Re: General question about upgrade path

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

From: Ralph (msnews.20.nt_consulting32_at_spamgourmet.com)
Date: 02/28/05 

Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 20:44:10 -0600

"Stephen Bowyer" <stephen.bowyer@nospamdsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:42222853$0$12822$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com...
> I have an application at work with about 20 users on a VB5 front end to an
> Access database. While the app does just about everything I want it to,
I'm
> wondering where do I go from here? I looked at VB6 and judged that it
> wasn't worth the hassle of upgrading. I've bought and installed .net on
my
> home XP machine, but feel the learning curve is going to be pretty steep,
> and the entire app will need to be rewritten. I'd like to continue to
> enhance the original VB 5 app on my home PC, but cannot get VB5 to run
> properly on it (falls over when using any DAO object). Any development I
> now have to do on a W2000 workstation at work, and I don't really have the
> time. Although the app appears to run fine on the XP workstations at
work,
> I'm worried that at some point in the future Microsoft are not going to
> continue to support this.
>
> What's my best option do you reckon?
>
> Steve.
>

Steve,

I heard about three jumbled questions in your post. So here are three
jumbled responses. Please bear in mind that I haven't a clue about your
problem domain, career interests, or . <g>

1) Do I need to move to VB6?

You said it wasn't worth the hassle, yet you can't seem to run VB5 on XP at
home? IMHO, it seems a simple case of "Well, Duh!" and upgrading to VB6. I
never had good luck with VB5 it seemed just a stop-gap between VB4 and VB6.
However, I am alone in that opinion. There are many classic VBers that swear
by it - offering the opinion that VB6 didn't bring anything new to the
table, except a new round of troublesome controls. <g>

But frankly I don't think VB5 is the real problem with DAO and XP - more
likely it is the drivers, Jet pack, etc. Perhaps you need to upgrade
DAO/Jet?

There are always issues with an OS port (compile on one, distribute to
another). The best that will happen is nothing. <g> The ideal scenario is to
build and test on each platform. But going from a 'newer' OS to a 'older' OS
is usually easier, than vice versa. It is simply a matter of it being easier
to make the 'newer' more backward compatible than making the 'older' more
future compatible. In general, developing on XP and migrating to Win2k
shouldn't be as bad as going the other way.

3) Do I need to move to .Net?

This is a question that has been asked by just about everyone in the VB
'Classic' groups - either of themselves or from others. Answers seem to
range from "Hell No I Won't Go" to "Hey, Get Over It and Move On".
the pros and cons there is one simple truth - if you move - I am not sure
there is a satisfactory answer beyond

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Upgrading from version 5
    ... Before you dive into upgrading, or more aptly put, converting, to VB .Net, it really pays to spend some time learning a bit about .Net. ... You might decide for example that VB .Net offers many modern features you want in which case you can use a VB.Net to write new features and add them to your app in VB6. ... We have VB 5 enterprise edition, and we have a few apps that we need ...
    (microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion)
  • Re: Validating "Orders" form
    ... IMO it would be a PITA to write an app in VB6 because of this 'limitation' ... I have a similar app and simply check for Order details when I close the Orders form. ... You should, however, be able to do a little more validation ...
    (comp.databases.ms-access)
  • RE: GetWindowsDirectory retrieves wrong directory under Terminal S
    ... We use the same api in VB6, I created a simple VB6 DLL and referenced it ... from my C# test app and also a VB6 test app. ... applications and needs to read the legacy application's INI file from the ... mapped to a Windows folder within their profile. ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.csharp)
  • Re: General question about upgrade path
    ... While the app does just about everything I want it to, ... > wasn't worth the hassle of upgrading. ... Do I need to move to VB6? ... There is a close analogy between the Coke snafu 20 years ago and MS's ...
    (microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion)
  • Re: Advice Needed...
    ... items in a listbox). ... What about access controls is better? ... looking) is that they can handle multi-column data, where a VB6 listbox ... The only real issue is the problems when an app shuts down unexpectedly. ...
    (microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion)