. However, convert-
ing to ASP.NET offers many advantages, some of which include:
● Increased performance. Microsoft tests have shown that ASP.NET applications
can handle two to three times as many requests per second as classic ASP applica-
tions.
● Increased stability. Processes are closely monitored and managed by the
ASP.NET runtime. If a process leaks, deadlocks, or otherwise “misbehaves,” the
 Appendix C: Introduction to Upgrading ASP 625

runtime can create a new process in its place, which helps keep your application
constantly available to handle requests.
● Increased developer productivity. New features in ASP.NET, such as server
controls and event handling, help developers build applications more rapidly
and in fewer lines of code. It is also easier than ever to separate code from HTML
content.
● Ease of deployment. The installation of ASP.NET applications is dramatically
simplified with “no touch” deployment. Applications can be deployed just by
copying files to the server; they can also be updated without restarting the Web
server. When updating a DLL, ASP.NET will automatically detect the change and
start using the new component.
● Improved security. ASP.NET works in harmony with the .NET Framework and
Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) to cooperate in the overall Web
application security. The main ASP.NET security functions, authentication and
authorization, allow applications to verify the identity of the users and manage
permissions given an authenticated identity. Additionally, ASP.NET has access to
all the built-in security features of the .NET Framework, including code access
security, role-based security, cryptographic services, and security policy manage-
ment.
For more information, see “Converting ASP to ASP.NET” on MSDN.
This appendix provides an introductory overview of the process for upgrading from
ASP to ASP.NET with the help of the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant. In
particular, it discusses aspects such as preparation, automatic upgrade, manual
changes, testing, and common issues and their resolutions. A full discussion of the
complete process for upgrading ASP to ASP.NET is beyond the scope of this guide,
but the information provided here should help get you started.

Process Overview
The steps involved in an upgrade project can be divided into three phases:
1. Preparing the application
2. Upgrading the application
3. Testing and debugging the upgraded application
The execution of these task groups is usually done by different teams, each with
different skills and experience. The tasks included in each group can be executed in
parallel to some degree, depending on the availability and specialization of the
required resources. The task groups do not define a linear order of execution; there
may be groups of tasks that are simultaneously executed for different parts of the
application.
626 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The next sections summarize the upgrade procedure explained in this chapter and
list the inputs and outputs for each.

Preparing the Application

1. Preparing the development environment:
Input: Software development installers, third party component installers.
Output: A fully configured application development environment that corre-
sponds to the application to be upgraded.
2. Checking Internet Information Services (IIS) and its integration with the .NET
Framework:
Input: Internet Information installers, Visual Studio .NET installers.
Output: IIS must be running normally and be completely integrated with
Microsoft .NET Framework for ASP.NET to work.
3. Obtaining the application resource inventory:
Input: Available information about the specifications and design of the
application.
Output: Catalog of documentation useful for upgrade purposes.
4. Verifying compilation:
Input: The original ASP application in a correctly configured system.
Output: System where the original application can be compiled, debugged and
executed.
5. Defining the project upgrade order:
Input: Original source code.
Output: An analysis of the application component dependencies based on analy-
sis tools that can be used to plan the upgrade order of the different components.
6. Preparing the upgrade tool:
Input: Upgrade wizard installer, installers for the analysis tools.
Output: A fully configured system where the original application can run.

Upgrading the Application

1. Executing the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant:
Input: Original ASP pages and migration assistant executable file.
Output: Initial upgraded application code base in ASP .NET. This code base will
likely contain upgrade issues that will later need to be addressed.
2. Verifying the progress of the upgrade:
This is a control step that verifies the correct execution of the migration assistant.
 Appendix C: Introduction to Upgrading ASP 627

3. Completing the conversion with manual changes:

Input: Initial upgraded application code base in ASP.NET.
Output: An upgraded ASP .NET application that can be compiled.

Testing and Debugging the Upgraded Application

1. Executing the original test cases:
Input: An upgraded ASP.NET application that can be compiled.
Output: List of broken test cases and run-time bugs detected in the application.
2. Fixing run-time errors:
Input: An upgraded ASP.NET application that can be compiled.
Output: An upgraded ASP.NET application that can be correctly run.
The rest of this chapter will explore each of these steps in detail.

Understanding the 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 automate the complete process, but it
speeds up your project by automating some of the steps required for upgrade. The
migration assistant is not related to the Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Wizard, and it is
not packaged with Visual Studio .NET; however, it is freely available. To download
the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant, see the Microsoft ASP.NET Developer
Center on MSDN.

Tasks Performed by the Migration Assistant

When you upgrade an ASP project with the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant,
the tool performs three general tasks:
● The tool automatically generates the necessary ASP.NET files, using file names
that end with the .aspx file name extension. At the same time, the tool inspects
any ASP or HTML files in the project that include references to the file or files
being upgraded and updates them so that they refer to the newly created files
instead. There are several places in a file where a reference to another file can be
found: in include directives, in code surrounded by <script> tags, in href at-
tributes, in Response.Redirect and Application.execute instructions, and in the
action attribute of <form> tags.
ASP allows files included using the <!— #include ... —> and <script
src=”filename”> tags to contain HTML code, scripting code, or a mix of both. The
migration assistant updates all of these files to use the ASP.NET syntax, regard-
less of their extensions, and resolves any variables and functions declared inside
628 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

these files that are being used by the ASP file that contains the reference. How-
ever, in ASP.NET you can only use <script src=”filename”> to import files contain-
ing pure script code. If there is any HTML code or script code (enclosed in <% …
%>) in these files, the compiler raises an error.
● VBScript does not allow type declaration, but ASP.NET requires it, so the tool
inspects the code and analyzes the way variables are used to infer their data
types in simple cases, such as the creation of objects by means of the
CreateObject() method, and includes the corresponding declarations. This
increases the quality of the code generated by the migration assistant and eases
the expansion of the default properties.
● ASP allows you to declare subroutines and variables inside the render tags (<%
… %>) and execute statements in server scripts, but ASP.NET requires that all
declarations be made within script tags (<script … > … </script>) and that
statement execution be restricted to render tags. Therefore, the tool will relocate
VBScript code to the correct code blocks, as follows:
● Functions and subroutines declared inside render tags <% … %> are moved
into a global <script> tag with its language attribute is set to “VBScript” and
runat attribute set to “server”.
● Statements and comments located within <script runat=”server”> tags are
moved into a render tag.
● Variable and constant declarations in render tags are moved to a <script> tag
at the beginning of the file, as are all variables that are not declared and used
in the file.

Limitations of the Migration Assistant

There are some areas in which the migration assistant cannot upgrade your ASP
code. The limitations include:
● The migration assistant will not convert the security model, an important compo-
nent of ASP projects. It will be your responsibility to re-architect the application
to take advantage of the security features of ASP.NET and IIS. For more informa-
tion about ASP.NET security, see “ASP.NET Web Application Security” in the
.NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN.
● ASP.NET does not allow the use of multiple languages on a single page for
server-side processing. The ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant will not convert
or analyze any server-side code written in scripting languages other than
VBScript, and it will add an error notice to your converted files before each
occurrence of server-side code in other languages.

Note: This limitation does not affect client-side code written in multiple languages. The
migration assistant can convert valid client-side code regardless of language.
 Appendix C: Introduction to Upgrading ASP 629

● The ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant will not modify complex rendering
functions. This affects the Visual Studio .NET IDE’s ability to render pages in
Designer view; it will produce compilation errors. This limitation does not affect
simpler rendering functions.

Preparing the Application

Upgrading an ASP application to ASP.NET can be a complex and error-prone pro-
cess without proper preparation, even with the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assis-
tant. Errors introduced in the initial stages of the process can easily propagate and
consume an extended amount of work, and some parts of the application may need
to be upgraded again, possibly delaying other processes involved in the upgrade. By
taking certain steps to prepare your ASP application for upgrade before using the
ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant to upgrade it, you can save a considerable
amount of work in a number of areas, including management, development, and
testing.
Your first step should be to prepare the related components of your system, such as
Internet Information Services (IIS) and any third-party components, for upgrade. It
is usually inexpensive to prepare these components, determine the implications they
have for the rest of the upgrade, and correct any problems that arise. After these
external aspects are prepared, you can concentrate on the internal aspects of the
application, such as source code, application compilation, and common upgrade
issues.

Preparing the Environment

If possible, execute the upgrade process using a computer that has been configured
similarly to the development environment that was used to create the original
application. This will facilitate analysis of the original application and make it easier
to execute the initial preparation tests and identify dependencies and other issues.
There are two main environment aspect types that affect the upgrade process. The
first of these affects the speed of the upgrade process; this includes computer re-
sources. The second type affects the normal execution and termination of the migra-
tion assistant; an example is when external dependencies are not present on the
computer where the process is executed, which results in exceptions during the
execution of the migration assistant.

System Resources
The migration assistant works by loading all of the application’s VBScript code into
memory, converting it, and then creating all of the necessary .aspx files. Therefore, it
can place significant demands on system memory and processor resources for
storing language structures and executing transformation rules.
630 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

It is recommended that the migration assistant be run on a computer with at least

512 MB of system RAM. If you are upgrading a complex ASP application, which has
more than 100,000 lines of code or that includes a large amount of code that will
have to be moved between render tags and <script> tags, a minimum of 1 GB of
RAM is recommended. On average, an application with these characteristics can
take from three to five hours to process. You may also want to separate the applica-
tion into smaller components to upgrade more manageable pieces.
The system’s hard drive should have enough free space to store at least three times
the size of the original application to accommodate the resulting ASP.NET files and
all of the temporary files that will be generated. Ensure that the developer perform-
ing the upgrade has the appropriate user rights for the file locations that will be
used.

Third-Party Components
Many ASP applications use third-party components in some way. Applications can
explicitly reference external DLLs through the project settings and can dynamically
create objects based on the components currently installed by using instructions
such as CreateObject.
When upgrading applications that depend on external components, you must
ensure that they are installed and available on the computer you are using for the
upgrade. If the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant cannot access a component, it
generates an issue in the upgraded code in all instructions where the component is
used. For example, if your application references the TRE component and the
component is not installed on the computer you are using to upgrade the applica-
tion, the migration assistant will add the following note to the ASP.NET code.
' UPGRADE_NOTE: The 'TRE.DLL' object is not registered in the
' migration machine.
obj = CreateObject(“TRE.DLL”)

Note: Some trial versions of third-party components display a license information dialog box
every time the component is instantiated. This dialog box will suspend the execution of the
host application, which is the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant in this case. If you are using
a trial version of any components, pay attention to the messages shown by the tool in re-
sponse to any dialog boxes that display during the upgrade process.

As part of the application preparation, you should identify any complex and un-
usual components and perform some limited testing. Create reduced-size applica-
tions to instantiate and access the core functionality of these components. After these
applications are written, run the migration assistant and evaluate the results, paying
special attention to design time and run time visualization and behavior of the
upgraded components.
 Appendix C: Introduction to Upgrading ASP 631

IIS and Virtual Directories

To ensure that IIS can correctly create the virtual directories you will use to run your
new ASP.NET applications, verify that IIS 5.0 or later and the Microsoft FrontPage®
Server Extensions are installed on the computer that you will be using for the
upgrade process. Testing your ASP applications before upgrading helps you confirm
that the computer meets all of your application’s requirements.

Tools
The ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant is an add-in to Microsoft Visual Studio
.NET, so ensure that Visual Studio is installed on the computer you will be using for
upgrade.
Additionally, the migration assistant uses a different version of the Visual Basic
upgrade tool, named Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion, which parses and
converts all VBScript code that is used in your ASP pages. For more information
about Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion, go to the ArtinSoft Web site.

Preparing Your Code for the Migration Assistant

There are some actions that you can take to modify your code to help the migration
assistant improve its automatic conversion and reduce the number of manual
changes you have to make after upgrade. The most important of these changes are
described in the next sections.

Register All Referenced COM Components

The first step is to analyze your code to identify all the COM components that your
application uses. After compiling the list, ensure that all of the components are
correctly installed and registered on the computer that you will be using for the
upgrade, and resolve any problems with licenses or permissions.

Verify Compilation
It is very important to verify that the code is syntactically correct. If there are syntax
errors in your files, the migration assistant might encounter problems when it tries
to parse the code, and you may get some unexpected results.
Reviewing your code can also help you ensure that you have all the files your
project needs. Before converting an ASP project, the migration assistant analyzes all
the code and uses the information it gathers to determine how to proceed with the
upgrade. If there are some missing files, it may negatively affect some of the deci-
sions the tool makes.
632 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Some common mistakes to look for include:

● Lost files. The include instruction is a very useful feature that allows ASP devel-
opers to reference other files using a virtual or physical path. One mistake people
frequently make when upgrading to ASP.NET is failing to copy these referenced
files into the proper locations on the computer being used for upgrade. For
example, assume that your ASP page includes the file Variables.asp, as shown
here.
<!— #Include Virtual=”http://ServerName/myVirtualRoot/Lib/Variables.asp” —>

If Variables.asp is not copied into the virtual directory http://ServerName/

myVirtualRoot/Lib/ before you upgrade the ASP page, the migration assistant
will add an upgrade note to the page before the include instruction, as shown
here.
<% 'UPGRADE_NOTE: The
'http://ServerName/myVirtualRoot/Lib/Variables.asp' file was
not found in the migration directory. Copy this link in your
browser for more:
ms-help://MS.MSDNVS/aspcon/html/aspup1003.htm %>
<!— #Include Virtual=”http://ServerName/myVirtualRoot/Lib/Variables.asp” —>

To resolve this, copy the referenced file into the correct virtual directory or
change the path to the valid local path name or Uniform Resource Identifier
(URI) where the file actually resides, and delete the upgrade note.
● Incorrect HTML tags. If there are any invalid HTML tags in a page, the migration
assistant will be unable to parse it fully and will generate an upgrade note. This
can happen if the closing quotation marks have been inadvertently omitted from
an instruction tag, as shown here.
<!—#include file=”./Include/Table.asp —>

When this happens, the migration assistant cannot identify and analyze all of the
page’s included files, which can cause problems. If you apply the migration
assistant to a page that contains this tag, you should obtain the following note.
<% 'UPGRADE_NOTE: '#INCLUDE' tag is malformed. Copy this link in your browser
for
more: ms-help://MS.MSDNVS/aspcon/html/aspup1004.htm %>
<!—#include file=”./Include/Table.asp —>

To resolve this, fix the HTML tag and remove the upgrade note.
<!—#include file=”./Include/Table.asp” —>
 Appendix C: Introduction to Upgrading ASP 633

After fixing the file, run the migration assistant again so that it will correctly
recognize all the included files.
● Unregistered COM objects. When you convert files with the migration assistant,
be sure to correctly install all of the referenced COM objects on the computer
where you will be performing the conversion. When the migration assistant
cannot access a COM object referenced by an ASP file it is upgrading, it will
generate an upgrade note. For example, consider an ASP page that contains the
following instruction.
<%
Set myObject = CreateObject(“MyObjectCOM.MyClass”)
%>

If the MyObjectCOM component is not registered on the computer when you

run the migration assistant, it will generate the following note.
<%
' UPGRADE_NOTE: The 'MyObjectCOM' object is not registered in the migration
machine. Copy this link in your browser for more:
ms-help://MS.MSDNVS/aspcon/html/aspup1016.htm
myObject = New MyObjectCOM.MyClass
%>

To prevent run-time errors in your ASP.NET page, correctly install the

MyObjectCOM component and run the migration assistant again to fix the code.

Remove Circular References

The key to the flexibility and reusability of ASP (and ASP.NET) is its inclusion
functionality, which lets you easily add code from other files to a page by using the
#include instruction or the scr attribute of the <script> tag. However, when it used
carelessly, this can lead to circular references, which happens when two or more files
mutually include each other. Circular references do not affect the execution of your
ASP pages, but they are not legal in ASP.NET. If you run the migration assistant on a
page involved in a circular reference, it will affect the performance of the tool and
may prevent it from converting all of the code. Try to identify possible circular
references in your code and eliminate them by moving the shared code into a new
file that you can then import into the original files.

