vb2005 EE or full?

[the182guy]

When I started learning .net I assumed that the latest versions of .net ie 2005, would support any programs written in the older versions, but nearly everytime I get a sample from pscode its usualy always not in 2005, it never works in my 2005 EE

My question is, is the EE causing this, or is it just because MS didnt implement the backwards compatibily properly. Meaning, will most programs work with the 2005 full version, or will it just produce the same result of my EE.

BTW its not anything super complicated that I've been using, as I know obviously 2005 has additional features that the others wont support.

In short, will it make any difference if I buy the full version, the problem is its pretty expensive.

[circuits2]

When I started learning .net I assumed that the latest versions of .net ie 2005, would support any programs written in the older versions, but nearly everytime I get a sample from pscode its usualy always not in 2005, it never works in my 2005 EE

So what kind of code is it in? VB6 or before? .NET 2003? Trying to use VB6 with .NET is like trying to fit a square object into a round hole, it's not your version, it's the fact that they are not compatible.

[the182guy]

nonononono haha yes i know, its .net 02 and 03 examples that I test in my vb2005 EE

[RobDog888]

2005 will automatically upgrade/convert 2003 projects. Now if the author used 3rd party controls/components then that can cause a problem. PSC is not a good place to get quality code. Perhaps the contest winners projects but the others are mostly all of a greater lesser quality.

[the182guy]

yeah its the converter I think, but I have yet to try any project from there that works, it cant be down to the quality of the coding on there, I used loads of examples that worked fine before .net. The ones I used have not 3rd party controls etc, its just the included namespaces

[RobDog888]

Are they written in .NET originally? If they are 2002/2003 then the framework will be different in 2005 creating the break as 2.0 of the framework is not 100% backwards compatible.

[the182guy]

yes but the idea is that the converter enables backwards compatibility for 02 and 03

[RobDog888]

lol, well the converter still can not resolve all errors as some things are not easily "changed" to 2005. You will usually have to make some kind of tweak to your project, depending on its size and complexity etc, in order to get it to run. So its either that or just manually re-write your code.

[jmcilhinney]

There is nothing wrong with the conversion process in VB 2005 Express. It will create a backup of the original project but the converted project can not be used in an older version. Once you upgrade to 2005 there's no going back.

Now, as for code working or not working, that's really down to the source code. The vast majority of code written in VB.NET 2002 or 2003 will work in VB 2005. The IDE is stricter so it will flag some code with warnings that were let through before, and some things will not work for whatever reason. Also, if you have Option strict turned On (as you should) and the original author had it turned Off (as many do) then there will be a lot of errors flagged. These are all easy to fix and will make the code more efficient and more robust.

Again, I assure you that there is no problem with the actual conversion process (assuming that there is not some corruption in your installation) and well written code will almost always convert with little or no work needed. If the code won't work my money is on the fact that it's poorly written. How about you post a link to an example of a project that you can't get to work? I'll convert it to VB 2005 myself and see what issues arise.

[RobDog888]

Yes, thats what I was also saying. Basically "Garbage In = Garbage Out".

[the182guy]

thanks for your thoughts, ive attached a project, its in .net03 when I convert, it doesnt even convert, after it tries to convert it just says 'Project unavailable' and doesnt even allow me to see anything maybe its just down to the coding. this is the error:

---------------------------
Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition
---------------------------
One or more projects failed to convert. These projects are now unloaded and marked as unavailable in the Solution Explorer. Reload those projects to determine the cause.
---------------------------
OK   Help   
---------------------------

Its the system.net.sockets namespace that I really need to figure out, and nobody seems to know how to use it for more advanced than the most trivial examples, the funniest thing is nearly everywhere that provides an example says something like 'the net.sockets namespace makes .net socket programming much easier than previous versions of VB'

[jmcilhinney]

There's some sort of issue with the ModSession.vb file in that project and VS 2005 reports the fact that it can't open that file as the reason for the conversion failure. I opened that solution in VS.NET 2003 and it would run OK but double-clicking the ModSession.vb file opened it as a binary file and right-clicking and select "View Code" threw an error.

The issue has something to do with the way the file was saved. I opened the file in Notepad and copied the text, then created a new code file in VS.NET 2003 and pasted the text in. The file declares two constants that do not show up in VS properly, thus they must not be ASCII characters. The file must have been saved as Unicode or some other format, as eveidenced by the fact that the error opening the file said the code page was invalid for VS. That suggests to me that it's not Unicode either, but something else.

Now, having said all this, that project uses some VB6 ActiveX controls anyway, not .NET Sockets. It looks like it may have originally been a VB6 project that was upgraded to VB.NET 2003. If you want to learn how to use Sockets in VB.NET then I'd suggest that the first place you go is the 2003 101 Samples from Microsoft. One of the examples is a client/server chat application that uses Sockets. It will convert to 2005 without issue, although it's possible you'll have to make a few small code adjustments after the conversion.

[the182guy]

Thanks for checking it jmc. As for the 03 code example, which you refered me to in my other thread, which I replied, the sample doesnt work, it connects fine but no msgs sent to or from the client or server deliver. I'm pretty sure its not just me