Upgrade ASP.NET

[doggylvr]

I am an old VB6 programmer who is just getting into VB.NET. I bought an old version of VB.NET (2003) just to make sure I would feel comfortable to make the transfer. I am working on Windows 8. My problem concerns when I try to create an ASP Web Application. When I try, I get a message that says, that it sees I am using ASP.NET Version 1.0. Then it says I need to "upgrade ASP.NET on the server to the latest version" I have already turned on IIS 8. What do I do?

[dunfiddlin]

Well VB.Net 2003 and Windows 8 (2013) really couldn't be further apart. I'd recommend you get the Express version of Visual Studio 2012 for Web Development for starters!

[Niya]

You should have bought VS2012. I'm sorry to say, but VS2003 was a bad investment on your part. VS2012 I believe was made with many specifics important to targeting Windows 8.

[.paul.]

as mentioned, VS2003 is ancient. there have been 4 versions of vb.net since 2003...

[doggylvr]

I'm hep about the fact that 2003 is ancient, but I got it REAL cheap and wanted only to prove to myself that transferring my old VB6 programs would be doable. It is. A couple of people have said that I should download Express version of Visual Studio 2012 for Web Development. My questions are: 1) can I leave my 2003 version of VB.NET on my computer or do I need to uninstall it before I download the Express version, and 2) will the Express version still allow me to make the transfer of my old VB6 programs?

[Niya]

I've had different versions of VS installed side by side with no problems in the past so I wouldn't expect it to be a problem for you.

[Joacim Andersson]

You can have different versions of Visual Studio installed side by side, no problem. I am a bit surprised though that you were able to install VS2003 on Windows 8 since .Net 1.1 is not supported on that platform and hasn't been so since Vista.

[jmcilhinney]

I'm hep about the fact that 2003 is ancient, but I got it REAL cheap and wanted only to prove to myself that transferring my old VB6 programs would be doable. It is. A couple of people have said that I should download Express version of Visual Studio 2012 for Web Development. My questions are: 1) can I leave my 2003 version of VB.NET on my computer or do I need to uninstall it before I download the Express version, and 2) will the Express version still allow me to make the transfer of my old VB6 programs?

.NET was specifically designed with side-by-side installation in mind, so you can have every version of VS, from VS.NET 2002 to VS 2012, all installed at the same time if you want, and you can even have paid-for editions and Express editions of the same version installed, e.g. VS 2012 Professional, VS 2012 Express for Web, VS 2012 Express for Windows Desktop, VS 2012 Express for Windows 8 and VS 2012 Express for Windows Phone all together.

One thing to note is that, until VS 2008, a wizard was included in the IDE to upgrade VB6 code and projects to VB.NET. From VS 2010, there is no integrated tool, although Microsoft have made a lite edition of a commercial product available as a free download. I'm not sure what limitations it has but there are some. That said, automated conversion of VB6 to VB.NET is always difficult and no tool will produce great results anyway. Converting ASP projects to ASP.NET would be even harder so I'm quite sure that a manual conversion would produce much better results.