Avoid Mixing Scripting Languages on the Server Side

Another important aspect that must be taken into consideration before you convert
your ASP pages is that ASP allows you to use scripts with different languages like
VBScript or JavaScript; however, ASP.NET does not support this combination in
those scripts that will run on the server side in the same page. Therefore, you must
ensure that your pages use only a single language in these scripts.
634 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Because the migration assistant can only parse VBScript language, it is recommend
that you change all code that is executed on the server to VBScript because your
upgraded code will use all new features that Visual Basic .NET offers to you. In-
stead, you can unify to another script language. However, if you do this, the code
will not be upgraded and will only be copied in the new pages. Because of differ-
ences in ASP and ASP.NET, this may result in different behavior in your upgraded
ASP.NET page.

Upgrading the Application

After the correct preparation steps are performed, it is time to begin the actual
upgrade process. This section provides information about the steps to achieve the
upgrade.

Upgrade Options
Upgrading an enterprise application that uses both ASP and Visual Basic 6.0 compo-
nents could require using both the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant and the
Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard. If the application has a
business logic layer, user defined classes in the data access layer, or additional
components written in Visual Basic 6.0 that run on an application server, you will
have to upgrade these fragments of the application using the Visual Basic 6.0 to
Visual Basic .NET Upgrade Wizard. After these foundation components are up-
graded, you can process the ASP code with the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant.

Using the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant

You can use the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant as a wizard through the Visual
Studio .NET IDE or as a command-line tool. The next sections describe each of these
approaches.

Using the Wizard

To convert your ASP applications using Visual Studio .NET, point to Open on the
File menu, and then click Convert. Next, click ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assis-
tant from the list of available converters. If you have a solution open in Visual
Studio .NET, you can click Add to current solution to add the result to your current
solution. Alternatively, you can click Create new solution if you want the result to
be stored as a separate solution.
 Appendix C: Introduction to Upgrading ASP 635

The wizard contains seven pages that walk you though the procedure of upgrading
your ASP files:
1. The Welcome page appears first. Click Next to begin the procedure.
2. Page 2 allows you to specify the directory that contains the files to be upgraded.
Type the path to the directory that contains the files you want to convert, or click
Browse and use the File Open dialog box to locate it. After the desired directory
is located, click Next.
3. Page 3 allows you to specify a name for the project. Type a name for your new
ASP.NET application, and then click Next.
4. Page 4 allows you to specify the target directory where the upgraded project will
reside. Type the path to the directory where you want to create your new
ASP.NET project, or click Browse and use the dialog box to locate it. After the
target directory is specified, click Next.
5. Page 5 allows you to specify any absolute references or Uniform Resource Identi-
fier (URI) addresses that you want to upgrade from .asp to .aspx. In general, the
ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant converts relative addresses to make them
refer to the new upgraded files; for example, <A href=”../../OtherDirectory/
Default.asp”> ... </a> will be converted to <A href=”../../OtherDirectory/
Default.aspx”> ... </a>. It is not convenient to apply this conversion to all URI
addresses because some of them can refer to external resources that will not be
upgraded and therefore require no changes. To control this situation for URIs and
absolute addresses, the user has to specify on this page of the wizard which
addresses will be upgraded.
After you specify these references, click Next to continue.
6. Page 6, the Ready to Upgrade page, is provided as an indicator that the upgrade
procedure can begin. Click Next to begin the upgrade.
7. Page 7 provides a progress indicator that displays the progress of the migration
assistant as it upgrades your files. When the progress indicator is full, the up-
grade procedure is complete.

Using the Command Line Tool

The ASPUpgrade.exe command-line tool has the same functionality as the wizard.
The command line syntax for ASPUpgrade.exe is shown here.
ASPUpgrade[.exe] DirectoryName [/out DirectoryName] [/nolog | /logfile filename ]
[/Verbose] [/ProjectName] [/ForceOverwrite]
636 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Table 1 lists the meanings for the options.

Table 1: ASPUpgrade.exe Options
Argument Option Description
DirectoryName Required. The path of the ASP file(s) to be
upgraded
/out DirectoryName Specify the path for the folder where the ASP.NET
project will be created. If this option is not
specified, the default path is \OutDir.
/verbose Display all output to the Command Prompt
window during the upgrade.
/nolog Do not create a log file during the upgrade.
/logfile filename Create a log file using the filename specified
(may include full path name if desired). If no
path and file name are specified, a log file will
be created in the same folder as the ASP.NET
project with the default file name
ProjectName.log, where ProjectName is the
name of the project file.
/? or /help Display a list of command syntax options.

When using the command-line version of the tool, keep the following in mind:
● Arguments are case insensitive.

● Paths with spaces must be enclosed in double quotation marks.

● If the target directory does not exist, the migration assistant will create it.

● If the target directory already exists, the migration assistant will first verify
whether you want to overwrite the contents of this directory.
● You must have write privileges in the target directory.

● You cannot use both the /NoLog and /LogFile options together.

Completing the Upgrade with Manual Changes

After your applications are upgraded, the most difficult errors to detect are the run-
time errors. The migration assistant can detect many potential run-time errors and
mark them in the code so you can fix them. However, there may still be some prob-
lems that the migration assistant does not detect; those problems will become
apparent only when the upgraded application runs and is thoroughly tested. The
original application test cases and design documentation, if you have them, will be
extremely valuable for the testing phase.
 Appendix C: Introduction to Upgrading ASP 637

Some of the common upgrade issues that the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant
detects that have to be manually corrected include the following:
● Features with new behavior. Some ASP functions have been changed for
ASP.NET. When the migration assistant upgrades your code to use these
ASP.NET functions, it adds upgrade warnings to alert you to the changes so you
can properly test the new methods. For example, the following code uses the ASP
Date function to obtain the current date and display it in the browser.
<script Language=VBScript runat=server>
Sub PrintDate()
Dim myVar
myVar = Date
Response.Write(“<strong>Current Date</strong> = “ & CStr(myVar))
End Sub

PrintDate
</script>

When you convert this code to ASP.NET, you will get the following code.
<script language=”VB” runat=”server”>
Sub PrintDate()
Dim myVar As Date
' UPGRADE_WARNING: Date was upgraded to Today and has a
' new behavior.
myVar = Today
Response.Write((“<STRONG>Current Date</STRONG> = “ & CStr(myVar)))
End Sub
</script>

<%
PrintDate()
%>

Note: In the preceding code listing and throughout this chapter, some of the longer code
lines and comments that are automatically produced by the ASP to ASP.NET Migration
Assistant have been reformatted to make them easier to read and understand. Your code
may be slightly different.

In most cases, you can simply test the application to verify that it still works with
the new function; if the ASP.NET application exhibits the same behavior as the
ASP version, you should remove the warning. In the example, the new function
Today returns the current date in the same format as the ASP Date function, so
you only need to remove the warning, as shown here.
<script language=”VB” runat=”server”>
Sub PrintDate()
Dim myVar As Date
638 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

myVar = Today
Response.Write((“<STRONG>Current Date</STRONG> = “ & CStr(myVar)))
End Sub
</script>

<%
PrintDate()
%>

● Unsupported features. Some ASP properties, methods, and events do not exist in
ASP.NET, and their behavior cannot be simulated with any new feature. When
the migration assistant encounters these features, it leaves them untouched and
adds upgrade notifications to the code to alert you to the problem. For example,
this ASP code uses the Calendar property, which is not supported in ASP.NET.
<script Language=VBScript runat=”server”>

Sub ChangeCalendar()
if (Calendar = vbCalGreg) then
Calendar = vbCalHijri
else
Calendar = vbCalGreg
end if
End Sub

ChangeCalendar
</script>

Converting this code results in the following ASP.NET code.

<script language=”VB” runat=”server”>

Sub ChangeCalendar()
' CONVERSION_TODO: The 'vbCalGreg' identifier was not declared,
' because it is a constant in 'VBA.VbCalendar' library. Copy
' this link in your browser for more:
' ms-its:C:\Program Files\ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant\
' AspToAspNet.chm::/1020.htm
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Calendar property is not supported. Copy this
' link in your browser for more:
' 'ms-help://MS.VSCC.2003/commoner/redir/redirect.htm?keyword=”vbup1039"'
If (Calendar = vbCalGreg) Then
' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Calendar property is not supported.
' CONVERSION_TODO: The 'vbCalHijri' identifier was not
' declared, because it is a constant in 'VBA.VbCalendar'
' library. Copy this link in your browser for more:
' ms-its:C:\Program Files\ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant\
' AspToAspNet.chm::/1020.htm
Calendar = vbCalHijri
Else
 Appendix C: Introduction to Upgrading ASP 639

' UPGRADE_ISSUE: Calendar property is not supported.

' CONVERSION_TODO: The 'vbCalGreg' identifier was not declared,
' because it is a constant in 'VBA.VbCalendar' library.
' Copy this link in your browser for more:
' ms-its:C:\Program Files\
' ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant\AspToAspNet.chm::/1020.htm
Calendar = vbCalGreg
End If
End Sub

</script>
<%
ChangeCalendar()
%>

When the migration assistant reports that a property, method, or event cannot be
converted to an ASP.NET equivalent, you have two options: you can remove the
instruction if doing so will not have a significant impact on your application, or
you can look for a workaround in the new language that can provide your
application with similar functionality. For example, in place of the ASP Calendar
property, you can use theASP.NET System.Globalization namespace. This
namespace contains classes that define culture-related information, including
language; country or region; calendars in use; format patterns for dates, currency,
and numbers; and sort order for strings.
● Rendering functions. In ASP, you can define methods using multiple render tags,
with ordinary HTML in between. However, in ASP.NET, you can only declare
methods between opening and closing <script> tags. For example, the
helloWorld method in this ASP code begins and ends in two separate render
tags, with HTML in between, as shown here.
<%Sub helloWorld()%>
<h1>Hello World</h1>
<%End Sub %>

When the code is converted, the migration assistant does not modify the render-
ing functions, generating an error instead.
<% 'UPGRADE_NOTE: Rendering Functions are not supported. Copy this
link in your browser for more:
ms-help://MS.MSDNVS/aspcon/html/aspup1008.htm %>
<%Sub helloWorld()%>
<h1>Hello World</h1>
<%End Sub %>

To resolve the error, you must move the entire method between a single set of
opening and closing <script> tags and use the Response.Write method to send
the HTML information to the page. Rewriting the previous example results in the
640 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

following legal ASP code, which the migration assistant can process with no
problems.
<script language=VBScript runat=Server>
Sub helloWorld()
Response.Write(“<h1>Hello World</h1>”)
End Sub
</script>
<% helloWorld %>

● Multiple method declarations. ASP allows you to declare the same method more
than once because it uses only the last declaration that was written and ignores
the others. However, in ASP.NET, multiple declarations of a method with identi-
cal signatures are not supported. If the migration assistant encounters more than
one method declaration with the same signature, it will comment out all declara-
tions except the last. For example, in this ASP code, the MySub function is
declared twice.
<%
Sub MySub()
Dim y
y = “String Value”
Response.Write y
End Sub

Sub MySub()
Dim y
y = 1
Response.Write y
End Sub

MySub
%>

When the code is converted, the migration assistant will comment out the first
method declaration and add an upgrade note, resulting in the following ASP.NET
code.
' UPGRADE_NOTE: All function, subroutine and variable declarations
' were moved into a script tag global. Copy this link in your browser
' for more:
' ms-help://MS.MSDNVS/aspcon/html/aspup1007.htm
<script language=”VB” runat=”Server”>
' UPGRADE_NOTE: Subroutine 'MySub' was commented. Copy this
' link in your browser for more:
' ms-help://MS.MSDNVS/aspcon/html/aspup1009.htm
' Sub MySub()
' Dim y
' y = “String Value”
' response. write y
 Appendix C: Introduction to Upgrading ASP 641

' End Sub

Sub MySub()
Dim y As Integer
y = 1
response. write(y)
End Sub

</script>

<%
MySub()
%>

To clear the upgrade note and the commented code from the project, delete it
from the page.
● Unreachable code inside a script tag. You can use the <script> tag to add code to
a page in one of two ways: by entering code directly on the page between open-
ing and closing <script> tags, or by using the src attribute of the opening tag to
specify an external file that contains the code that you want to use. If a pair of
<script> tags includes both a reference to an external file and code of its own,
ASP uses only the code in the file specified by the src attribute and ignores the
code between the opening and closing tags. For example, when IIS processes the
following ASP code, it will import the code from the file FileName.vb and ignore
the MySub declaration on the page.
<script Language=VBScript src=”FileName.vb” runat=server>
Sub MySub()
dim myVar
myVar = myVar + 1
Response.Write(“SUM = “ & CStr(myVar))
End Sub
</script>

When you convert this page with the migration assistant, it will generate the
following upgrade notes.
<%'UPGRADE_NOTE: Code inside the Script tag was ignored by the upgrade tool.
Copy this link in your browser for more: ms-its:C:\Program Files\ASP to ASP.NET
Migration Assistant\AspToAspNet.chm::/1006.htm %>
<%'UPGRADE_NOTE: Language element 'SCRIPT' was migrated to the same language
element but still may have a different behavior. Copy this link in your browser
for more: ms-its:C:\Program Files\ASP to ASP.NET Migration
Assistant\AspToAspNet.chm::/1011.htm %>
<script language=”VB” src=”FileName.vb” runat=server>
Sub MySub()
Dim myVar
myVar = myVar + 1
Response.Write(“SUM = “ & CStr(myVar))
End Sub
</script>
642 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Like ASP, ASP.NET ignores the code between the opening and closing <script>
tags because the src attribute specifies an external file to use. If you need to use
this code, you must move it to another pair of <script> tags.
<script language=”VB” src=”FileName.vb” runat=server></script>
<script language=”VB” runat=server>
Sub MySub()
Dim myVar
myVar = myVar + 1
Response.Write(“SUM = “ & CStr(myVar))
End Sub
</script>

If you do not need the code, remove it from the page, leaving only the empty pair
of <script> tags that references the external file.
<script language=”VB” src=”FileName.vb” runat=server></script>

Testing and Debugging the Upgraded Application

The objective of the testing and debugging phase is to identify and correct problems
that occur after you converted the application to ASP.NET. Some problems will be
easy to identify and fix immediately; others will only become apparent when you
run your application.
The ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant generates a conversion report that contains
a list of issues for you to address after you convert your application. The report can
include the following types of issues:
● Conversion issues. These are generated when there are problems with unsup-
ported class members or language elements. You may need to manually convert
some of the affected expressions to similar .NET elements. For each issue, review
the functionality of the affected expressions and perform some limited testing.
● ToDo. These are generated when code requires user intervention. The instruc-
tions included in the item should be followed and tested after it is integrated in
the upgraded source code.
● Run-time warnings. These are generated by code that will compile but may
generate a run-time error. This code needs to be thoroughly tested.
● Global warnings. Global issues such as the lack of a deterministic object lifetime
because of the garbage collector are included here. Most of these warnings are
caused by setup issues that can be easily fixed and tested. Other warnings require
more work to fix, such as source code lines that the migration assistant does not
recognize and that require manual conversion.
 Appendix C: Introduction to Upgrading ASP 643

● Notes. These are generated when the source code has been significantly altered,
or the resulting ASP.NET code behaves differently from the original Visual Basic
6.0 version. The code needs to be tested to determine if the behavior differences
affect the core application functionality.
Unit and system testing should be performed for all the upgraded application
functionality, using the original application specifications and test cases to generate
new test cases for the ASP.NET version of the application.
For large size applications, a recommended approach is to divide the application
into smaller modules for individual testing. In a first stage, you can test the most
basic components of your ASP.NET application, that is, components that do not
depend on other user-defined components. After the basic components are tested
and adjusted if necessary, components that depend on them can be verified. This
approach ensures that work is performed in a progressive way and makes it easier
to isolate and correct any problems that are detected. The main disadvantages are
that more planning and coordination is required and the degree of parallelism is
diminished. It is important to consider that ASP can be run side-by-side with
ASP.NET on the same Web server; this allows a progressive testing of the application
features based on known and tested features. For example, if you are testing a Web
application that receives order inquiries and processes them to produce a detailed
report when requested, you can test the ASP.NET detailed report generation compo-
nents while having the rest of the functionality running on ASP. This approach will
be useful as a preliminary test of functionality and workload. It can be performed as
long as there is no direct communication between the ASP and ASP.NET compo-
nents because they are executed in separate server processes.

