The Myth of Visual Basic (VB 6) Migration / Upgrade

Aberdeen Group recognizes ArtinSoft as a key player in the VB 6 migration industry

2009-05-08T22:56:26Z

Technorati Tags: Visual Basic 6 Migration VB6 to .NET VB 6 to C# Aberdeen Group recently published a report titled “ Migrating from VB6 to .NET: The challenge of Software Agility in a Volatile Economy ”. The report contains a good summary of the status quo with respect to Visual Basic 6 renewal efforts. It is based on a survey of 130 organizations at the end of 2008. The Aberdeen report contains lots of advice for organizations that are faced with the challenge of upgrading their infrastructure...(read more)

Visual Basic migratioon now faster than ever!

2009-05-06T20:44:00Z

Today ArtinSoft launched the Visual Basic Upgrade Companion 3.0 both for our Enterprise and Developer Editions. This latest release of the best (I am biased!) Visual Basic migration tool in the world is focused on reducing the total effort of a migration project. Together with the conversion tool release we also revamped its companion technical site http://www.vbtonet.com/ . This site, which will be continuously updated in the following weeks, is the perfect side help to any person that needs to...(read more)

Learn about low-cost and low-risk migration options with Avanade and ArtinSoft

2009-03-18T15:48:37Z

Technorati Tags: Visual Basic Migration , Application Renewal , VB6 On Wednesday April 15th 2009 Avanade and ArtinSoft will host a webinar on how to quickly and cost effectively renew your Visual Basic 6 applications. Here’s an excerpt from the invitation: “Don’t miss this chance to learn more about VBUC and other cost effective migration options, including: • Which migration strategy works best for you (complete, partial, coexistent, partial development) • How to reduce project risk, costs...(read more)

Large Companies, Successful VB6 Migrations

2009-03-11T22:51:41Z

Here is a summary of some recent case studies that we have produced with our customers. The message is common: Visual Basic 6 to C# migrations are an excellent alternative that saves time and money when you need to move your application to .NET. HSI This Texas-based company provides geo-navigation solutions for the horizontal drilling industry, and when the end of official support for the VB6 development environment was announced, they turned to ArtinSoft to migrate their LatNav application...(read more)

I've decided to move away from VB6. Now What?

2009-03-05T22:09:00Z

At some point in time companies decide they want to leave a certain platform. Let’s not focus on the reasons why they decide to move but on HOW to move instead. Companies reach the decision to move on their own timetable. Once you have decided that you want to move away from VB6 then ArtinSoft comes into play. The purpose of my blog is to show that there is a way out that is good, fast and cost-effective. Compared to what? You might ask, let’s see. Once you decide to move (let me be clear, you made...(read more)

How to move billions of lines of code from VB6

2009-02-16T16:56:00Z

Danish magazine Version2 published an interesting article last week on VB6 migrations: http://www.version2.dk/artikel/9908-saadan-flyttes-milliarder-af-kodelinjer-fra-vb6#forum_post_anchor . Microsoft is finally waving goodbye to Visual Basic Version 6. Its successor, VB.Net, is not backward compatible, but the company Artinsoft from Costa Rica can help with a translation machine. By Tania Andersen, Wednesday 11 February 2009 This article really shows momentum in northern Europe. Enjoy!...(read more)

More than 800k lines of ISVs code successfully migrated using the ArtinSoft Visual Basic Companion

2009-01-16T22:20:00Z

ArtinSoft recently published a number of case studies of Visual Basic migrations for ISVs. The projects were successful both from the technical as well as the economical perspective. If you are an ISV and you are considering an evolution of your application and a port to the .net platform I encourage you to take a look: http://www.artinsoft.com/vertex-omiga-vb-to-net-migration-case-study.aspx http://www.artinsoft.com/vertex-supervisor-vb-to-net-migration-case-study.aspx http://www.artinsoft.com/hsi...(read more)

VB6 Runtime WILL be supported on Windows 7 but no plans to support it on future version of windows.

2009-01-14T01:53:00Z

I spoke to Paul Yuknewicz who is a Program Manager on the Microsoft Visual Basic team and who is quite involved with everything related to VB6 and its migration process. Paul said and I quote: "VB6 runtime will be shipping and supported as a part of Windows 7, however there are no plans to ship it in future versions of Windows." Microsoft will surely release an official document stating this in the near future. What is my take on this latest Microsoft move in the VB6 saga? Well, I guess...(read more)

Is the grass greener while doing green-field development?

2008-07-30T00:57:00Z

Milan Negovan in his blog aspnetresources recently published an excerpt of Michael Feathers' book Working Effectively with Legacy Code . I liked the excerpt so much and I believe that it is so pertinent to the topic of my blog that I also will reproduce it verbatim. -- Often people who spend time working on legacy systems wish they could work on green-field systems. It’s fun to build systems from scratch, but frankly, green-field systems have their own set of problems. Over and over again, I...(read more)

Aggiorno Beta2 is out!

2008-06-05T13:49:00Z

How did ArtinSoft got into producing Aggiorno ( www.aggiorno.com )? Well after more than 15 years in the software migration market we learned a few things and we are convinced that developers want to increase their productivity and that automatic programming is a very good mean to do just that. Aggiorno is the latest incarnation of ArtinSoft proven automatic source code manipulation techniques. This time their are aimed at web developers. Aggiorno, in its first release, offers a set of key automated...(read more)

ASP.NET & Web Standards

2008-05-09T22:38:00Z

Aggiorno is an add-in for Visual Studio 2005/2008 that can swallow horrible non-validating markup and help you make an ASP.NET site web standards compliant with little effort. With Aggiorno web developers can improve their ASP.NET or HTML sites by making them comply with the latest web standards and incorporating the latest technology trends. This will immediately mean increased productivity and immediate business value. Beta 1 has just been released, so you might want to give it a try and send some...(read more)

VB Runtime supported in next Windows

2008-04-30T19:44:00Z

Here is an excerpt from an article that Greg DeMichillie wrote on Directions on Microsoft April Edition: "The planned follow-on release to Windows Vista, code-named Windows 7, will not include the Visual Basic 6.0 (VB 6) runtime libraries, Microsoft has begun informing customers. This sets a timeframe for the final end of support for the runtime." As we have informed on several occasion in this Blog, Microsoft is performing all the normal steps to retire a technology from market. Visual...(read more)

April 8th 2008 and the end of Visual Basic 6 Support

2008-04-08T21:04:00Z

The date has arrived Visual Basic 6 leaves Extended support today.

Rob Helm recently wrote on "Directions on Microsoft": "Some organizations will let support lapse on the VB6 development environment, gambling that any serious problems in the VB6 environment has already been discovered" Additionally, Rob adds: "... organizations remaining loyal to VB6 applications will have to make increasingly heroic efforts to keep those applications running as their IT environments change."

Organizations that GAMBLE with their business continuity, IT professionals that need to make HEROIC efforts to keep applications running! Don't you believe that maintaining an IT organization supporting a business is already enough of an effort to add to the mix unsupported applications?

Do you plan to be a GAMBLING HERO or is it about time to consider ways out of Visual Basic 6?

Well this might be just the right time. ArtinSoft is about to release a new version of the Visual Basic Upgrade companion. The effort required to migrate has been reduced even further and it now makes more sense than ever to automatically upgrade your applications to C# or VB.NET.

Have you been procrastinating the decision to move? Act now!!

Aggiorno is coming out of stealth mode: www.aggiorno.com

2008-01-14T23:47:00Z

Happy 2008!

During last year, ArtinSoft has also been working on a new product that we called Aggiorno ( www.aggiorno.com ). Aggiorno is a Visual Studio add-in designed to increase the productivity of web developers. Aggiorno helps developers with a broad range of topics like web standards, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Accessibility, XHTML, ASP.NET, etc.

If you want to know more about aggiorno you can visit our new web site or the official blog: www.aggiorno.com\blog .

In this blog, I will continue to discuss Visual Basic Upgrades and its implications. By the way, customers are increasingly getting more excited about the speed and safety of migrations vs rewrites.

2008 is the final warning to move VB6 applications to .NET

2007-09-27T17:51:00Z

Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft, recently answered the question "Do the new releases of the Microsoft platform have an impact on the issue of upgrading applications from Visual Basic 6 to Visual Basic .NET?" with the quote that is the title of this post.

He said that the new platform updates really do not have an impact and that you should not wait any longer to move. He emphasized that after the end of support date for VB6 the support will only be through a special support contract with Microsoft that typically is "very onerous" and increasing every year.

Additionally, Rob Helm mentioned something that I had not noticed. Did you know the name of Visual Basic .NET is now officially only "Visual Basic"? Definetely another sign pointing at the future!