| Foreword | xv |
| Introduction | xvii |
| PART I INTRODUCTION TO UPGRADING | |
| 1 Visual Basic .NET Is More Than Visual Basic 6 + 1 | 3 |
| Why Break Compatibility? | 6 |
| Adding New Features | 6 |
| Fixing the Language | 7 |
| Modernizing the Language | 8 |
| It Is Still Visual Basic | 8 |
| Expect Subtle Differences | 8 |
| Plan for a 95 Percent Automated Upgrade | 9 |
| Why Should I Upgrade? | 10 |
| New Language Features | 10 |
| Windows Forms | 14 |
| New Web Development Features | 15 |
| Better Development Environment | 15 |
| Is Visual Basic Still the Best Choice for Visual Basic Developers? | 16 |
| Conclusion | 18 |
| 2 Visual Basic 6 and Visual Basic .Net: Differences | 19 |
| .NET Framework vs. ActiveX | 19 |
| .NET Framework | 21 |
| Memory Management | 22 |
| Type Identity | 25 |
| Threading Model | 29 |
| Differences in the Development Environment | 29 |
| Menu Editor | 30 |
| Toolbox | 31 |
| Property Browser | 32 |
| Tab Layout Editor | 33 |
| Forms Packages | 34 |
| A Single Standard for Windows Forms | 34 |
| Two Forms Packages for the Price of One | 35 |
| Language Differences | 35 |
| All Subroutine Calls Must Have Parentheses | 37 |
| ByVal or ByRef Is Required | 38 |
| Is That My Event? | 38 |
| Arrays Must Have a Zero-Bound Lower Dimension | 39 |
| Fixed-Length Strings Are Not Supported | 40 |
| Variant Data Type Is Eliminated | 40 |
| Visibility of Variables Declared in Nested Scopes Is Limited | 41 |
| Changes in the Debugger | 42 |
| No Edit and Continue | 42 |
| Cannot Continue After an Error | 42 |
| No Repainting in Break Mode | 42 |
| Conclusion | 43 |
| 3 Upgrading Options | 45 |
| Upgrading Is Optional | 45 |
| Don't Upgrade | 45 |
| Partial Upgrade | 46 |
| Complete Upgrade | 47 |
| Upgrade with Interoperability | 47 |
| Role of the Upgrade Wizard | 48 |
| The Upgrade Report | 48 |
| Testing | 49 |
| Upgrading from Earlier Versions of Visual Basic | 49 |
| Selecting Projects to Upgrade | 50 |
| Evaluating the Benefits | 51 |
| Evaluating the Effort Required | 55 |
| Developing the Upgrade Plan | 58 |
| Conclusion | 59 |
| 4 Preparing Your Project for the Upgrade to Visual Basic .NET | 61 |
| Why Change Anything? | 61 |
| Cleaning Up Legacy Code | 62 |
| VarPtr, DefInt, and Other No-Shows | 62 |
| DAO and RDO Data Binding | 63 |
| Good Visual Basic 6 Coding Practices | 64 |
| Variants and Variables | 64 |
| Abstraction | 66 |
| Early Binding vs. Late Binding vs. Soft Binding | 69 |
| Watch Out for Null and Empty | 73 |
| Implicit Object Instantiation | 74 |
| Conclusion | 76 |
| PART II UPGRADING APPLICATIONS | |
| 5 Your First Upgrade | 79 |
| Upgrade Walkthrough | 79 |
| What Just Happened? | 85 |
| Language Changes | 88 |
| Other Files in Your Project | 92 |
| Upgrading Project Groups | 94 |
| Using the VB Snippet Upgrade Add-In | 98 |
| Upgrading Using the Command Line | 99 |
| Conclusion | 100 |
| 6 Common Tasks in Visual Basic .NET | 101 |
| A Guide to Working in Visual Basic .NET | 101 |
| Creating a Visual Basic .NET Project | 102 |
| Getting to Know the Visual Studio .NET IDE | 104 |
| Running Your Project | 106 |
| A Quick Introduction to Debugging | 107 |
| Miscellaneous Items | 108 |
| Handling Build Errors | 108 |
| Using the Task List | 109 |
| Using Breakpoints | 110 |
| References | 111 |
| Problem-Solving Techniques | 112 |
| Using the System.Diagnostics Library | 112 |
| Using CorDbg | 113 |
| Simplifying Complex Expressions | 114 |
| Conclusion | 115 |
| 7 Upgrade Wizard Ins and Outs | 117 |
| Upgrade Philosophy | 117 |
| It's Your Code | 117 |
| Just Make It Work | 118 |
| Compatibility Library | 119 |
| Upgrade Wizard Capabilities and Limitations | 119 |
| Wizard Methodology | 119 |
| Project Upgrade | 121 |
| Forms and Intrinsic Controls | 128 |
| ActiveX Controls and ActiveX References | 137 |
| Visual Basic Code | 140 |
| Global Objects | 145 |
| Class Modules and User Controls | 145 |
| Objects for Accessing Data | 146 |
| Designers | 147 |
| Conclusion | 148 |
| 8 Errors, Warnings, and Issues | 149 |
| The Different Kinds of EWIs | 152 |