Deployment
After your application is tested and is running according to your standards, the next
step is to create a new installer to distribute it to other computers automatically. The
Visual Studio .NET deployment feature automatically builds a solution for deploy-
ment and handles any registration and configuration issues.

To deploy an ASP.NET application
1. Create a Web setup project.
2. Create the structure of the web site in the setup project.
3. Include your ASP.NET project as project output to the deployment project.
4. Build the solution.
The resulting ASP.NET solution must be deployed by someone with Administrator
user rights on the server to which the application is deployed. For more information
about creating installers, see Chapter 16, “Application Completion.”
644 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

More Information
For more information about upgrading from ASP to ASP.NET, see “Migrating to
ASP.NET: Key Considerations” and “Converting ASP to ASP.NET” on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html
/aspnetmigrissues.asp
and:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html
/convertasptoaspnet.asp.
For more information about system requires for ASP.NET, see “System Requirements
for Visual Studio .NET 2003” in the Microsoft Visual Studio Developer Center on
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productinfo/sysreqs/default.aspx.
To download the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant, see the Microsoft ASP.NET
Developer Center on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/migration/aspmig/aspmigasst/default.aspx.
For more information about ASP.NET security, see “ASP.NET Web Application
Security” in the .NET Framework Developer’s Guide on MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html
/cpconASPNETWebApplicationSecurity.asp.
For more information about VB Companion, see the ArtinSoft Web site:
http://www.artinsoft.com/pr_vbcompanion.aspx.
Appendix

D
Upgrading FMStocks 2000 —
A Case Study
This case study showcases the process of upgrading a Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0
application to a functionally equivalent Visual Basic .NET application using the
Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool, the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, and the
guidance chapters using the Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000 (FMStocks 2000) application
as a reference application. It describes the issues encountered while upgrading the
FMStocks 2000 application to Visual Basic .NET, identifies their resolutions, and
explains how these resolutions were determined. The aim of this case study is not to
identify all the issues involved in upgrading to Visual Basic .NET; the aim is to
demonstrate the approach taken to identify issues and resolve them.
This case study will also serve as a starting guide for those who would like to test
the assessment tool and upgrade wizard by using FMStocks 2000 as a sample appli-
cation. This will give developers some familiarity with these tools and with the
upgrade process before starting a real upgrade project.
To demonstrate the upgrade process, FMStocks 2000 was upgraded to Visual Basic
.NET with the name FMStocks_AutomatedUpgrade using the upgrade wizard.
FMStocks_AutomatedUpgrade was then manually changed to a functionally
equivalent .NET version and given the name FMStocks_NET to distinguish it from
the auto-generated code. Both FMStocks_AutomatedUpgrade and FMStocks_NET
are available as FMStocks_AutomatedUpgrade.msi and FMStocks_NET.msi on the
companion CD or from the GotDotNet community site for this guide.
646 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

About FMStocks 2000

Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000 (FMStocks 2000) is a Microsoft Windows Distributed
interNet Applications Architecture (Windows DNA) sample application developed
for Microsoft Windows 2000 that simulates a public stock trading Web site on the
Internet. The online stock-trading scenario has been extended by adding an online
bookstore.
FMStocks 2000 is comprised of the presentation layer, the business logic layer, and
the data layer. The presentation layer uses ASP and interacts with the business logic
layer through distributed COM. The prominent components in the business logic
layer are the FMStocks_Bus and FMSStore_Bus components that contain the services
necessary for online stock trading and bookstore, respectively. The data layer con-
sists of the data access components that exist in the middle tier and the database.
The data access components are FMStocks_DB and FMStore_DB components, which
handle data exchange between the database (Microsoft SQL Server 2000) and the
business logic components.
The following are the features of FMStocks 2000:
● It demonstrates performance and scalability gains.

● It simplifies component development by taking advantage of easier COM+

programming idioms.
● It extends the online stock-trading scenario by adding a bookstore. This allows
handling a more complicated state and shopping cart feature and ensures the
high availability of the site during large-grain transactions such as purchasing.
● It expands the client experience by adding Microsoft Office 2000 connectivity to
the site by way of Excel and wireless access using Windows CE.
● It provides additional security for the application by eliminating clear-text
cookies and separating key business components from the Web servers.

Reasons FMStocks 2000 Is Used for the Case Study

FMStocks 2000 includes a host of features that makes it an ideal subject for a case
study on upgrading from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET. These features
include:
● COM+ interoperability and MTS.

● Office 2000 integration.

● Error logging.

● Use of interfaces.

● Calling Windows APIs.

● Use of ActiveX Data Objects (ADO).

 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 647

FMStocks 2000 Setup

The Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000 (FMStocks 2000) application, including source code,
can be obtained from the download section of the FMStocks 2000 Web site. To install
the application, download the installation setup program and execute it. Follow the
instructions in the installation wizard to specify where you would like to install the
application.
For more information about building and executing the application, see
“FMStocks2000_Setup.doc” in the <installation directory>\FM Stocks 2000\docu-
mentation folder.

FMStocks_AutomatedUpgrade Setup
The green code produced by the upgrade wizard can be found in
FMStocks_AutomatedUpgrade. If you want to compare the green code you obtain
with the green code obtained during this case study, you can download the case
study version from the community site. The green code is found in the file
FMStocks_AutomatedUpgrade.msi. When the contents of this file are installed, the
installation folder is C:\Program Files\ FMStocks_AutomatedUpgrade. The installa-
tion file installs the upgrade wizard reports and the green code so that you can
compare the progress of your upgrade as you proceed through this case study.

FMStocks_NET Setup
The final functionally equivalent code produced during this case study can be found
in FMStocks_NET. You can obtain this code from the GotDotNet community site.
The file is FMStocks_NET.msi. This file installs FMStocks_NET, which is the func-
tionally equivalent working version of FMStocks 2000. When the contents of this file
are installed, the installation folder is C:\Program Files\FMStocks_NET. The assess-
ment tool reports and the final functionally equivalent code are installed so that you
can compare your results against the results produced while preparing this case
study. The folder also contains the FMStocks_NET_Setup.doc, which provides
detailed instructions about setting up FMStocks_NET.

FMStocks 2000 Assessment and Analysis

The main objectives for upgrading FMStocks were to achieve functional equivalence
and to accelerate the upgrade process. To achieve functional equivalence, an analysis
of the functionality of the Visual Basic 6.0 version of the FMStocks was required. To
fulfill the second objective of accelerating the upgrade process, apart from the
automated upgrade, a concrete upgrade strategy and plan that included the esti-
mates, tasks, risks and issues involved in the upgrade were required. To make a
detailed plan of the upgrade, a complete analysis of the content of the Visual Basic
648 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

6.0 version of FMStocks was required. This included analysis of the structure and
design of FMStocks, including the prominent subsystems in the application and how
they interact, the features offered by the application, the technologies that it used,
the complete source code, and the dependencies on external systems and third-party
libraries.
The use case analysis was helpful for analyzing and documenting the functionality
of the Visual Basic 6.0 version of FMStocks for upgrade planning and test planning
to achieve functional equivalence. The Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool
was used to perform a complete analysis of the application. It helped to fulfill the
objective of accelerating the upgrade process by providing the data for devising an
upgrade plan and for doing so on-demand.

Overview of the Structure of FMStocks

The structure of FMStocks 2000 was determined from the documentation provided
with it, the analysis produced by the assessment tool, and a high level code review
of the application. FMStocks 2000 is comprised of three layers: the presentation
layer, the business logic layer, and the database layer. The projects that make up the
business logic layer are as follows.
● FMStocks_Bus.vbp. This project contains the business code for the online stock
trading functionality. It includes four class modules: Account, Broker, Ticker, and
Version.
● FMSStore_Bus.vbp. This project contains the business code for the online book-
store functionality. It includes two class modules: Product and ShoppingCart.
● FMSStore_Events.vbp. This is the interface for defining events for external order
processing for online bookstore functionality.
● FMSStore_EvtSub2.vbp. This implements the event for external order processing
for online bookstore functionality.
The projects that make up the data access layer are:
1. FMSStore_DB.vbp. This project contains the data access code for the online
bookstore functionality. It includes two class modules: Product and
ShoppingCart.
2. FMStocks_DB.vbp. This project contains the data access code for the online stock
trading functionality. It includes eight class modules: Account, Broker, DBHelper,
Position, Ticker, Product and ShoppingCart.
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 649

The preceding projects are grouped under the following project groups:
1. FMS2000_Core.vbg. This project group includes FMStocks_Bus.vbp and
FMStocks_DB.vbp.
2. FMS2000_Store.vbg. This project group includes FMSStore_Bus.vbp and
FMSStore_DB.vbp.
3. FMS2000_Events.vbg. This project group includes FMSStore_Events.vbp and
FMSStore_EvtSub2.vbp.

Overview of the Use Cases

The use case analysis was required to analyze and document the functional specifi-
cations of the FMStocks application to achieve functional equivalence during up-
grading and testing. In the case of FMStocks, the use cases were derived from the
working Visual Basic 6.0 version of the FMStocks application. Because this case
study does not involve advancing the application, no new use cases were created.
FMStocks 2000 consists of the following use cases:
● Login for existing user

● Login for new user

● Logout

● Symbol or company lookup

● Display of account balance

● Display of portfolio

● Chart portfolio

● Buy a stock

● Sell a stock

● View shopping cart

● Browse products

● Checkout

Table 1 on the next page illustrates a sample use case from FMStocks 2000 for the
functionality of selling stocks.
650 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Table 1: Sample Use Case for FMStocks 2000

Use case ID UC-09
Name Sell a stock
Actors Application user
Description It displays the current portfolio and asks the user to select which
shares and number of stock shares to sell. It orders a sell request.
Trigger None
Pre-conditions User must have logged on to the system.
Post-conditions None
Normal flow 1. User clicks Sell a stock link.
2. Application displays a list of the user’s current stocks.
3. The user selects which shares to sell and the quantity.
4. The application creates a new transaction and updates the relative
database fields.
5. A sell receipt is displayed after the sell is confirmed.
Alternative flows If the input number of shares is more than the existing shares, the
following message is displayed:”Unable to place order. You tried to
sell more shares than you own.”
Exceptions None
Includes None
Priority High
Frequency of use Medium
Business rules None
Special requirements None
Assumptions None
Notes and issues None
Use case ID UC-09

The use cases for FMStocks 2000 have been documented and are available on the
companion CD.

Obtaining the Upgrade Inventory

The most important step of the FMStocks application analysis was getting the
statistics of how many components, classes, modules, and user controls the applica-
tion contained. Getting to know the inventory helped assess the complexity of the
FMStocks structure which in turn contributed to the planning of the upgrade and
estimation of time and effort. The assessment tool was used to analyze the inventory
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 651

for each project group. The Project Files Overview worksheet of the
DetailedReport.xls it produced listed the files in each project and categorized them
into classes, modules, and so forth. Because the FMStocks projects that were ana-
lyzed were business layer components or data access layer components, they did not
contain any forms or designers. Tables 2, 3, and 4 list the data collected for each
project group from the Project Files Overview worksheet. Note that the actual
worksheet includes the following columns: UserControls, Non-upgradable, Design-
ers, and Forms. They are not included in the tables here because there are no values
in those columns in this particular worksheet.
Table 2: FMS2000_Core Project Group
Project Total files Classes Modules
FMStocks_Bus 5 4 1
FMStocks_DB 9 8 1
Total 14 12 2

Table 3: FMS2000_Store Project Group

Project Total files Classes Modules
FMStocks_Bus 3 2 1
FMStocks_DB 3 2 1
Total 6 4 2

Table 4: FMS2000_Events Project Group

Project Total files Classes Modules
FMStocks_Events 1 1 0
FMStocks_EvtSub_OrderProc 1 1 0
Total 2 2 0

The data from the Project Files Overview worksheet helped determine that the
FMS2000_Store project group was the prominent project group for migration. This
was taken into account when finalizing the upgrade and the test plan.
The upgrade of third-party components accounted for a significant amount of
upgrade effort. The upgrade wizard can upgrade only one project at a time. Because
of this, when upgrading one project, the ActiveX components that were referenced
by the original version of the project were wrapped with an interoperability DLL.
Because the referenced ActiveX components had also been upgraded to .NET, the
interoperability DLL was unnecessary. Thus for each project that was upgraded, the
references to ActiveX components had to be manually upgraded to references to
652 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

.NET components. Because the .NET components had names and progIDs different
from that of the ActiveX components, it was necessary to drill down to each line of
code and change the call from the ActiveX component to the .NET component. This
is where the Third Party Components Summary and Members report produced by
the assessment tool came in handy. The Third Party Components Summary report
lists the third-party components instantiations with the count of their instances. The
information in Table 5 is provided by the Third Party Components Summary report
for the FMS2000_Store project group.
Table 5: Third Party Components Summary Report for FMS2000_Store
Component Count
FMSStore_Events.ShoppingCart 1
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper 2
ADODB.Recordset 2

This report shows that the FMS2000_Store project group depends on the class
module ShoppingCart of the FMSStore_Events component, the class module
DBHelper of the FMStocks_DB component, and the recordset type of the ADODB
library. The Third Party Components Members report lists the members of the third
party components that are being used in the code along with the count. Shown
below is the Third Party Components Members report for the FMS2000_Store project
group.
Table 6: Third Party Components Members Report for FMS2000_Store
Member Count
FMSStore_Events.ShoppingCart.ExecuteBuy 1
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.RunSP 4
ADODB.Recordset.BOF 2
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.RunSPReturnRS 6
ADODB.Recordset.EOF 2

These reports made it easy to locate third-party components and make the appropri-
ate changes to their instantiations.
The other reports the FMStocks 2000 inventory information was collected from were
the Data Access Components report, API Calls report, User Components Members
report, Intrinsic Components Members report, and the User Com Objects Members
report. Tables 7, 8, 9, and 10 show the information these reports produce.
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 653

Table 7: Data Access Components Report

ADO data bindings

Control name Control type

No data found.
ADO data members used

Member Count
ADODB.Command.CommandText 9
ADODB.Recordset.BOF 1
ADODB.Recordset.Open 5
ADODB.Recordset.Close 1
ADODB.Parameters.Append 8
ADODB.Recordset.AddNew 1
ADODB.Recordset.ActiveConnection 2
ADODB.Command.Execute 5
ADODB.Recordset.MoveNext 2
ADODB.Fields.Append 5
ADODB.Command.CreateParameter 8
ADODB.Recordset.Delete 1
ADODB.Recordset.Fields 5
ADODB.Recordset.MoveFirst 1
ADODB.Recordset.CursorLocation 5
ADODB.Command.Parameters 8
ADODB.Recordset.UpdateBatch 2
ADODB.Command.ActiveConnection 23
ADODB.Recordset.EOF 3
ADODB.Recordset.Value 5
ADODB.Command.CommandType 9
654 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Table 8: API Calls Report

