Strategy for converting a VB6 app to .NET

Question

Would it be a good idea to start converting forms into .NET one at a time which you would then invoke from the VB6 app via COM-interop.

This way, by the end of the process you would just convert the 'shell' of the VB6 application into a new .NET app, and all your forms are ready to go in .NET.

Is there a better strategy?

Answer 1

We have a VB6 application which is being ported to .NET either, and we use the COM-Interop strategy. All new features can be implemented in .NET, only the GUI-stuff remains VB; at the same time, we can develop a new GUI independently.

If you don't already know this, you can do COM Interop without using the registry (as this caused some problems for us) with Registration-Free COM Interop:

• MSDN Documentation
• Manifest-Creator (very useful!)

Answer 2

If it were me, I'd just rip the Band-Aid right off. I don’t see any benefit in having an in-between state [.NET Forms and COM-interop] for your application because it just adds unneeded complexity.