| Upgrade Issues | 152 |
| Upgrade ToDos | 153 |
| Run-Time Warnings | 154 |
| Design Issues | 154 |
| Upgrade Notes and Global Warnings | 155 |
| Understanding the Upgrade Report | 155 |
| Estimating Fix Time | 157 |
| Working with EWIs | 159 |
| The Different Upgrade EWIs | 160 |
| Upgrade Issues | 160 |
| Upgrade ToDos | 163 |
| Upgrade Warnings | 164 |
| Design Errors | 167 |
| Global Warnings | 169 |
| Upgrade Notes | 170 |
| Which Problems Are Not Detected? | 172 |
| Conclusion | 174 |
| 9 Using Visual Basic 6 with Visual Basic .NET: COM Interop | 175 |
| Where COM Interop Comes into Play | 177 |
| ActiveX Controls | 177 |
| Communication Between a .NET Client and a COM Server Component | 177 |
| Communication Between a COM Client and a .NET Server Component | 178 |
| Upgrading a Visual Basic 6 Client/Server Application | 178 |
| Creating a .NET Client That Talks to a COM Server | 180 |
| Debugging Between the Visual Basic .NET Client and Visual Basic 6 Server | 182 |
| Exposing a Visual Basic .NET Component to Be Called by a Visual Basic 6 Client | 184 |
| Debugging Between the Visual Basic 6 Client and .NET Server | 187 |
| Tying It All Together | 188 |
| Replacing COM with .NET: Binary Compatibility | 189 |
| Indirect Replacement Model | 190 |
| Enabling Binary Compatibility in Visual Basic .NET Classes | 191 |
| Conclusion | 196 |
| PART III GETTING YOUR PROJECT WORKING | |
| 10 Ten Common Upgrade Problems | 199 |
| Default Properties | 199 |
| AddItem and ToString with COM Objects | 201 |
| Deterministic Finalization and Garbage Collection | 203 |
| Bringing a Little Determinism to the Party | 205 |
| Generic Objects (Control/Form/Screen) | 206 |
| Dim.As New | 207 |
| Sub Main (or Default Form) | 208 |
| Font Disparities | 209 |
| Bad Constants | 212 |
| Drag and Drop | 213 |
| Drag and Drop in Visual Basic 6 | 213 |
| Drag and Drop in Visual Basic .NET | 215 |
| Collection Classes | 219 |
| Conclusion | 222 |
| 11 Resolving Issues with Language | 223 |
| Language Elements | 224 |
| #If.#End If Precompiler Statements | 224 |
| Constants and Constant Expressions | 224 |
| Control Flow | 227 |
| File Functions | 232 |
| Types and Type Operations | 238 |
| Object Replaces Variant | 238 |
| Arrays | 242 |
| Structures | 245 |
| Making Your Code Thread-Safe | 249 |
| Windows API | 251 |
| Type Changes | 252 |
| As Any No Longer Supported | 253 |
| AddressOf Changes | 254 |
| Passing User-Defined Types to API Functions | 258 |
| ObjPtr and StrPtr Not Supported | 261 |
| Conclusion | 263 |
| 12 Resolving Issues with Forms | 265 |
| Similarities in Form Structure | 265 |
| General Issues | 267 |
| Differences in Properties, Methods, and Events | 267 |
| Technology Differences | 269 |
| Issues Involving Forms | 274 |
| Event Firing Differences | 274 |
| The Default Form: DefInstance | 277 |
| Application Lifetime and Forms | 278 |
| MDI Forms | 282 |
| Conclusion | 283 |
| 13 Upgrading ActiveX Controls and Components | 285 |
| ActiveX Controls Are Still Supported—Yes! | 285 |
| ActiveX Upgrade Strategy | 286 |
| Limitations of ActiveX Control Hosting | 286 |
| ActiveX .NET Controls: Best of Both Worlds | 289 |
| ActiveX Interop Ax Wrapper: The Windows Forms Wrapper | 289 |
| Property and Parameter Type Mappings | 290 |
| Standard Component Wrappers and ActiveX Control Subobjects | 293 |
| Common Exceptions That Require Type Conversions | 295 |
| Name Collisions | 297 |
| Event Name Collisions | 297 |
| Using ActiveX Components from .NET | 298 |
| When ByRef Bites | 298 |
| When a Collection Is Not a Collection | 299 |
| Nonzero-Bound Arrays | 301 |
| Alias Types Are Not Supported | 301 |
| Module Methods Are Not Supported | 302 |
| Conclusion | 303 |
| 14 Resolving Data Access Issues | 305 |
| Data Access in Visual Basic | 306 |
| Code | 306 |
| Data Binding | 307 |
| ADO Data Environment | 307 |
| Components That Don't Upgrade | 308 |
| ADO.NET Is the Future | 309 |
| General Issues with Data Access Code | 309 |
| DAO and RDO Module Methods | 309 |
| ADO Version 2.7 | 311 |
| Errors in Events | 311 |