Function name Parameter list Parameter count Library Uses
RegisterEventSource Advapi32.dll 2
DeregisterEventSource Advapi32.dll 2
ReportEvent Advapi32.dll 2
GetLastError kernel32 0
CopyMemory kernel32 2
GlobalAlloc kernel32 2
GlobalFree kernel32 2
GetComputerNameAPI kernel32 2

Table 9: User Components Members Report

Member Count
FMStocks_DB.Version.Version 1
FMStocks_Bus.Helpers.NullsToZero 19
FMStocks_DB.Helpers.NullsToZero 2
FMStocks_DB.Position.ListForSale 1
FMStocks_Bus.FMStocks_TransactionType.Insufficient_Funds 2
FMStocks_DB.Version.ConnectionString 1
FMStocks_DB.Ticker.GetPrice 3
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.RunSP 1
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.RunSPReturnInteger 7
FMStocks_DB.Helpers.GetKey 1
FMStocks_DB.Helpers.GetVersionNumber 1
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.GetConnectionString 2
FMStocks_DB.Helpers.GetValue 2
FMStocks_DB.Ticker.ListByTicker 1
FMStocks_DB.Account.GetAccountInfo 1
FMStocks_Bus.Helpers.RaiseError 13
FMStocks_DB.Helpers.mp 34
FMStocks_DB.Account.Add 1
FMStocks_DB.Position.ListSummary 1
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 655

Member Count
FMStocks_DB.TxNew.SetTxType 4
FMStocks_Bus.FMStocks_TransactionType.Not_Enough_Shares 2
FMStocks_DB.Account.Summary 1
FMStocks_DB.Position.ListForAdjustment 1
FMStocks_DB.Account.VerifyUser 1
FMStocks_DB.Version.ComputerName 1
FMStocks_DB.Broker.Buy 2
FMStocks_DB.Tx.AddBuyOrder 1
FMStocks_DB.Ticker.GetFundamentals 1
FMStocks_DB.Ticker.VerifySymbol 1
FMStocks_Bus.Helpers.GetComputerName 1
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.RunSPReturnRS 8
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.RunSPReturnRS_RW 1
FMStocks_DB.Helpers.RaiseError 30
FMStocks_DB.Broker.Sell 2
FMStocks_DB.Tx.AddSellOrder 1
FMStocks_DB.Tx.GetByID 1
FMStocks_Bus.Helpers.GetVersionNumber 1
FMStocks_DB.Ticker.ListByCompany 1
FMStocks_DB.Helpers.GetComputerName 1

Table 10: User Com Objects Members Report

Member Count
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.RunSP 1
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.RunSPReturnInteger 7
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.GetConnectionString 2
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.RunSPReturnRS 8
FMStocks_DB.DBHelper.RunSPReturnRS_RW 1
656 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Obtaining Source Code Metrics

FMStocks 2000 upgrade planning and time and cost estimation required knowledge
of the number of lines of source code present in each project. The assessment tool
was used to obtain these numbers. The Lines of Code worksheet in the
DetailedReport.xls provided the number of lines for each project and it categorized
the lines of code into visual lines, comment lines, blank lines, and code lines. Be-
cause the components being upgraded did not have user interfaces, the number of
visual lines was negligible. The categorization of the lines of code proved useful
because the comment lines and the blank lines were ignored for the estimation of
upgrading cost and effort. Table 11 includes the information from the report that
gave the number of lines of code for the FMS2000_Core project group.
Table 11: Lines of Code Report for the FMS2000_Core Project Group
Project Total lines Visual lines Code lines Comment lines Blank
lines
FMStocks_Bus 900 32 556 94 218
FMStocks_DB 1118 64 715 82 257
Total 2,018 96 1,271 176 475

The total number of lines in FMStocks 2000 is 4,943.

Handling of Unsupported Features

The upgrade wizard does not upgrade all the language features and technologies of
Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic.NET because some of these language features and
technologies are not supported in .NET. The Visual Basic 6.0 features that are not
upgraded by the upgrade wizard have to be manually upgraded. The manual effort
that would be required to achieve functional equivalence for FMStocks 2000 after the
automated upgrade would have been a difficult task if not for the assessment tool.
The assessment tool was helpful when the issues related to automated upgrade had
to be located and assessed. The assessment tool’s DetailedReport.xls has an Upgrade
Issues worksheet that lists the Visual Basic 6.0 features that will not be upgraded to
Visual Basic .NET by the upgrade wizard along with the count of occurrences of
these features in the application and the cost of upgrade associated to each one of
them. This helped in assessing how much manual effort would be required to
achieve functional equivalence.
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 657

Table 12: Upgrade Issues Table for the FMS2000_Core Project Group
Name MSDN ID Occurrences
Declaring a parameter “As Any” is not supported 1016 8
Setting an object variable to Nothing does not destroy the 1029 99
object. Object may not be destroyed until it is garbage
collected
Couldn’t resolve default property of object 1037 46
Function has a new behavior in .NET 1041 22
Use of Null/IsNull() detected 1049 5
Due to differences between Visual Basic 6.0 and 2068 4
Visual Basic.NET, some objects or collections cannot be
upgraded
Some objects cannot be upgraded. Properties or methods 2069 6
of those objects have been copied into the upgraded code,
but they will not compile because the underlying objects
were not upgraded

Note: The “Guidance topic” values in the actual report will be linked to the online version of
this guide. Each link will take you to the chapter that explains how to address the specified
issue.

Determining Application Dependencies

The knowledge of relationships between components and projects in FMStocks 2000
was required to define the upgrade order and to prepare the upgrade and test plans.
The analysis of dependencies and relationships between projects and components
was made easy by the assessment tool. The assessment tool generates a call graph
and dependency graph for each project group analyzed. Figure 1 and Figure 2 on the
next pages illustrate the file dependency graph and the call graph that are generated
for the FMS2000_Core project group.
658 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 1
File Dependency Graph for the FMS2000_Core project group

The file dependency graph shows the files that belong to the projects FMStocks_Bus
and FMStocks_DB. The files in the project FMStocks_Bus are dependent on the
Helpers.bas file that belongs to the same project. The files in the project
FMStocks_DB are dependent on the Helpers.bas file and the DBHelper.cls file, both
belonging to the FMStocks_DB project.
The call graph shows the methods of the class modules that belong to the projects
FMStocks_Bus and FMStocks_DB. In this call graph, the GetSummary method of
the Account class module of the FMStocks_Bus project calls the RaiseError and
NullsToZero methods of the Helpers module. Similarly, in the FMStocks_DB
project, the Buy method of the Broker class module is dependent on the RaiseError,
mp, and NullsToZero methods of the Helpers module.
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 659

Figure 2
Call graph for the FMStocks_DB and FMStocks_Bus projects

The file dependencies are also identified by the assessment tool. The assessment tool
generates the Upgrade Order report found in the DetailedReport.xls. Table 13 lists
information from the Upgrade Order report for the project group FMS2000_Core.
Table 13: Upgrade Order Report for FMS2000_Core
Project Dependency group File
FMStocks_Bus Dependency group 1 C:\Program Files\FMStocks 2000\components
\source\FMStocks_Bus\Helpers.bas
FMStocks_DB Dependency group 1 C:\Program Files\FMStocks 2000\components
\source\FMStocks_DB\Helpers.bas
660 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The information in the Upgrade Order report reflects the same data that was shown
in the file dependency graph. The FMStocks_Bus project files depend on the
Helpers.bas file. The same is true for the project FMStocks_DB.
The typical and direct approach is to first upgrade the core or basic components/
files that have no dependencies on any other components or files, and then to
proceed to upgrade the next set of components or files that are dependent on the
earlier set of components/files. Based on the dependencies discussed earlier, the
upgrade order defined for the FMStocks_Db and FMStocks_Core projects will have
the Helpers module being upgraded before upgrading the rest of the class modules
or the files.
The analysis and the assessment process of the FMStocks 2000 application took
approximately 12 work hours of effort. That was the effort for analyzing and assess-
ing 32 ASP pages and 4,943 lines of Visual Basic code in 22 Visual Basic files.

Upgrading FMStocks 2000

After the preliminary assessment is performed, the actual work in upgrading can
begin. This section details the steps performed in upgrading FMStocks 2000 from
Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET.

Planning the Upgrade

The upgrade planning stage for FMStocks 2000 consisted of the following sub-
stages: deciding the upgrade strategy, defining the upgrade order, and creating an
upgrade schedule with estimates of cost and effort. The data from the assessment
and analysis stage of FMStocks 2000 was the input for the upgrade planning stage of
FMStocks 2000. The upgrade planning stage required approximately 4 work hours
of effort.

Deciding the Upgrade Strategy

The upgrade strategy adopted for the FMStocks 2000 upgrade was the complete
upgrade strategy. The reasoning behind adopting the complete strategy is as
follows.
● A complete upgrade is fast and inexpensive.

● FMStocks 2000 has 4,943 lines of code divided between 22 files, 3 project groups,
and 6 projects. From the source code metrics and the project files overview, it is
apparent that FMStocks is a medium-sized application that can be upgraded
completely before deploying with a low probability of any complications occur-
ring because of choosing a complete upgrade over staged upgrade.
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 661

● The Upgrade Issues report lists 261 issues that are unsupported in Visual Basic
.NET, but the issues identified are not related to deprecated technologies (such as
DAO, RDO, and DDE). Because of this, it is unlikely that there will complications
when deploying the complete upgraded application in .NET. Thus, this upgrade
project does not require system testing whenever an individual component is
upgraded, and as a result, this application is an unsuitable candidate for staged
upgrade.
● A staged upgrade requires the implementation of wrappers or interfaces to
provide the interoperability mechanisms between the Visual Basic 6.0 and .NET
code. These wrappers will often be temporary and will be discarded later on. The
overhead of creating the wrappers, especially with a dependency on COM
components, makes the staged upgrade strategy unattractive for FMStocks 2000.
Furthermore, the deployment takes more effort and time when interoperation is
required between legacy COM components and .NET assemblies.
● The test strategy that was adopted was a test-driven upgrade, which meant that
every component would be unit tested after being upgraded. This reduced the
need for system testing after the upgrade of each component.

Defining the Upgrade Order

Although the complete upgrade strategy was adopted, the upgrade order still had to
be defined because each component had to be united tested after upgrade. To define
the upgrade order, the call graph, file dependency graphs, and upgrade order report
in the DetailedReport.xls were taken into account, and the project references were
also reviewed. The data that was obtained is as follows:
● FMSStore_EvtSub_OrderProc project depends on the FMSStore_Events project.

● FMSStore_DB project depends on the DBHelper class module of the

FMStocks_DB project.
● FMSStore_Bus project depends on FMSStore_DB and
FMSStore_EvtSub_OrderProc projects.
● FMStocks_Bus project depends on FMStocks_DB project.

The basic components/projects that did not depend on any other components/
projects came first in the upgrade order list. The next set of components and projects
to be upgraded were the ones that depended on the basic components/projects. The
greater the number of components/projects a project depended on, the later it was
in the upgrade list.
662 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Based on the preceding data and upgrade strategy, the following upgrade order at a
project level was defined:
1. FMSStore_Events project and FMStocks_DB project
2. FMSStore_EvtSub_OrderProc project and FMStocks_Bus project
3. FMSStore_DB project
4. FMSStore_Bus project

Creating the Upgrade Schedule

To create the upgrade schedule for FMStocks 2000, the following steps had to be
executed:
● Identifying the different upgrade tasks

● Gathering estimation reports generated by the assessment tool

● Modifying the effort and cost estimation reports according to the project require-
ments
As discussed in Chapter 5, “The Visual Basic Upgrade Process,” the different up-
grade tasks identified for the FMStocks 2000 upgrade are:
● Preparing the application. This includes:

● Preparing the development environment.

● Verifying the compilation.

● Upgrading FMStocks 2000. This includes:

● Executing the upgrade wizard.

● Analyzing the upgrade wizard report and manually upgrading unsupported

features.
● Performing upgrade administrative tasks.

● Testing the upgraded application. This includes:

● Creating test cases.

● Creating automated tests.

● Executing test cases for unit testing.

● System testing for functional equivalence.

● Managing bugs.

● Regression testing.

● Fixing bugs.

● Performing test administrative tasks.

The next step was to gather the data from the estimation reports generated by the
assessment tool. Table 14 lists information that is provided by the estimation report
for the FMStocks2000_Core project group.
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 663

Table 14: Estimation Report for FMStocks2000_Core

Task Effort (Hours) Cost Resource
Application preparation
Development environment 4 $200 DEV
Application resource inventory 0 $7 DEV
Compilation verification 2 $100 DEV
Migration order definition 0 $3 DEV
Upgrade wizard report review 0 $5 DEV
Total 6 $315

Application conversion
Upgrade wizard execution 0 $3 DEV
Manual code adjustment 18 $1,032
System integration and smoke test 4 $221 DEV
Administrative Tasks 1 $60 DLE
Total 23 $1,316

Testing and debugging

Test case creation 3 $210 STE
Test case execution 4 $160 TES
Resolution of Defects 5 $234 TES
Administrative Tasks 1 $77 STE
Total 13 $681

Project management 2 $165 PM

Configuration management 1 $70 CM

Totals 45 $2,547
664 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

The estimation report was customized for FMStocks 2000. The following configura-
tion values were changed to customize this report:
● In Config – Fixed Tasks. The number of hours for compilation verification of the
original application was changed from 8 hours to 2 hours. Because this is just a
project group with 2,018 lines of code, the compilation verification time was
reduced. Furthermore, FMStocks 2000 was a working application with all the
required references. There was only one third-party component referenced by this
project group and there were no missing components or missing files according
to the data collected from the DetailedReport.xls generated by the assessment
tool. Because of this, the chance of compilation errors occurring because of
missing references was very slim. The result of this analysis was the reduction in
estimate for compilation verification of the original application from 8 hours to 2
hours.
● In Config – Fixed Tasks. The number of hours for configuration management
was changed from 8 hours to 1 hour. The size of the project group (2,018 lines of
code), the choice of complete upgrade strategy, and the number of upgrade issues
identified (191) indicated that the churn in the source code would require only a
configuration management effort of 1 hour. This resulted in modifying the effort
and cost estimation reports according to the project requirements.
● In Config – Dependent Tasks. The percentage for test case execution was in-
creased from 1 to 10. This is because the test execution effort included feature
testing for functional equivalence apart from manual and automated unit testing
along with the analysis of the results.
Table 15 lists the cumulative effort and cost estimation for the three project groups,
FMS2000_Core, FMS2000_Events, and FMS2000_Store, that make up the FMStocks
2000 application. Some of the important points to be noted in how this cumulative
report was arrived at are the following:
● The entire effort of 4 hours for the development environment under preparing the
application was included in the report generated for the project group
FMS2000_Core, so the number of hours for preparing the development environ-
ment for rest of the project groups was made 0 hours. The assumption here was
that the remaining project groups would not require any additional development
environment preparation.
● The project group FMS2000_Events is significantly smaller (52 lines of code) than
the rest of the project groups, so the configuration values were changed signifi-
cantly for this project group. For the fixed task of verifying compilation, an effort
of 1 hour had been allocated for FMS2000_Events project group. Similarly, the
percentage for executing test cases was modified to 5.
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 665

Table 15: Modified Estimation Report

Task Effort (Hours) Cost Resource
Application preparation
Development environment 4 $200 DEV
Application resource inventory 0 $7 DEV
Compilation verification 3 $150 DEV
Migration order definition 0 $3 DEV
Upgrade wizard report review 0 $5 DEV
Total 7 $365

Application conversion
Upgrade wizard execution 0 $3 DEV
Manual code adjustment 24 $1,443
System integration and smoke test 6 $293 DEV
Administrative Tasks 1 $81 DLE
Total 31 $1,820

