Migration Process

A migration process requires a lot of effort, several resources, and time. You need to perform a cost/benefit analysis to check the feasibility of migration. The best practice for migration is to initially migrate DLLs, modules, and classes. You should migrate ADO, ActiveX, or COM components later. The migration wizard used for migrating applications to the .NET environment does not fully convert applications to .NET. For example, the migration wizard does not support the following functions;

• OLE container code

• Dynamic data exchange

• ActiveX documents

• Web classes

• Graphics

• Drag-and-drop

To migrate an application to the .NET environment, you need to:

1. Understand the existing application before you start modifying it. You need to know the application's working and functionalities. You can acquire this information from the existing documentation of the application.

2. Decide the features that you need in the application. In addition to existing functionalities, you also need to decide the additional features that you should include based on the client's requirements.

3. Delete all the unnecessary or repetitive code in your application. This saves effort and costs when you migrate the application to .NET.

   Tip

   Use a code analyzer to delete unused code.

4. Declare variables explicitly before you start the migration process. Declaring variables optimizes code and makes it robust. It also helps in the migration process using the migration wizard.

5. Perform the migration using the migration tool.

6. Solve the upgrade issues that might occur when the Upgrade wizard is unable to convert all parts of code successfully.

7. Upgrade syntax and controls. Syntax errors may occur when you migrate your application because .NET applications have different syntax when you compile. You need to use the latest syntax and controls to take advantage of the .NET technology.

8. Run the code after fixing all the errors. Check if the code runs according to requirements.