Seeking which App to use

[AlexanderBB]

Some time back (and I can't find it now) I was advised here which App may be best for converting an old Vb6 exe to VB.
I'm not familiar with the various VB flavors and the one recommended was not what I had.
Was is perhaps VS2022? This is what I see now putting "Visual" into the start bar.

There was also a link to getting started with examples.
Without that I'm guessing at "Create a New Project" then "Console App".

Any help appreciated. Haven't ever used this before.

[jmcilhinney]

The last version of VS that included such a converter was 2008, if I'm not mistaken. You'll be lucky to find an installer for that now, although you may be lucky. You'd have to use VB Express 2008, which was the free version dedicated to VB Windows app development.

That said, that converter was discontinued for a reason. Even if what it generated would compile successfully, the code was pretty ugly and there was still significant work to do to make it of a standard that you'd write from scratch in VB.NET. For that reason, most people preferred to do the conversion themselves, piecemeal if necessary. Ideally, you'd evaluate the functionality provided by your VB6 code and then write the best VB.NET code you can to provide that functionality. That would be best done in VS 2022.

[.paul.]

@jmcilhinney - You’re right. It was last available in VB2008.
But… VB6 and VB.Net are so different that the output is very ugly at best.

[TysonLPrice]

@jmcilhinney - You’re right. It was last available in VB2008.
But… VB6 and VB.Net are so different that the output is very ugly at best.

There is a company, I can't remember the name, that bought that converter off of Microsoft. They enhanced quite a bit and market themselves as a VB 6.0 to .NET conversion company. We submitted all our software to them, they analyzed it, and quoted a price. I'm pretty low on the ladder here but I know the technical review failed and the price was prohibitive.

We hired a consulting firm to rewrite the applications from scratch.

[dday9]

Prior to a shift in priorities, the company I work for specialized in VB6 to .NET conversions. The issue with older software was that no one person knows every feature of the system, so even with source code in hand it was difficult to convert one for one.

Where I found the most success was doing what JMcIlhinney suggested in doing a piecemeal approach (only without using the converter). So we'd get the subject matter experts on a specific feature in a room to describe exactly how they expect the feature to work, do it in VB.NET (or C#) and only look at the VB6 code for reference (e.g. highly specific business logic), and then revisit the feature as a change order to do the part of the feature that only gets used <1% of the time and was left out in our SME meeting which is almost always inevitable.

Where I struggled the most was when clients insisted on doing a one for one conversion from the old code to new. That is where the majority of our overruns came from and really hurt on fixed fee projects.

Edit - The "where I found the most success" part is obviously dependent on having developers know both VB6 and VB.NET (or C#). @AlexanderBB - If you're not very comfortable in the latter then this approach might not work for you.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

As far as I can tell the only good reason to start a one from one conversion from VB6 to VB.NET is as a training exercise. You learn that the .NET way of doing things is very different to the VB6 way of doing things. Shortly after that you find out that you should not have started down this route in the first place.

1. Stick with the VB6 code using 100% compatible TwinBasic
2. Rewrite the program from scratch using a new requirements document, a new design keeping the old app as reference.

Most people simply walk away...