Testing and debugging

Test case creation 4 $280 STE
Test case execution 5 $200 TES
Resolution of Defects 7 $350 TES
Administrative Tasks 2 $140 STE
Total 18 $970

Project management 3 $226 PM

Configuration management 3 $210 CM

Totals 66 $3,381
666 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

One of the most important points that came up at this juncture was the estimation
for the upgrade of the presentation layer from ASP pages to ASP.NET. There were 32
ASP pages that had to be converted to ASP.NET. The strategy was to use the ASP to
ASP.NET Migration Assistant for an automated upgrade. However, some prelimi-
nary investigations and estimations were made as follows:
● Because there was no way to predetermine the features that the ASP to ASP.NET
Migration Assistant might not upgrade, the complete ASP code was analyzed for
contentious issues. Based on the analysis, five sample ASP pages that contained a
major part of the FMStocks functionality were selected and upgraded using the
migration assistant. Then by analyzing the conversion report generated by the
migration assistant, the upgrade issues that are likely to be thrown by the migra-
tion assistant were selected and their complexity was analyzed. The final esti-
mated number of upgrade issues was 15.
● After analyzing the complexity of each issue that was likely to be thrown by the
migration assistant, it was determined that an average complexity of 15 minutes
of effort per occurrence would be needed. One of the reasons for the relatively
high effort per occurrence when compared to the Visual Basic upgrade issues is
that unlike the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Report the ASP to ASP.NET Migra-
tion Assistant Conversion report does not specify the line where the upgrade
issue occurs. Thus, extra effort is required to locate the issue.
Based on this analysis and past experience with upgrading ASP pages to ASP.NET,
the estimates in Table 16 were determined.
The points to be noted for the ASP to ASP.NET migration estimate are as follows:
● The effort for run-time error execution was set at a higher value because the ASP
to ASP.NET migration assistant is an error-prone tool as indicated in Appendix C.
● The ASP pages execution verification task was included instead of the compila-
tion verification task for Visual Basic code. This task included validating the
execution of the ASP pages, the links/URLs within the ASP pages, and the calls
to the proper COM components.
The final cost and effort estimates for the entire FMStocks 2000 application were as
follows:
● Total Estimated Effort: 90.5 work hours

● Total Estimated Cost: $4,723

 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 667

Table 16: Estimated Cost and Effort to Upgrade FMStocks 2000 ASP Pages to ASP.NET
Task Effort (Hours) Cost Resource
Application preparation
Development environment 0 $0 DEV
Application resource inventory 1 $50 DEV
ASP Pages execution verification 2 $100 DEV
Total 3 $150

Application conversion
Migration Assistant execution 0 $3 DEV
Manual code adjustment 4 $200
System integration and smoke test 2 $100 DEV
Administrative Tasks 0.5 $45 DLE
Total 6.5 $345

Testing and debugging

Test case creation 3 $140 STE
Test case execution 4 $80 TES
Bug management 1 $50 TES
Regression test 1 $50 TES
Run-time error correction 7 $307 DEV
Administrative Tasks 1 $70 STE
Total 13 $697

Project management 1 $80 PM

Configuration management 1 $70

Totals 24.5 $1,342
668 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Preparing the Application

Preparing the FMStocks 2000 application for upgrade involved the following tasks
1. Preparing the development environment: Necessary software that was required
for FMStocks 2000, such as IIS 5.0 and SQL Server 2000, was installed according
to the setup documentation for FMStocks 2000. Then FMStocks 2000 was in-
stalled. Visual Studio .NET 2003, the .NET Framework 1.1, and the Visual Basic
6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool were also installed. The software needed for the
assessment tool to run, such as Microsoft Excel 2003, was also installed.
2. Compilation verification/ASP pages execution verification: After FMStocks 2000
was installed, the source code for the business components was also copied to the
installation folder. The project groups for the business components were then
compiled and verified if they were being registered. The ASP pages were then
executed against the registered COM components to validate the ASP pages.
The preparation stage for FMStocks 2000 required a total effort of approximately 7
work hours.

Executing Automated Upgrade

The first step in the actual upgrade process itself is to begin with the automated
upgrade procedure. This section describes this experience for the FMStocks 2000
upgrade.

Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET Using the Upgrade Wizard
The Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard in Visual Studio .NET 2003 was used for to per-
form the automated upgrade. The project files were upgraded according to the
upgrade order specified earlier in this case study. After a project was upgraded
using the upgrade wizard, the project was manually adjusted and unit tested before
the process continued with the next project.
Figure 3 illustrates the upgrade wizard report generated for the FMSStore_Bus
project.
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 669

Figure 3
The upgrade wizard report for the FMSStore_Bus project

ASP to ASP.NET Using the Migration Assistant

The last stage in the FMStocks 2000 automated upgrade was to upgrade the ASP
pages project to ASPX pages using the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant.
Figure 4 on the next page illustrates the conversion report generated by the ASP to
ASP.NET Migration Assistant.
670 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Figure 4
The ASP to ASP.NET Migration Tool Conversion Report for FMStocks 2000 ASP pages

The automated upgrade, including the application of both the Visual Basic Upgrade
Wizard and the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Tool, required an effort of approximately
one work hour.

Applying Manual Upgrade Adjustments

After performing the automated upgrade procedure, each project underwent a
manual upgrade stage before proceeding to the next project. The upgrade wizard
report generated in the automated upgrade stage was used to identify the issues.
The resolutions for the upgrade issues were based on the Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0
Applications to Visual Basic .NET and Visual Basic 2005 guide. Locating the appropriate
resolution was also helped by the assessment tool’s Upgrade Issues report in the
DetailedReport.xls. This report lists most of the issues identified by the upgrade
wizard and it provides pointers to the sections in the guide where the resolutions for
these issues are detailed. Thus, it proved easy to detect and resolve the upgrade
issues. After the issues were resolved, the upgraded code was reviewed and cleaned
up; comments were changed or removed (for comments inserted by the upgrade
wizard during the automated upgrade stage), and identifiers (such as variable
names) were changed to make them suitable for the upgraded version of FMStocks
2000.
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 671

For manually upgrading the ASP pages, the report generated by the ASP to ASP.NET
Migration Assistant was not very helpful as a guide to detect and resolve upgrade
issues. Because of this, the ASPX code that had been upgraded by the migration
assistant had to be completely reviewed line by line in order to detect and resolve
upgrade issues.

Note: When the business COM+ components of FMStocks 2000 were upgraded from Visual
Basic 6.0 to .NET, the ProgID for the COM+ components was changed during automated
upgrade. For example, the FMStocks_Bus.Account component in Visual Basic 6.0 was up-
graded to Account_NET.Account in Visual Basic .NET. However, these changes had to be
reflected in the ASPX pages. During the manual upgrade, each ProgID had to be changed
manually in the ASPX pages.

The manual upgrade of FMStocks 2000 required an effort of approximately 38 work

hours. Extra effort was required to completely review the ASPX pages manually to
identify and resolve upgrade issues.

Functional Testing
The objective for testing the upgraded .NET version of FMStocks 2000 was to test for
functional equivalence. The following test process was followed for testing
FMStocks 2000:
● Test planning and creating of test cases

● Unit testing

● Black box testing

● White box testing

Test plans and test cases were created for unit testing and black box testing before
the upgrade of FMStocks began. The data required for the creation of the test plans
was taken from the Use Case Analysis and by reviewing the original Visual Basic 6.0
code for FMStocks 2000.
In unit testing, each public method in each class of the upgraded project was tested
to validate that the behavior of each method in the upgraded project matched the
behavior of the corresponding method in the original version of the application. The
test cases for each public method included passing different values for the input
parameters of the method starting from values in the valid range, to boundary
values, and on to values outside the boundaries. All the test cases for unit testing
were automated using NUnit. (For more information about unit testing with NUnit,
see the NUnit Web site.) Table 17 on the next page shows the test plan for the
FMSStore_Cart.ShoppingCart class.
672 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Table 17: Test Plan for Unit Testing the FMSStore_Cart.ShoppingCart Class

Scenario 1 Class FMSStore_Cart.ShoppingCart

Priority High
Comments
1.1 High Public Function GetByKey(ByVal AccountID As Integer, ByVal SKU As
Integer) As ADODB.Recordset
1.2 High Public Sub Add(ByVal AccountID As Integer, ByVal SKU As Integer)
1.3 High Public Sub Buy(ByVal AccountID As Integer)
1.4 High Public Function ListByAccount(ByVal AccountID As Integer) As
ADODB.Recordset
1.5 High Public Sub SetQuantity(ByVal AccountID As Integer, ByVal SKU As
Integer, ByVal Quantity As Short)
1.6 High Public Function TotalByAccount(ByVal AccountID As Integer) As
ADODB.Recordset
1.7 High Public Sub EmptyShoppingCart(ByVal AccountID As Integer)

Table 18 shows a sample test case for unit testing the class
FMSStore_Cart.ShoppingCart. Note that there is an additional column, named Test
OK (Y/N), which is not included in this table because it has no entries.
Table 18: Sample Test Case for the FMSStore_Cart.ShoppingCart Class
Test Priority Condition to be tested Execution details Datarequired
case
1.1a High Public Function All input parameters in the valid NUnit Test
GetByKey(ByVal range. Case:
AccountID As Integer, Input Parameters:
ByVal SKU As Integer) AccountID = 5249 GetByKey
As ADODB.Recordset - SKU = 1004009 _Valid
All parameters within
valid range Expected Output:
Recordset with the following
values in the fields

Quantity = 1
SKU = 1004009
Price = 29.95
Description = The Secrets of
Investing in Technology Stocks

Actual Output:
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 673

Test Priority Condition to be tested Execution details Datarequired

case
1.1b High Public Function AccountID parameter higher NUnit Test
GetByKey(ByVal than the valid range. Case:
AccountID As Integer, Input Parameters: GetByKey
ByVal SKU As Integer) AccountID = 5250000 _Account
As ADODB.Recordset - SKU = 1004009 InValid
AccountID parameter
higher the valid range Expected Output:
Empty Recordset

Actual Output:

The objective of black box testing is to test for functional equivalence at the applica-
tion level. Therefore, the test plans and test cases for black box testing were taken
from the use case analysis of the FMStocks 2000 application. Table 19 shows the test
plan for black box testing of the login use case.
Table 19: Test Plan for the Black Box Testing of the Login Use Case

Scenario 1 To test the functionality of Login Procedure For Existing User

Priority High
Comments
1.1 High To test that both Login and Home page are displayed in correct
format. That is, all links, the font, and the contents are same as
those of the existing application in Visual Basic 6.0.
1.2 High To test that if user enters a valid e-mail name and password, the
user is redirected to the home page.
1.3 High To test that if SQL Server is not running, the following message is
displays: “Cannot open database connection.”
1.4 High To test if the entered e-mail name and/or password are invalid,
the following message displays: “Invalid e-mail and password
combination. Please try again.”

Table 20 on the next page shows a sample test case for black box testing of the login
functionality/use case. Note that the test case also includes the following columns:
Data Required, Actual Result, and Test OK (Y/N). They are not included in this table
because they contained no information in this case.
674 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Table 20: Sample Test Case for Black Box Testing the Login Functionality
Test Priority Condition to be tested Execution details Expected results
case
1.1 High To test that both login and Compare the login and home Users should not
home page are displayed page with the corresponding feel any difference
in the correct format. That pages in the Visual Basic 6.0 in the look and feel,
is, all links, the font, and version of FMStocks 2000 fonts, functionality,
the contents are the same and verify the following content, and so on,
as those of the existing points: between the login
application in Visual Basic Content and home pages in
6.0. General look and feel of the the upgraded
Web page version and the
Location of input fields corresponding
Font pages in the Visual
Links to other pages Basic 6.0 version
Functionality of FMStocks.
1.2 High To test that if user enters Enter the following e-mail The user should be
a valid e-mail name and name and password on the able to enter the
password, the user is login page site and should be
redirected to home page redirected to the
E-mail: ta450 home page.
Password: ta

The objective of white box testing was to find the failure scenarios in the code that
may have been missed in black box testing and to make sure that the upgrade issues
have been properly resolved. White box testing consisted of the following tasks:
● Code review for detecting failure scenarios, especially in the cases of loops,
conditional statements, and interoperability with the COM components that may
have been missed in black box testing.
● Code review to verify whether exception handling/logging was implemented
correctly.
● Code review to find additional test scenarios for unit testing.

● Review whether the upgrade issues were resolved correctly.

● Profiling and testing the code for intermediate results that may be critical.

The following subsections explain the errors/issues that arose during unit testing
and black box testing.
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 675

Interface Not Upgraded Correctly

In the Visual Basic 6.0 code for FMStocks 2000, the ShoppingCart class module of
the FMStore_Events project defines an interface as follows.
' This is the event interface and has no implementation because it exists
' only to define the interface.
Public Sub ExecuteBuy(ByVal AccountID As Long)
End Sub

This is how an interface is defined in Visual Basic 6.0, as an empty class module with
method definitions that have no body. In .NET, an interface is defined by using the
interface keyword. However, when the code was upgraded by the upgrade wizard,
it could not differentiate the ShoppingCart class module from other class modules
and upgraded it as follows.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId(_
"ShoppingCart_NET.ShoppingCart")> Public Class ShoppingCart

' This is the event interface and has no implementation because

' it exists only to define the interface.

Public Sub ExecuteBuy(ByVal AccountID As Integer)

End Sub
End Class

In the original FMStocks 2000 code, the class module ShoppingCart.cls of the
project FMStore_EvtSub2 implements the interface as follows.
Option Explicit

Implements FMSStore_Events.ShoppingCart

Private Sub ShoppingCart_ExecuteBuy(ByVal AccountID As Long)

Dim objSC As FMSStore_Bus.ShoppingCart

Set objSC = New FMSStore_Bus.ShoppingCart

objSC.EmptyShoppingCart AccountID

End Sub
676 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

However, the upgraded .NET code defines and implements the interface in the same
class module as follows.
Option Strict Off
Option Explicit On

Public Interface _ShoppingCart

End Interface

<System.Runtime.InteropServices.ProgId( _
"ShoppingCart_NET.ShoppingCart")> _
Public Class ShoppingCart
Implements _ShoppingCart
Implements _ShoppingCart

Private Sub ShoppingCart_ExecuteBuy(ByVal AccountID As Integer)

Dim objSC As _ShoppingCart

objSC = New FMSStore_Bus.ShoppingCart

objSC.EmptyShoppingCart(AccountID)
End Sub
End Class

Request Changed to Response During Upgrade

The original FMStocks code contains the following ASP code in the file t_head.asp.
if Request.Cookies("Account") <> "" then
g_AccountID = Request.Cookies("Account")
else
g_AccountID = 0
end if

This code was upgraded to the following in t_head.aspx by the ASP to ASP.NET
Migration Assistant.
If Not IsNothing(Request.Cookies.Item("Account")) Then
g_AccountID = IIf(IsNothing(Response.Cookies.Item("Account").Value), "",
Request.Cookies.Item("Account").Value)
Else
g_AccountID = 0
End If

This upgraded code generated the “Input String was not in the Correct Format”
error because the Account value is taken from the Response object instead of the
Request object. Thus, the preceding code had to be modified to the following.
If Not IsNothing(Request.Cookies.Item("Account")) Then
g_AccountID = IIf(IsNothing(Request.Cookies.Item("Account").Value), "",
Request.Cookies.Item("Account").Value)
Else
g_AccountID = 0
End If
 Appendix D: Upgrading FMStocks 2000 — A Case Study 677

Exception While Passing Parameter Using ByRef

In code-behind files found in ASPX pages, an exception for some function is thrown
if the parameters are being passed by reference. For example, the Item(ByRef text
As String, ByRef align As String) function in PortFolio.aspx throws an exception
that it is either not supported by its provider or is read-only.
The resolution for this problem was to pass these parameters by value and not
reference.

Type Format Exception for Recordset

In the upgraded ASPX pages, when recordset(“<fieldname>”) was used with
Response.Write or in an assignment statement a “Type Format Exception” resulted.
This issue was resolved by changing recordset(“<fieldname>”) to
recordset(“<fieldname>”).Value in Response.Write or assignment statements.

Response.Cookies.Item(“Account”).Value
The following ASP code appears in the t_head.asp file.
<% if Request.Cookies("Account") <> "" then %>

This code was converted to ASP.NET by the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant as
follows.
<%If Not IsNothing(Request.Cookies.Item("Account")) Then%>

There was a change in the behavior because of this change. The Default.aspx page
includes the page t_head.aspx. In the Logout.aspx page, the value for the Account
item was set as an empty string (“”) as it was in the corresponding ASP page.
Response.Cookies.Item("Account").Value = ""

After setting the value of the Account item to “”, the Logout.aspx page redirects the
user to the Default.aspx page where the value “” of the Account item is validated
using the condition statement IsNothing(). However, during testing the value “” of
the Account item was passing the comparison condition and as a result, an excep-
tion was thrown. This issue was resolved by setting the value of the Account item to
zero instead of “” in Logout.aspx as shown here.
Response.Cookies.Item("Account").Value = 0
678 Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications

Err.Number 5 Occurred When Redirecting to Another ASPX Page

When an ASPX page in the upgraded FMStocks 2000 redirected the user to another
ASPX page, an error (Err.Number=5, Err.Description=”Thread was being aborted.”)
occurred.
The error was caught by the error handler block and an error message was dis-
played instead of displaying the new ASPX page FMStocks was redirecting to.
The error originated in the following line of the converted ASPX page.
If Err.Number <> 0 Then

To resolve the issue, the line was modified to the following.

If Err.Number <> 0 and Err.Number <> 5 Then

The functional testing of FMStocks 2000 required an effort of 46 work hours. Extra
effort was required for run-time error corrections for ASPX pages.

Summary
The complete upgrade of FMStocks 2000 required an effort of approximately 95
work hours. The final cost of the upgrade was $5,023.
The reason for the increase in the cost was that the upgrade of ASP to ASPX pages
exceeded the estimated costs by $300 because of the extra effort required to upgrade
the ASP pages to ASP.NET using the migration assistant. This effort could not be
estimated by the Visual Basic Upgrade Assessment Tool; therefore, it was not taken
into consideration in the reports it produced. Despite the extra manual effort re-
quired upgrade the ASP pages, the migration assistant still saved time compared to
the time it would have taken to completely rewrite the ASP pages to ASPX pages.
Ultimately, using the combination of the assessment tool, the upgrade wizard, and
the Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic.NET guide, upgrading the Visual Basic 6.0 ver-
sion of the FMStocks 2000 application to Visual Basic .NET and ASP.NET proved to
be successful and efficient.

More Information
For more information about unit testing with NUnit, see the NUnit Web site:
http://www.nunit.org.
Index
A replacing RDO in Visual Basic polymorphism, 482
.asmx files, 534–536 6.0, 337–343 refactoring, 486–487
.asp. See ASP replacing with DAO/RDO in target audience, 478
.chm files, 462 Visual Basic 6.0, 334 visual inheritance, 483
.config files, 549–551 upgrading data binding, See also application scenarios;
.disco files, 534–536 325–327 applications; Web scenarios
.frm. See forms upgrading to ADO.NET, advancement phase, 28
.hpj files, 462 562–567 agile development methodology,
.msm, 471–472 ADO Data Control 591–595
.resx files, 206 replacing Data Control in Visual ancestor class, 481
acknowledgements, xxiii Basic 6.0, 332–333 anchoring, 500–503
ACT, 596 replacing RDO Remote Data docking properties, 502
Activate event, 179 Control in Visual Basic 6.0, apartments, 519– 520
Activated event, 179 343 API calls
Active Server Pages. See ASP setting connection string for, 333 replacing with .NET Framework
ActiveX code components using, 343–344 intrinsic functions, 488
described, 128–129 ADOCE, 621 from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual
embedded in Web pages, ADODB.Command, 565 Basic .NET, 367–370
130, 131 ADODB.Connection, 565 API Calls report, 654
upgrading, 127–132, 213–215 ADODB.Parameter, 565 API function, 356–359
ActiveX controls ADODB.Recordset, 565–567 App object
ASP to ASP.NET Migration ADO.NET equivalents, 221–223
Assistant, 130–131 differences from ADO, 564–565 upgrading, 219–223
smart clients, 503–505 overview, 563–565 Visual Basic 2005, 223
some unsupported in Visual upgrading from ADO, 562–567 Appendix A: references to related
Basic .NET, 41 advancement, 26, 55, 477–495 topics, 601–602
ActiveX Data Objects. See ADO API calls, 488 Appendix B: application blocks,
ActiveX documents, 131–132 application blocks, 485–486 frameworks, and other
upgrading, 302–304 architecture, 478–483 development aids, 603–621
ActiveX/OCX components, 62 described, 477 Appendix C: introduction to
add-ins, 266–273 design, 484, 485 upgrading ASP, 623–644
addresses in Visual Basic .NET, encapsulation, 480 See also ASP to ASP.NET
363–367 frameworks, 485 Migration Assistant
AddressOf keyword, 360–363 implementing, 483–484 Appendix D: upgrading FMStocks
ADO, 324–330 inheritance, 480–481 2000 – a case study, 645–678
described, 324 interfaces, 481–482 See also Fitch & Mather Stocks
difference from ADO.NET, layering, 483–484 2000
564–565 libraries, 485 application architecture
overview, 324 object-oriented features, 479–480 equivalency table, 108
projects without ADO data overloading functionality,
binding, 327–328 482–483
680 Index

application blocks, 485–486 architecture avoid mixing scripting

Visual Basic .NET, 603–605 advancements in ASP.NET, languages on the server
application blocks, frameworks, 529–530 side, 633–634
and other development aids, advancements in Web services, command-line tool options, 636
603–621 533–536 completing with manual
Application Center Test, 596 application types, 109–123 changes, 636–642
application components, 123–132 assessment, 33 features with new behavior,
application conversion phase, 101 multi-tier architecture, 134–135 637
Application Explorer window, 523 smart clients, 498–499 multiple method declarations,
application manageability, 548–555 Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade 640–641
application preparation phase, Assessment Tool, 87–88 rendering functions, 639–640
100–101 See also tiers unreachable code inside a
application proxies, 404 array indexing, 177–178 script tag, 641–642
application references, 92 arrays unsupported features,
application scenarios, 497–524 changes to, 261–264 637–639
application state, 305 control arrays, 210–211 conversion report, 642, 669–670
application types equivalency fixed-length arrays in upgrade deployment, 643
table, 108 wizard, 359 Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000,
applications ArtinSoft, xxii 669–670
analyzing, 32–33, 85–94 ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade identifying COM components,
assessing usage, 81–84 Wizard Companion, 186 631
COM+ security, 419–421 late binding, 199 IIS and virtual directories, 631
COM+ types, 404 type deduction, 155 limitations of, 628–629
completion, 455–476 As Any variable type, 354–356 preparing the code, 631–634
components, 123–132 .asmx files, 534, 536 preparing the environment,
dependencies, 92–93 ASP, 118–121 629–631
desktop and web applications, porting to ASP.NET, 122–123, removing circular references,
109–123 623–644 633
desktop applications, 117–118 advantages of converting, system resources, 629–630
distributed applications, 132–137 624–625 tasks performed by, 627–628
environments, 84–85 preparing the application, testing and debugging phase,
missing elements, 93–94 626–627, 629–634 642–643
security, 541–548 preparing the environment, third-party components, 630
separating by tiers, 455–456 629–631 tools, 631
upgrading, 51–52 process overview, 625–626 unit and system testing, 643
upgrading extendibility, 18–19 testing and debugging the upgrading the application, 627,
upgrading setup, 464–475 upgraded application, 634–642
See also advancement; desktop 627–628 using the command-line tool,
applications; enterprise upgrade choices, 623 635–636
services; mobile upgrading the application, using the wizard, 634–636
applications; testing; tiers; 627 verifying compilation, 631–633
unsupported features; See also ASP to ASP.NET ASP.NET
versioning; Web Migration Assistant architectural advancements,
applications ASP to ASP.NET Migration 529–530
Assistant, 49, 121, 627, 643 caching, 555
ActiveX controls, 130–131 HTTP modules, 531–532
 Index 681

key features, 528–529 branches clipping, 279–280

master pages, 530–531 code preparation branches, 58 CLR, 12–13, 16
operating systems that support, functional equivalence branches, assemblies, 124–125
624 58–59 event handling, 393
security systems relationships, source branches, 57–59 garbage collection, 396
529 buildable state, 168 horizontal upgrade strategy, 38
Web scenarios, 527–532 business applications. See interop issues, 371
Web services, 527–528 enterprise services .NET Compact Framework, 609
See also ASP; ASP to ASP.NET business components. See object creation, 494
Migration Assistant enterprise services resource handling, 395
ASP.NET Mobile controls, 608 business objectives, 75–78 user-defined types, 356
ASPUpgrade.exe, 635–636 business risk, 76–77 CLR Profiler tool, 597
options, 636 business value assessment, 45 CLS, 12
assemblies ByRef method, 188–189 co-dependencies, 64
accessing from Visual Studio 6.0, ByValArray attribute, 359 code
375–378 legacy, 76 77
adding references to, 517–518
changing AssemblyName
C manually fixing, 62
quantifying for upgrade, 71–72
caching, 555
property of, 373–374 Caching Application Block, 603 reviewing, 578–580
described, 53 call graph sample, 658–659 Code Advisor. See Visual Basic 6.0
overview, 17–18, 123–124 call synchronization, 393–394 Code Advisor
separating, 455 456 CAO mode, 405 code modification by upgrade
versioning solutions, 125 case studies. See Fitch & Mather wizard, 184–185
AssemblyName property, 373–374 Stocks 2000 code preparation branches, 58
assessment and analysis, 69–105 change management, 56 code preparation phase, 50
assessment tool. See Visual Basic .chm files, 462 code quality assessment, 57
6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool circular dependencies, 64 coding standards, 602
attachments, 539 classes collection classes
auto-upgraded file operations, ancestor class, 481 performance, 491–493
309–312 base class, 480 resolving issues, 249–253
auto-upgraded string operations, derived class, 480 COM+
308–309 application proxies in .NET, 406
inheritance, 480–481
automated upgrade procedure, application security, 419–421
and modules in Visual Basic
668–670 .NET, 195 application types, 404
Web classes, 197–198 applications, 134–137
B See also collection classes brief description of, 518
CAO mode, 405
BackgroundWorker component, ClickOnce, 499
554–555 client application, 410–411 deployment, 473–475
base class, 480 client device flexibility, 499 application proxies, 474
best practices, 66–67 client-activated object mode. See COM+ installation packages,
binary marshaling, 557 CAO mode 474
BinaryFormatter class, 491 Clipboard object deployment options, 475
black box testing, 582–585 constants equivalents, 239 Events service, 524
Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, methods equivalents, 239 example scenario, 407–411
673–678 upgrading, 237–239 MSMQ, 522–523
errors and issues, 674–678 ClipControls method, 279–280 object constructor strings,
424–426
682 Index

COM+ (continued) object creation in Visual Basic prioritizing, 60–61

object creation in Visual Basic .NET, 493 shortcuts, 61
.NET, 493–494 to upgrade distributed verifying, 51, 149–150
object pooling, 418–419 applications, 134 complete upgrade strategy, 34–35
performance, 522 wrappers, 125 completion, 455–476
preinstalled applications, 404 COM API classes, 448–449 complex dependencies, 59–60
proxy COM classes, 135–136 COM interop complex string manipulation,
security, 433–435, 523 custom data access components, 314–316
SOAP, 404–406 346 component object model. See COM
threads, 519–521 registering a component for, 373 Component Services
transactions, 521 ComboBox control events, 180–181 administrative tool, 404, 405,
unsupported features in Visual command line 473, 474
Basic 6.0, 432–433 options, 161–162 components
unsupported functionality, 137 registration of interoperability context components, 436–438
using in Visual Basic .NET, wrappers, 379–380 identifying effort requirements,
400–403 Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, 71
Visual Basic 6.0 Projects, 136 160–162, 166 identifying for upgrading, 70–71
Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic commenting out, 61 removing unused, 148
.NET equivalents, 432 common application types, self-describing components, 518
Visual Basic 6.0 upgrade 107–137 table of types, 108–109
pointers, 432433 common compilation errors, COMSVCS.DLL, 135
in Visual Basic 2005, 403 169–172 Config – By Resources tab, 103–104
WKO mode, 405 common language runtime. See Config – EWIs tab, 92, 98, 104–105
WSDL, 405 CLR Config – Fixed Tasks tab, 104
See also COM+ events; CRM Common Language Specification Config – General tab, 95–96, 103
Services; MTS/COM+ (CLS), 12 .config files, 549–551
applications communication, 556–559 configuration, 54
COM+ events, 438–446 compact framework forms, Configuration Application Block,
event class, 443–444 616–617 603–604
event component, 439 compatibility library configuration files, 548–551
event publisher, 439 ADO data binding, 325 configuration settings for the
event subscriber and test, controls, 297 assessment tool, 103–105
440–443 file access, 317 connection string setting for ADO
publisher, 444–446 Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility Data Control, 333
COM+ services type library, 135 library, 327, 335 constants
COM+ Shared Property Manager Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility. Clipboard object, 239
(SPM), 421–424 Data library, 3, 325, 331, defining your own, 259–260
COM 336–337 non-constant values, 260–261
callability, 372–380 upgrade issues, 253–255 Construct method, 426–427
components, 631 vs. streams, 602 ConstructionEnabled attribute,
components with Visual Basic Compensating Resource Manager 426–427
6.0, 123–127 (CRM), 521 constructor methods, 395
event sinking, 390–393 Compensating Resource Manager context components, 436–438
interoperability requirements Services. See CRM Services contributors, xxiii
for, 374–375 compilation
interoperability with .NET, common errors, 169–172
125–127
 Index 683

control arrays custom data access components, Visual Basic, 323

accessing as a collection, 296–297 344–346 Visual Basic .NET, 325
available in the COM interop, 346 Data Control, 332–333
Microsoft.VisualBasic. upgrading mixed data access Data Environment
Compatibility.VB6 technologies, 346 Data Environment Designer, 346
namespace, 212 upgrading to a .NET version of, upgrading, 328–330
handling changes to, 295–298 345 upgrading with data binding,
upgrading, 210–211 custom marshaling, 382–384 330–331
controls Data Environment Designer, 346
adding dynamically, 297–298
control arrays, 210–211
D data environments, 213
Data Protection API (DPAPI), 604
DAO, 331344
control structures, 194–195 with data binding, 336 data provider in .NET Framework,
equivalents, 211 563–564
data binding upgrading
upgrading, 214–215 Data Reports, 346–350
considerations, 331–332
See also intrinsic controls overview, 331 data types
Controls collection, 241–245 and RDO in Visual Basic .NET, changes to, 352–370
control.ViewState property, 305 332 marshaling, 381–384
conventions and terminology, upgrading, 335 databases
xxixxii without data binding, 336 access recommendations,
conversion report, 642, 669–670 See also DAO/RDO 553–554
cookies, 305 DAO/RDO support, 305–306
costs replacing with ADO in Visual DataReader class, 565–567
estimating, 43–46, 73–74, Basic 6.0, 334 DataSet class
666–667 upgrading without data ADODB.Recordset, 565–567
estimation methodology, 95–105 binding, 334–335 ADO.NET, 563–565
counters. See performance counters data DataTable class, 565–567
CreateObject() available interface types, 323 DCOM, 556
COM+ scenario, 408 gathering, 81 applications, 132–134
COM object creation in Visual data access moving to HTTP, 556
Basic .NET, 493–494 upgrading, 323–350 DDE, 298–299
third-party components, 630 upgrading mixed technologies, Debug class, 552, 596–597
CreateObject() function, 493 debugging,. See also testing
346
CRM, 521 declarations
Data Access Application Block
CRM Compensator component, (DAAB), 485, 604 arrays, 261–264
414–416 Data Access Components report, variables, 187
CRM Services, 411–418 653 Declare statement, 367–370
CRM Worker component, 412–413 Data Access Objects. See DAO DECLARE statements, 63
cryptography, 545–548 data binding default properties, 247–249
Cryptography Application Block, ADO upgrading, 325–327 delegates, 360
604 DAO, 336 delegating work, 61–63
Crystal Reports, 346–350 projects without ADO, 327–328 dependencies
CultureInfo object, 512 RDO, 336–337 complex dependencies, 59–60
current architecture. See upgrading considerations, determining, 150–153
architecture 331–332 external dependencies, 143–145
custom collection classes, 249–253 upgrading Data Environment, Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000,
330–331 657–660
run-time dependencies, 463–464
684 Index

