Conversion tool comparisons for visual basic 6.0
Has anyone here used either of the following (or any other tool) to convert your vb6 code to a .net language?
Artinsoft's upgrade companion (converts to c# and vb.net)
vbmigration partner (converts to vb.net)
How effective were they and what size project did you convert?
How much work was left to do afterwards? How happy are you with the resultant .net project. What was the support like? Is there a support forum anywhere for users of tools like these, neither vendor seems to offer one.
What did they charge, their prices are not published and I have heard wildly differing prices from different sources for both the above examples
Answer
I am Eugenio La Mesa, general manager at Code Architects. I read a few comments on our VB Migration Partner and conversion tools in general, and thought I might add some hopefully useful hints.
First, our conversion software does support all VB6 graphic properties and methods – with the only exception of DrawMode and ClipControls. We even support the AutoRedraw property and user-defined ScaleMode coordinates, therefore the migration of a CAD-like program to VB.NET is quite in the reach of our software. The Code Sample section at www.vbmigration.com contains many examples of graphic-intensive VB6 apps that have been converted to .NET with minimal effort.
Second, let me clarify our price structure. We sell two different editions of VB Migration Partner: the Professional Edition can convert VB6 apps with max. 50,000 lines of code, whereas the Enterprise Edition has no size limitation and supports a few additional advanced features, such as integration with source code control software and generation of .NET components that are binary-compatible with the original VB6 DLL, which allows you to implement staged migrations of N-tiered COM-based applications.
The price of the Professional Edition for £399 is a special promotion up to June 30th 2009, during a Microsoft UK marketing campaign, for UK only and for applications up to 50K lines of code (LOCs). The price of the Enterprise Edition may vary because it depends on several factors, including number of licenses and number of LOCs to be migrated. This explains why you may see different price quotations. Also, we have recently slightly decreased the list price as our answer to the economic situation. We are also planning to take a few features out of the main product and offer them separately, which would result in a more flexible price structure.
Quite honestly, for applications with 25-50K LOCs we usually recommend a manual rewrite. In fact, our focus is on the enterprise market segment, where you often finds VB6 apps with several hundred thousand LOCs, if not millions. In those cases, a manual rewrite is seldom a viable option: it requires too many skilled VB6/.NET developers, it takes too long, or just costs too much. We have recently published a case study related to an application with 650K LOCs; one of our customers is currently migrating a monster app with about 15 million LOCs!