Upgrading Applications Created in Previous Versions of Visual Basic

With Visual Basic 2008, you can upgrade applications created in Visual Basic 6.0 so that you can continue development, taking advantage of the benefits of the .NET Framework. When you first open a Visual Basic 6.0 project file (.vbp), the Upgrade Wizard appears. You can also upgrade projects outside the development environment with the provided command-line tool.

The upgrading tools modify code in your project to comply with Visual Basic 2008 syntax and replace any forms and controls with Visual Basic 2008 equivalents. Because of the differences between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic 2008, some parts of your project may not upgrade correctly. In these cases, you receive an upgrade report to guide you through the process of modifying the application.

Note

If you are not ready to upgrade your Visual Basic 6.0 application, you can still take advantage of the benefits of .NET Framework by using Interop Forms Toolkit 2.0. Interop Forms Toolkit enables you to create new forms or User Controls in Visual Basic 2008 and use them in your Visual Basic 6.0 application.

Interop Toolkit 2.0 can be downloaded for free from the Interop Forms Toolkit 2.0 page on the MSDN Web site.

Some Visual Basic 6.0 applications may not benefit from being upgraded to Visual Basic 2008. You can prepare those applications that you do choose to upgrade so that upgrading occurs with little difficulty.

The following topics will help you better understand the upgrade process.

In This Section

• Why Upgrading Is Necessary
  Discusses the differences between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic 2008.

• Things to Consider Before Upgrading
  Discusses the limitations of and considerations for upgrading.

• Preparing a Visual Basic 6.0 Application for Upgrading
  Describes how to make sure that your application is ready to be upgraded.

• Language Recommendations for Upgrading
  Provides recommendations that you can follow when you are preparing a Visual Basic 6.0 application for upgrade, or when you are developing Visual Basic 6.0 applications that might later be upgraded.

• Visual Basic 6.0 Compatibility Library
  Describes a mechanism provided for backward compatibility.

• Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard
  Provides an overview of upgrading a Visual Basic 6.0 project to Visual Basic 2008 by using the Upgrade Wizard.

• How to: Upgrade a Project with the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard
  Describes how to use the Upgrade Wizard.

• Upgrade Visual Basic 6 Code Dialog Box
  Describes the user interface for upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 code to Visual Basic 2008 code.

• How to: Upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 Code with the Upgrade Visual Basic 6 Code Dialog Box
  Explains how to upgrade Visual Basic 6.0 code to Visual Basic 2008 code.

• How to: Emulate a Visual Basic 6.0 Tri-State Control in an Upgraded Application
  Demonstrates how to use an ImageList control to emulate a Visual Basic 6.0 tri-state control.

• Upgrading WebClass Projects to Visual Basic 2008
  Explains how to upgrade WebClass projects (also known as IIS applications) to ASP.NET Web application projects.

• Completing the Upgrading Process
  Describes what to do after the Upgrade Wizard has finished running.

• Visual Basic Upgrade Report
  Describes the format and purpose of the upgrade report.

• How to: View the Upgrade Report
  Explains how to open the upgrade report.

• How to: Upgrade a Project from the Command Line
  Describes how to use the command-line upgrading tool.

• Troubleshooting Applications Upgraded from Visual Basic 6.0
  Lists some known issues that are not detected by the upgrading tools and explains how to address them.

• Printer Compatibility Library
  Provides an overview of the Printer Compatibility Library.

• How to: Fix Upgrade Errors by Using the Printer Compatibility Library (Visual Basic)
  Demonstrates how to fix Printer upgrade errors.

• Deploying Applications That Reference the Printer Compatibility Library
  Describes how to deploy applications that reference the Printer Compatibility Library by using bootstrapping.

Related Sections

• What's New in Visual Basic
  Describes the new features in Visual Basic 2008.

• Help for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Lists the differences between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic 2008.

• Working with Both Visual Basic 6.0 and the Current Version of Visual Basic
  Describes compatibility between the two versions of Visual Basic.