deployment, 52–54 DLL conflicts, 124–125 estimation report

ease of, 80–81 docking and anchoring, 500–503 Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000,
.NET Framework, 551 docking properties, 502 662–667
upgrading, 21–22 document conventions and modified, 665
Visual Basic .NET projects, 55 terminology, xxixxii event component, 439
deployment phase described, 28 DPAPI, 604 event handlers
deprecated language features, drag-and-drop CLR, 393
264–266 functionality in Visual Basic 6.0, control arrays, 295–296
list, 265–266 280–282 Visual Basic .NET, 191 194
derived class, 480 functionality in Visual Basic events
design review, 577 .NET, 282–286 code events, 270
desktop and web applications, DTC, 411, 575 loosely coupled event (LCE),
109–123 DTP, 575 438439
desktop applications, 117–118 Dynamic Data Exchange, 298–299 See also COM+ events
See also applications Events service, 524
destructive testing, 583
destructor methods, 395
E EWIs, 46
compilation issues, 62
Edit and Continue, 48
detailed test case. See DTC Effort – By Task tab, 96–98 cost estimation methodology,
detailed test plan. See DTP Effort – EWIs tab, 73–74, 91–92, 96–98
DetailedReport.xls, 86–87 96–97 Effort – EWIs tab, 91–92
Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, 656 Effort – Total tab, 98–100 suggested resources, 73
Project Files Overview report, 88 effort and cost estimation, 95–105 testing issues, 571–572
See also Third Party Components See also costs exception handling, 553
Summary report EIF, 597 Exception Handling Application
developers, 61–62 eMbedded Visual Basic, 612–613 Block, 604
development acceleration, 80 encapsulation, 480 exceptions, 384387
development environment Enterprise Instrumentation exception handling, 553
assessment, 78 Framework, 597 expectation management, 71
preparing, 47–49, 142 enterprise services, 516–524 external compilation, 60–61
Device Data to Server Data pattern, attributes, 516–518 See also compilation
619 MSMQ, 522–523 external dependencies, 143–145
Device Logic to Server Data external interface testing, 583
performance, 522
pattern, 620 external Web sites. See Web sites
properties, 516
Device Logic to Server Logic self-describing components, 518
pattern, 620
DIME, 539
technology updates, 518–524 F
threads, 519–521 FCL. See .NET Framework Class
Direct Internet Message enums Library
Encapsulation (DIME), 539 upgrading, 200 feedback and support, xxii
.disco files, 534–536 upgrading references to, 258–259 fence-posting, 504–505
discovery, 534–536 environments, 84–85 file access, 319–320
disruption minimization, 75–76 error management, 384–390 file dependency graph sample, 151,
distributed applications, 132–137 ErrorProvider control, 505–507 658
Distributed COM. See DCOM errors, warnings, and issues. See file I/O
distributed component object EWIs improving with streams,
model. See DCOM estimation methodology, 95–105 317–319
divide-and-conquer strategy, 61–63 options, 602
file merging, 57–58
 Index 685

file operations strategy, 660–661 functional equivalence branches,

auto-upgraded, 309–312 test plans and test cases, 58–59
changes, 313–320 671–673 functionality
upgrading, 307–320 unit testing, 671, 672, 674–678 analyzing and designing, 33
File System Object model. See FSO upgrade wizard, 668–669 improvements, 79
model white box testing, 674 testing example from Fitch &
files. See also compilation; source User Com Objects Members Mather Stocks 2000,
code report, 655 671–678
Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, User Components Members functions
572–573 report, 654–655 changes to, 253–255
API Calls report, 654 See also FMStocks 2000 – a case equivalents, 370
ASP to ASP.NET Migration study replacing API calls with .NET
Assistant, 669–670 fixed-length arrays, 359 intrinsic, 488
cost estimation table, 667 fixed-length records, 310–312 FxCop tool, 595
Data Access Components report, fixed-length strings, 352–354
653
DetailedReport.xls, 656
FlowLayoutPanel control, 507–509
properties, 508
G
garbage collection, 396
determining application FMStocks 2000 – a case study, global assembly cache, 53–54, 126–
dependencies, 657–660 645–678 127, 374
layers, 646, 648 about, 646–647 global compilation, 60–61
overview of structure, 648–649 assessment and analysis, 647– See also compilation
overview of the use cases, 660 globalization testing, 584
649–650 upgrading, 660–678 GoSub directive, 171–172
project group tables, 651 form resources, 206 graphics
sample use case, 650 form-based applications. See smart handling changes to, 275–277
source code metrics, 656 clients Line control, 275–277
Third Party Components forms properties and methods, 277
Summary report, 652 porting to mobile platforms, Property Browser, 288–292
unsupported features, 656657 615619 Shape control, 276–277
upgrade inventory, 650655 upgrading features, Visual Basic green code, 51–52, 58–59
upgrade issues worksheet, 6.0, 275–300 Guidance Automation Toolkit, 604
656657 Visual Basic 6.0, 204–206
Upgrade Order report, 659660 Visual Basic.NET to compact
upgrading, 660678 framework, 617 H
ASP to ASP.NET Migration Forms collection Handles keyword, 295–296
Assistant, 669670 upgrading, 235–237 Help. See integrated Help
black box testing, 673–678 Visual Basic 2005, 237 hidden form fields, 305
creating schedule, 662–667 framework unification, 80 historical information, 65
defining order, 661–662 frameworks, 485 horizontal upgrade strategy, 38–39,
estimation report, 662–664 free-threading, 554–555 109
executing automated .frm. See forms how to use this guide, xviixx
upgrade, 668–670 FSO model, 319–320 .hpj files, 462
functional testing, 671–678 functional equivalence, 25–26, HTML upgrade from WinHelp, 462
manual adjustments, 670–671 66, 78 HTTP, 556
planning, 660–667 HTTP handlers, 531–532
preparing the application, 668 HTTP modules, 531–532
686 Index

I registering a component for

COM interop, 373
library applications, 404
Licenses collection, 240–241
IDE, 117
IIdentity interface, 542–543 See also interoperability Line control, 275–276
IIS, 118–119 wrappers lines of code. See LOC
porting to ASP.NET, 631 interoperability wrappers load balancing, 523
IIS application projects command line registration, load testing, 583
upgrading, 304–306 379–380 LOC, 89, 656
Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, creating in Visual Basic .NET, DetailedReport.xls, 91
197–198 378–380 localization, 512–513
Implements keyword, 481 intrinsic controls logging, 552
index numbering conventions, data binding issues, 326 Logging and Instrumentation
504–505 smart clients, 503–505 Application Block, 604
inheritance, 480–481 upgrading to, 214–215 logs, 142
inputs/outputs analysis, 83–84 introduction to upgrading ASP, Long data types, 352
inputs defined, 84 623–644 loosely coupled event (LCE), 438
outputs defined, 84 inventory, 88–90 439
installers IPrincipal interface, 542–545
creating, 464–467 iterative development
methodology, 589–591
M
customizing, 467–470 MainReport.xls, 72–74, 86–87
Integer data types, 352 unsupported features, 91–92
integrated development J See also Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade
environment. See IDE just-in-time (JIT) compilation, 12 Assessment Tool
integrated Help management of upgrade projects,
upgrading, 456–463
context-sensitive Help, 463
K 56–67
manifest file, 510–511
knowledge capital, 76
at design time, 459–462 manifests, 123–124, 455
at run time, 458–459 manual string and file operation
WinHelp to HTML, 462 L changes, 313–320
integration productivity benefits, language MarshalByRefObject class, 134
17–18 changes to commonly-used marshaling
intelligent install and update, 499 functions and languages, custom, 382–384
IntelliSense code snippets, 606–607 253–255 data types, 381–384
Interface statement, 481 upgrading commonly-used described, 557
InterfaceQueuing attribute, features of, 247–273 master pages, 530–531
522–523 Web sites, 247–273 MDAC, 559
interfaces, 481–482 language elements, 183–203 Oracle databases, 562
Visual Basic .NET, 195–196 late binding, 198–199 MDI, 171
Internet Information Server. See IIS layering, 483–484 MDIForm, 171
interoperability Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, measurement unit conversion, 209
garbage collection, 396 646, 648 member accesses, 92
requirements for COM, 374–375 LCE, 438–439 member overloading, 482–483
resource handling, 395–396 legacy merge modules, 471–472
between Visual Basic .NET and code, 76–77 Message Queuing. See MSMQ
Visual Basic 6.0, 371–397 language features, 264–266 methods
achieving, 372–394 language features list, 265–266 Clipboard object, 239
access requirements, libraries, 485 graphics, 277
373–374 reusable libraries, 127–128
 Index 687

Visual Basic 6.0 equivalents in modified estimation report, 665 .NET,. See also Visual Basic .NET
System.EnterpriseServices. modules and classes, 195 .NET Compact Framework
CompensatingResourceManger monolithic applications. See single- converting forms from Visual
namespace, 416–417 tier applications Basic .NET, 616–619
metrics mouse pointer constants, 287–288 and mobile applications,
Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000 MouseIcon properties, 286–288 607–621
source code metrics, 656 MousePointer properties, 286–288 default project settings,
obtaining source code metrics, MSHFlexGrid Control, 340–343 611–612
40 MSIL, 12 included components,
source code metrics, 90–91 .msm, 471–472 609–610
Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade MSMQ, 446–452 removed features, 610–611
Assessment Tool, 6 COM+, 522–523 overview, 608–612
micro issues, 65 replacing with porting from eMbedded Visual
Microsoft Data Access System.Messaging Basic, 612–613
Components. See MDAC namespace, 558–559 .NET Framework
Microsoft Data Report Designer. upgrading COM API classes in application manageability,
See Data Reports Visual Basic .NET, 448–449 548–555
Microsoft Intermediate Language MTS, 135 BackgroundWorker component,
(MSIL), 12 COM+ transaction features, 521 554–555
Microsoft Transaction Server. See MTS/COM+ configuration files, 548–551
MTS upgrading services, 407–431 data provider, 563–564
Microsoft Windows Installer, 54–55 using in Visual Basic 6.0, database access, 553–554
Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC 399–400 deployment, 551
Edition, 608 MTS/COM+ applications, 134–137 exception handling, 553
Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility. .NET equivalents, 136 intrinsic functions, 488–489
See compatibility library upgrading, 399–453 multithreading, 554–555
Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6 MTSTransactionMode attribute, performance and scalability,
namespace, 212 428 552 555
migration. See ASP to ASP.NET MTSTransactionMode property, performance counters, 552
Migration Assistant 427–431 security, 541–548
migration tool conversion report, System.EnterpriseServices. string handling, 553
642, 669–670 TransactionOption tracing and logging, 552
Missing Components report, 94 namespace, 427 .NET Framework Class Library
missing elements, 93–94 multi-tier architecture, 134–135 (FCL)
Missing Files report, 94 multiple check-outs, 57–58 described, 13
MMIT, 608 Multiple Document Interface. See interoperability wrappers,
mobile applications MDI 378–380
integrating with other multithreading, 554–555 .NET remoting
applications, 617–621 My facades list of objects, 605–606 overview, 19
and the .NET Compact My namespace, 223 to upgrade distributed
Framework, 607–621 My.Computer, Visual Basic 2005, applications, 133–134
overview of mobile technology, 239 no-touch deployment, 551
607–608 non-compiling files, 59–60
porting from desktops, 614–619
porting process, 615–619
N Null and IsNull, 176–177
NUnit tool, 595, 671–672
native controls, 210–211
porting the user interface, native libraries, 203–204
614–615
688 Index

O original source branch, 58

outputs, 84
productivity
benefits of upgrading, 11–17
object constructor strings, COM+,
424–426 overloading functionality, 482–483 integration, 17–18
object pooling, 418–419 overriding, 480, 483 profiling, 585–586
object-oriented features, 479–480 overview of process, 27–28 Project Files Overview report, 88
objectives evaluation, 75–85 example, 88
objects P Project Files Overview tab, 98, 651
project group
App object, 219–223 parameter types, 169–170
changes to, 253–255 parameters tables for Fitch & Mather Stocks
Clipboard object, 237–239 passing, 188–189 2000, 651
default properties issues, Visual Basic .NET, 188–189 upgrades, 162–165
247–249 partial upgrades, 10–11, 64–65 project plans, 42–43, 71
Screen object, 224–225 project scope, 31–32
patterns, 486–487
upgrading commonly-used, and priorities, 70–71
performance
217–245 COM+, 522 project types
Visual Basic 6.0, 204–213 improvements, 79 table, 108–109
ObjPtr helper function, 363–367 .NET Framework, 552–555 Visual Basic 6.0 equivalents, 184
obsolete language features, optimizing with .NET projects. See upgrade projects
264–266 Collections namespace, proof of concept, 29
list, 265–266 491–493 properties
ODBC upgrading, 22 default properties issues,
.NET data provider, 560–561 performance counters, 597–598 247–249
.NET Framework, 559 .NET Framework, 552 enterprise services, 516
Offline Application Block, 604 performance unit testing, 580–582 errors, 170
OLE Automation, 393–394 phases of upgrading, 27–28 graphics, 277
OLE Container control pitfalls, 67 RDO, 343
handling changes to, 292–294 planning, 30–42 Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard,
replacing with a WebBrowser planning phase, 28 189–191
ActiveX control, 294 PME upgrading, 204–205 See also default properties
OLE DB polymorphism, 482 Property Browser, 288–292
and ADO, 324–325 pop-up menus, 278–279 property pages, 288–292
.NET data provider, 561 protocols, 556
PopupMenu method, 278–279
.NET Framework, 559 prototypes, 29
practices for successful upgrades,
OLE drag-and-drop functionality. 25–68
See drag-and-drop preface, xvixxvi Q
OnAddInsUpdate events, 270 preparation for the upgrade, 46–51 query strings, 305
OnConnection events, 270 preparation phase described, 28 queuing. See MSMQ
OnDisconnection events, 270 prerequisites, xvii
OnError, catching conditions raised
from Visual Basic 6.0 in Visual
Printer object
equivalents, 231–233
R
RCW, 213–215
Basic .NET, 387–390 upgrading, 226–233 RDO, 331–344
OnStartUpComplete events, 270 Printers collection, 233–235 and DAO in Visual Basic .NET,
Oracle databases, 562 priorities, 74 332
order definition, 150 private assemblies, 53 with data binding, 336–337
organizational structure and the Processes dialog box, 16–17 data binding upgrading
software life cycle, 26–27
considerations, 331–332
 Index 689