| RDO Connection | 313 |
| Null, vbNullString, and vbNullChar | 314 |
| ADO Data Environment | 315 |
| Calling Dispose | 315 |
| Initialize Event | 316 |
| Cursor Location with Microsoft Access Databases | 316 |
| ADO Data Binding | 316 |
| Control Arrays of ADO Data Controls | 318 |
| Setting Data Binding Properties at Run Time | 318 |
| Conclusion | 321 |
| 15 Problems That Require Redesign | 323 |
| Replacing the OLE Container Control | 323 |
| Replacing Painting Functions | 328 |
| Rewriting Clipboard Code | 331 |
| Using the Controls Collection | 333 |
| Using the Forms Collection | 335 |
| Upgrading PrintForm Code | 337 |
| Replacing Property Pages | 340 |
| Eliminating ObjPtr, VarPtr, and StrPtr | 343 |
| Conclusion | 345 |
| 16 Upgrading COM+ Components | 347 |
| COM+ Application Types | 347 |
| Using COM+ in Visual Basic .NET | 348 |
| COM+ Requirements in Visual Basic .NET | 350 |
| Inheriting from the ServicedComponent Class | 351 |
| Working with Attributes | 352 |
| Creating a Strong Name for Your Assembly | 356 |
| Registering COM+ Applications | 358 |
| Upgrading COM+ Components | 360 |
| Making .NET and COM Components Work Together | 364 |
| Conclusion | 364 |
| 17 Upgrading VB Application Wizard Projects | 365 |
| App.Revision | 367 |
| frmAbout Form | 369 |
| frmLogin Form | 370 |
| frmMain Form | 370 |
| API Declare Statements | 370 |
| mnuHelpAbout_Click Event Procedure | 371 |
| App.HelpFile | 371 |
| ActiveMdiChild in MDI Projects | 372 |
| Forms Collection in frmMain_Closed | 374 |
| Clipboard in MDI Projects | 375 |
| frmSplash Form | 376 |
| frmBrowser Form | 378 |
| Data Forms | 378 |
| Module1 Module | 379 |
| LoadResStrings Method | 379 |
| Conclusion | 381 |
| PART IV TECHNIQUES FOR ADDING VALUE | |
| 18 Adding Value to Your Applications | 385 |
| Overview of the Sample Application | 386 |
| New File Functions | 387 |
| Reading the Contents of a Directory | 387 |
| Finding All the Forms in a DLL | 388 |
| Loading Forms Dynamically | 389 |
| Reading and Writing to Files | 389 |
| Using Dynamic Properties | 390 |
| New Windows Capabilities | 392 |
| Accessing the Registry | 392 |
| Control Anchoring | 394 |
| Graphics Features | 394 |
| Windows XP-Style Controls | 398 |
| XCopy Deployment | 400 |
| Conclusion | 401 |
| 19 Replacing ActiveX Controls with Windows Forms Controls | 403 |
| Benefits of Upgrading Controls | 404 |
| 100 Percent .NET Compatibility | 404 |
| Improved Versioning | 404 |
| Simpler Deployment | 405 |
| Process of Replacing Controls | 405 |
| Manually Upgrading a Control | 406 |
| Mappings for Visual Basic 6 ActiveX Controls | 412 |
| ActiveX Controls vs. Windows Forms Controls | 413 |
| Conclusion | 416 |
| 20 Moving from ADO to ADO.NET | 417 |
| ADO.NET for the ADO Programmer | 417 |
| Overview of ADO.NET | 418 |
| DataSets | 419 |
| Integrating Your ADO Code into a Visual Basic .NET Application | 421 |
| Binding Your ADO Recordset to .NET Controls | 422 |
| Using ADO with XML Web Services | 423 |
| Mapping ADO Objects to ADO.NET | 425 |
| Connection and Command Objects | 425 |
| Recordsets | 427 |
| Using DataViews | 429 |
| Data Binding | 430 |
| Binding to Windows Forms Controls | 430 |
| A Note About Performance | 432 |
| Conclusion | 434 |
| 21 Upgrading Distributed Applications | 435 |
| Important Concepts for Distributed Applications | 436 |
| Loosely Coupled vs. Tightly Coupled Applications | 436 |
| Overhead in Method Invocation | 437 |
| Componentization and Logical Organization | 439 |
| Distributed Technologies in .NET | 440 |
| XML Web Services | 440 |
| Creating a Simple XML Web Service | 441 |
| Supporting Web Services in Your Existing Applications | 446 |
| Remoting | 452 |
| A Simple Remoting Example | 453 |
| Architecture for Remoting | 456 |
| Distributed COM+ Applications | 461 |
| COM+ and Remoting | 461 |
| Using SOAP Services | 461 |
| COM+ Application Proxies in .NET | 463 |
| Conclusion | 464 |
| PART V APPENDIXES | |
| APPENDIX A Object Mapping Reference | 467 |
| APPENDIX B Function Mapping Reference | 515 |
| INDEX | 521 |
