Porting 16 bit to 32 bit

[Edward]

Years ago I wrote an app in VB 4.0 16 bit. The program is still
selling, but the clients want to upgrade to 32 bit. Should I go for
VB 4.0 32 bit, or version 5, or version 6? There is only a tiny
budget for this, and I don't want to do any rewrites so VB.NET is out!

Also, are there any "gotchas" that I need to be aware of?

many thanks in advance and sorry if this question has been asked and
answered before - I did a search and couldn't find anything.

Edward

[mike]

Re: Porting 16 bit to 32 bit

Edward wrote:[color=blue]
> Years ago I wrote an app in VB 4.0 16 bit. The program is still
> selling, but the clients want to upgrade to 32 bit. Should I go for
> VB 4.0 32 bit, or version 5, or version 6? There is only a tiny
> budget for this, and I don't want to do any rewrites so VB.NET is out!
>
> Also, are there any "gotchas" that I need to be aware of?
>
> many thanks in advance and sorry if this question has been asked and
> answered before - I did a search and couldn't find anything.
>
> Edward[/color]

Why do your clients want an upgrade? How do they even know it's 16-bit
code?
IF it works, don't fix it.
M$ got away with pasting a 32-bit label over their 16-bit code. Try that.
There are always gotchas. If we knew what they were, they wouldn't be
gotchas ;-)
There is NO easy software port. Even if you could just recompile it
with 32-bit VB4, you'd still have to do exhaustive testing.
Fix it with marketing if at all possible.
mike

--
Bunch of stuff For Sale and Wanted at the link below.
laptops and parts Test Equipment
4in/400Wout ham linear amp.
Honda CB-125S
400cc Dirt Bike 2003 miles $550
Police Scanner, Color LCD overhead projector
Tek 2465 $800, ham radio, 30pS pulser
Tektronix Concept Books, spot welding head...

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Monitor/4710/

[Stephane Richard]

Re: Porting 16 bit to 32 bit

I agree with Mike on this one.

If you MUST convert to 32Bits no matter what however (or whichever reasons).
Make sure you have the 32bit version of all your custom third party controls
that you might have used.

If you didn't use any, all the good for your porting experience :-).

I did a port from VB4 16 to VB 4 32 and when it exports the forms, tab
orders and Z orders of the forms weren't good afterwards...

If your application makes use of any windows API functions make sure that
you change those to call their 32 bit counterparts and that all variables
getting values from the API Functions are Declared as Long isntead of
Integer like they probably are in your 16 bit version.

In my porting experience, all controls included with VB 4 16 bit should port
to their 32bvit equivalents in VB4 32 bit as it did for me. You might want
to check any grid type controls you have to make sure that went well as you
may need to redefine your column headers and bind then to any DB all over
again...

If you used Crystal reports again I'd check those two although most of your
report should still be working after the port...but just in case :-).

I think with these you should be good to go

--
Stéphane Richard
Senior Software and Technology Supervisor

http://www.totalweb-inc.com

For all your hosting and related needs
"Edward" <teddysnips@hot mail.com> wrote in message
news:25080b60.0 309180212.37923 787@posting.goo gle.com...[color=blue]
> Years ago I wrote an app in VB 4.0 16 bit. The program is still
> selling, but the clients want to upgrade to 32 bit. Should I go for
> VB 4.0 32 bit, or version 5, or version 6? There is only a tiny
> budget for this, and I don't want to do any rewrites so VB.NET is out!
>
> Also, are there any "gotchas" that I need to be aware of?
>
> many thanks in advance and sorry if this question has been asked and
> answered before - I did a search and couldn't find anything.
>
> Edward[/color]

[J French]

Re: Porting 16 bit to 32 bit

On 18 Sep 2003 03:12:36 -0700, teddysnips@hotm ail.com (Edward) wrote:
[color=blue]
>Years ago I wrote an app in VB 4.0 16 bit. The program is still
>selling, but the clients want to upgrade to 32 bit. Should I go for
>VB 4.0 32 bit, or version 5, or version 6? There is only a tiny
>budget for this, and I don't want to do any rewrites so VB.NET is out![/color]

VB5 or VB6 - definitely not VB4
[color=blue]
>
>Also, are there any "gotchas" that I need to be aware of?[/color]

Watch out for changed APIs
[color=blue]
>
>many thanks in advance and sorry if this question has been asked and
>answered before - I did a search and couldn't find anything.[/color]

You'll find that you land up re-writing a fair bit of it, as both VB5
and 6 have UserControls which are really useful for encapsulating
graphical things.

[xyz]

Re: Porting 16 bit to 32 bit

I have ported VB4 16-bit to VB4 and VB5 32-bit.

The VB4 32-bit is fairly straight forward. The VB5 also was fairly
straight forward but one of the functions did not work. After
extensive debugging, I found out that the VB5 compiler optimization
was the problem. When I specified no optimization everything worked
fine. Launching help files is also a problem. On XP, 2000, and NT a
shell command specifying "open" needs to be is issued, whereas on 95,
98, ME systems you need to specify "start" in the shell command. To
tell the difference in operating systems you need to use a Microsoft
SysInfo control on your initial form.

The distribution packaging program for VB5 is somewhat more robust,
and applications installed with VB5 can be uninstalled more easily
without messing up the shared libraries. The setup kit in both VB4 and
VB5 have a bug in determining the amount of free space on computers
with large disk drives. A "Long" variable is used, which is not
enough for today's machines. I had to fake it so that if the
variable overflows, I allocate the maximum value.

You may have a lot of programming and testing ahead of you.
Good luck.

xyz


On 18 Sep 2003 03:12:36 -0700, teddysnips@hotm ail.com (Edward) wrote:
[color=blue]
>Years ago I wrote an app in VB 4.0 16 bit. The program is still
>selling, but the clients want to upgrade to 32 bit. Should I go for
>VB 4.0 32 bit, or version 5, or version 6? There is only a tiny
>budget for this, and I don't want to do any rewrites so VB.NET is out!
>
>Also, are there any "gotchas" that I need to be aware of?
>
>many thanks in advance and sorry if this question has been asked and
>answered before - I did a search and couldn't find anything.
>
>Edward[/color]

[Edward]

Re: Porting 16 bit to 32 bit

mike <spamme0@juno.c om> wrote in message news:<3F699476. 50607@juno.com> ...[color=blue]
> Edward wrote:[color=green]
> > Years ago I wrote an app in VB 4.0 16 bit. The program is still
> > selling, but the clients want to upgrade to 32 bit. Should I go for
> > VB 4.0 32 bit, or version 5, or version 6? There is only a tiny
> > budget for this, and I don't want to do any rewrites so VB.NET is out!
> >
> > Also, are there any "gotchas" that I need to be aware of?
> >
> > many thanks in advance and sorry if this question has been asked and
> > answered before - I did a search and couldn't find anything.
> >
> > Edward[/color]
>
> Why do your clients want an upgrade? How do they even know it's 16-bit
> code?
> IF it works, don't fix it.
> M$ got away with pasting a 32-bit label over their 16-bit code. Try that.
> There are always gotchas. If we knew what they were, they wouldn't be
> gotchas ;-)
> There is NO easy software port. Even if you could just recompile it
> with 32-bit VB4, you'd still have to do exhaustive testing.
> Fix it with marketing if at all possible.
> mike[/color]

They want an upgrade because they have had a number of support calls
regarding the ntvdm.exe 16 bit subsystem on XP which crashes with
illegal memory application errors. I supposed that porting to 32 bit
might remove the need to use this.

Edward