opening a connection in, User Com Objects Members security

337–339 report, 655 applications, 54, 541–548
overview, 331 User Components Members ASP.NET security systems
properties, 343 report, 654–655 relationships, 529
replacing with ADO in Visual Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, COM+, 433–435, 523
Basic 6.0, 337–343 186187 cryptography, 545–548
running a basic query, 339–340 See also DetailedReport.xls; testing, 583
upgrading, 336–344 MainReport.xls; Project upgrading, 21
without data binding, 337 Files Overview report; Security Application Block, 604
See also DAO/RDO Third Party Components self-describing components, 518
RDO Remote Data Control, 343 Summary report; Upgrade self-update, 499
refactoring to patterns, 486–487 Order report serialization, 489–491
reference-tracing garbage ResEditor, 513 server applications, 404
collection, 396 Resize event, 500, 503 server component, 408
references resize logic, 500–503 service agents, 558
adding to assemblies, 517–518 resource center, 601 service interfaces, 533–534
checking, 185–186 resource files, 512–514 serviced components, 401
references to related topics, resource handling, 395–396 session state, 305
601–602 resource inventory, 148–149 setup projects, 551
Regasm.exe utility, 374–375, 380 ResourceManager class, 514 shadowing, 483
registration, 373–374 resources, 206 shallow serialization, 490–491
registry API, 488–489 result set, 340–343 Shape control, 276–277
Registry class, 489 .resx files, 206 shared assemblies, 53
Registry Editor, 467–470 return on investment. See ROI side-by-side execution, 54
RegistryKey class, 489 reusable libraries, 127–128 single-tier applications, 110–113
regular expressions, 314–316 RMI, 556 redesigning, 112–113
reliability, 1920 ROI, 77–78 smart clients
Remote Data Objects. See RDO routines, 188–189 ActiveX controls, 503–505
Remote Method Invocation. See RPC, 556 advanced features, 498–499
RMI run-time dependencies, 463–464 application advancement, 497–
remote procedure call (RPC), 556 run-time errors, 174–181 515
reports, 41–42 runtime callable wrapper (RCW), architecture, 498–499
API Calls report, 654 213–215 defined, 497–498
ASP to ASP.NET Migration ErrorProvider control, 505–507
Assistant conversion
report, 642
S FlowLayoutPanel control,
507–509
scalability
assessment tool, 86–87 improvements, 79 intrinsic controls, 503–505
converting Data Reports to .NET Framework, 552–555 localization, 512
Crystal Reports, 346–350 ScaleMode property, 209 resource files, 512–514
Data Access Components report, scenarios. See application TableLayoutPanel control,
653 scenarios; technology 507–509
effort estimation reports, 95 scenarios; Web scenarios technology updates, 500–515
estimation report for Fitch & scope. See project scope ToolTips, 514–515
Mather Stocks 2000, 662– Screen object Windows XP look and feel,
667 equivalents, 225 509–510
upgrade wizard report, 669 upgrading, 224–225 SOAP, 404–406
690 Index

software developers, xxi strings System.Transactions namespace,

software life cycle, 26–27 auto-upgraded string 521
solution architects, xx operations, 308–309 System.Windows.Forms
source branches, 57–59 COM+ object constructor namespace, 609
source code strings, 424–426
control systems, 56–57, 63
inventorying, 39
concatenating, 308–309
and file operations upgrades,
T
TableLayoutPanel control, 507–509
metrics, 90–91 307–320 target architecture. See architecture
obtaining metrics, 40 fixed-length strings, 352–354 target audience
preparing, 39 manual string and file operation application advancement, 478
reorganizing, 206–209 changes, 313–320 of this guide, xvi
uncompiled, 59–63 replacing with StringBuilder Task List display, 1516
Visual Basic 6.0, 49–50 class, 313–314
TCO, 5
See also compilation Visual Basic 2005, 318
technical decision makers, xx
source tree, 56 Strong Name tool, 136, 403, 443 technical expertise assessment,
SPM, 421–424 StrPtr helper function, 363–367 72–73
SQL Server, 17 structured exception handling, technical objectives, 78–81
SQL Server CE, 608 20, 384 technical support expiring, 22–23,
SQL Server CE Merge Replication, support, xxii 78
620 supported elements technology scenarios, 541–567
SqlCeReplication class, 620–621 declarations, 187 communication and state
staged upgrade strategy, 35–37 Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, management, 556–559
standards, 534, 602 187–215 performance and scalability,
state management, 556–559 synchronization of mobile to server 552–555
StateManagement property, applications, 619621 technology updates
304–305 system resources, 143 enterprise services, 518–524
strategies, 11 System.Drawing namespace, 609 Web services, 538–539
complete upgrade strategy, System.EnterpriseServices. templates, 117–118
34–35 CompensatingResourceManger terminology, xxixxii
divide-and-conquer strategy, namespace, 416–417 test plans
61–63 System.EnterpriseServices. black box testing of a use case,
horizontal upgrade strategy, TransactionOption
584
38–39, 109 namespace, 427
black box testing of the login use
selection of, 34 System.IO.File.ReadAll method, case, 575
staged upgrade strategy, 35–37 318 black box testing the login
testing, 67, 586–595 System.Messaging namespace, 447, functionality, 575–576
vertical upgrade strategy, 37–38, 558–559 Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, 671–
109 System.Runtime.InteropServices. 673
streams Marshal class, 397 profiling, 585–586
improving file I/O with, System.Runtime.Serialization sample black box test case for a
317–319 namespace, 491 use case, 585
vs. compatibility library, 602 System.Security.Cryptography unit testing, 581–582
stress testing, 583 namespace, 545–548 testing, 39
string handling, 553 System.Text.RegularExpressions and debugging upgraded
StringBuilder class, 313–314, 553 namespace, 314–316 applications, 173–181
System.Text.StringBuilder class, objectives, 573
378
 Index 691

process, 573–586 time estimation, 73–74 update deployment, 54

black box testing, 582–585 Tlbimp.exe, 126 Updater Application Block Version
code review, 578–580 TNA, 520 2.0, 605
design review, 577 ToolTips, 514–515 updates, 518–524
test environment, 576–577 Trace class, 552, 596–597 Upgrade Issues table, 656–657
white box testing, 580–582 TraceContext class, 597 Upgrade Order report
and quality assurance, 52 tracing, 552 example, 93
strategies, 67, 586–591 transactions, 399, 400 Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, 659–
agile development COM+ transactions, 427 431, 521 660
methodology, 591–595 MTSTransactionMode attribute, upgrade projects
iterative development 428 complications, 63–65
methodology, 589–591 OLE DB .NET data provider, 561 estimating, 102
waterfall development two-tier applications, 113–115 management, 56–67
methodology, 586–588 type casting, 199–200 upgrade report
test plan, 574–576 type checking, 19, 354, 356, 494 Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, 656–
tools for Visual Basic .NET type deduction, 155 657
applications, 595–598 Type Library Importer utility, 126 issues, 41–42, 173–174
upgraded applications, 571–599 type safety, 20 sample, 186
testing and debugging phase, 102 typed variables, 62 upgrade schedule, 662–667
testing phase, 28 TypeOf keyword, 255–257 Upgrade Wizard Companion. See
text files, 309–310 types ArtinSoft Visual Basic
text marshaling, 557 changes, 352–370 Upgrade Wizard Companion
themes, 509–510 See also application types; upgrade wizard report, 153–155
Third Party Components Summary components; data types; upgraded applications. See testing
report project types; Windows API upgrading, 11–24
example, 89–90 alternatives to, 810
Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, 652
third-party components,
U application extendibility, 18–19
automated upgrade procedure,
UDDI, 533, 534, 536, 537
upgrading, 218 UDTs 668–670
thrashing, 153, 166–167 for fixed-length records, 310–312 common pitfalls, 67
Thread Neutral Apartment model run-time errors, 175–176 decision-making process, 210
(TNA), 520 deployment benefits, 21–22
upgrading, 199–201
threads determining order, 72
upgrading with fixed-length
COM+, 519–521 fields, 202–203 identifying components for,
transactions, 521 undeclared variables, 155 70–71
three-tier applications, 115–116 unit testing, 580–582 overview of process, 27–28
tiers Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, 671, partial upgrades, 10–11
for business applications, 484 672, 674–678 performance benefits, 22
multi-tier architecture, 134–135 errors and issues, 674–678 preparing for, 46–51
separating by application, 455– unsupported features, 40–41 procedure log, 141–142
456 COM+ in Visual Basic 6.0, process, 139–181
single-tier applications, 110–113 432–433 productivity benefits, 11–17
three-tier applications, 115–116 Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, reliability, 19–20
two-tier applications, 113–115 656–657 top five issues, 65
vertical and horizontal Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade upgrade phase described, 28
upgrades, 109 Assessment Tool, 91–92 Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, 23
Visual Basic .NET, 6
692 Index

upgrading (continued) catching .NET exceptions in, resources, 206

Web sites, 24 384–387 source code, 49–50
See also planning; strategies; circular dependencies, 64 source code reorganizing, 206–
testing; upgrade projects; COM+, 136 209
Visual Basic .NET; Visual COM+ equivalents, 432 technical support ending, 22–23,
Basic Upgrade Wizard COM+ upgrade pointers, 78
upgrading FMStocks 2000 – a case 432–433 See also interoperability; objects;
study, 645–678 control arrays, 211–212 Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade
use cases, 81–83 controls, 210–211 Assessment Tool
User Com Objects Members report, data access interfaces, 323 Visual Basic 6.0 Code Advisor,
655 data environments, 213 47–50
User Components Members report, earlier versions, 50–51 described, 147–148
654–655 forms, 204–205, 206 Visual Basic 6.0 compatibility
User Components Summary report forms features upgrading, library. See compatibility
example, 88–89 275–300 library
user controls, 214–215 IDE, 117 Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade
user interface, 614–615 language elements, 183–203 Assessment Tool, 85–88
User Interface Process Application libraries, 372 described, 146
Block Version 2.0, 605 managing a continuously features detected, 90
user-defined types. See UDTs developing application, 63 metrics, 6
measurement unit conversion, reports, 8687
V 209
method equivalents in
unsupported features, 91–92
Visual Basic 2005, 118
validation testing, 583
variable declarations System.EnterpriseServices. App object, 223
application dependencies, 92 CompensatingResource COM+ in, 403
undeclared variables, 155 Manger namespace, Controls collection, 242
in Visual Basic .NET, 187 416–417 Forms collection, 237
variables, 62 MTS/COM+, 399–400 My.Computer, 239
VarPtr helper function, 363–367 multiple projects with shared objects, 218
VBFixedArray attribute, 359 files, 64 registry access, 489
VBUD.exe, 166 native libraries, 203–204 strings, 318
.NET equivalents, 184 ToolTips, 514–515
VBUpgrade.exe, 166
OnError, 387–390 transactions, 521
versioning, 53–54, 57
problems with Win32 passing user-defined type to an upgrade wizard, 156
applications, 124–125 API function, 356–359 Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard,
vertical upgrade strategy, 37–38, project type equivalents, 184 411
109 replacing ADO with DAO/RDO Visual Basic. See interoperability;
View state, 305 in, 334 Visual Basic 6.0; Visual Basic
virtual directories, 631 replacing RDO Remote Data 6.0 Code Advisor; Visual
Visual Basic 6.0 Control in, 343 Basic .NET
accessing .NET assemblies from, replacing RDO with ADO in, Visual Basic .NET
375–378 337–343 API calls from Visual Basic 6.0,
ActiveX components, 213215 replacing the Data Control with 367–370
API calls to Visual Basic .NET, ADO Data Control in, 332– application architecture
367–370 333 equivalency table, 108
application architecture resource center, 601 application blocks, 603605
equivalency table, 108
 Index 693

application testing tools, 595598 completing upgrade with Web proxies, 557
assemblies manual changes, 168172 Web references, 537–538
accessing directly from Visual desktop applications, 117 Web scenarios, 527–540
Basic 6.0, 375378 executing, 157–160 ASP.NET, 527–532
calling from Visual Basic 6.0 external dependencies, 143–145 Web services, 532–539
clients, 372 Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, 668– Web services
benefits of upgrading to, 1116 669 architecture advancements, 533–
catching exceptions in Visual fixed-length arrays, 359 536
Basic 6.0, 387 fixing problems, 166–168 ASP.NET, 527–528
clients, 372 invoking, 183–184 attachments, 539
Collections namespace, 491493 options, 156–165 benefits, 533
COM+, 400403 preparing, 145–148 consuming, 537–538
COM+ equivalents, 432 product management after creating, 536–537
COM object, 493 using, 59–63 described, 18, 404, 532–533
constructor and destructor reports, 186–187 discovery, 534–536
methods, 395 supported elements, 187–215 service interfaces, 533–534
converting forms to .NET tasks performed by, 184–187 technology updates, 538–539
Compact Framework, understanding, 183–216 UDDI, 533, 534, 536, 537
616619 unsupported features, 6 Visual Studio .NET, 48
CreateObject() function, 493 upgrade process, 141–142 Web scenarios, 532–539
custom data access components, upgrading applications, 634 WS-Routing, 539
345 verifying progress, 166 WS-Security, 539
DAO/RDO in, 332 Visual Basic 2005, 411 WSE, 538–539
helper function support, 363 367 from Visual Basic .NET, 157–160 Web Services Description
interoperability with COM, Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Language. See WSDL
125127 Companion. See ArtinSoft Web Services Enhancements. See
interoperability wrappers, Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard WSE
378380 Companion Web Services Security. See WS-
MTS/COM+ equivalents, 136 visual inheritance, 483 Security
object creation in, 493494 Visual Studio 6.0, 4748 Web sites, xxiv
object-oriented features, 479480 module and class files, 195 advancement, 495
OnError, 387390 .NET assembly, 376–378 application blocks, 485–486
registering a component for Web sites, 68 application completion, 476
COM interop, 379380 Visual Studio 2005 enhancements, application scenarios, 524–525
unsupported applications, 6 205 ASP to ASP.NET Migration
upgrading COM API classes in, Visual Studio Analyzer, 596 Assistant, 121, 644
448–449 Visual Studio .NET, 48 ASP.NET, 137–138
Visual Basic 6.0 equivalents, 184 snippets, 606–607 data access, 350
from Visual Basic Upgrade estimation, 105
Wizard, 157–160
See also .NET; upgrading
W Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, 647
form features, 300
waterfall development
Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, methodology, 586–588 interoperability, 397
48–49 Web applications, 118–119 manual string and file operation
application types supported, 107 upgrading, 301–306 changes, 320–321
benefits of, 23 Web classes, 197–198 mobility, 621–622
from command line, 160162 Web deployment, 472–473 MTS/COM+ applications,
399–453
694 Index

Web sites (continued) WFW, 213–215 Wizard Companion. See ArtinSoft

technology scenarios, 567–570 white box testing, 580–582 Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard
testing, 599–600 Fitch & Mather Stocks 2000, 674 Companion
unit testing, 678 profiling, 585–586 WKO mode, 405
upgrading, 24 Windows API, 351–370 wrappers, 213–215
upgrading ASP to ASP.NET, 644 Windows applications,. See also WS-Referral, 539
upgrading controls, 245–246 smart clients WS-Routing, 539
upgrading issues, 181–182 Windows CE .NET, 608 WS-Security, 539
Visual Basic 6.0 resource center, Windows Forms smart clients. See WSDL, 405
601 smart clients See also Web services
Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard, Windows Forms wrapper (WFW), WSE, 538–539
216 213–215
Visual Studio, 68
Web services, 540
Windows Mobile 5.0, 607–608
Windows Task Manager
X
XCOPY deployment, 551
Windows API, 370 Performance, 166–167 technology scenarios, 551
WebBrowser ActiveX control, 294 Windows XP Embedded, 608 XML marshaling, 557
WebClass projects, 197–198 Windows XP look and feel, XML Web services. See Web
WebClasses, 304–306 509–510 services
well-known object mode. See WKO WinHelp, 462 XmlSerializer class, 490–491
mode