10 THINGS "YOU SHOULD KNOW" WHEN UPGRADING TO VS.Net 2003 & .NET FRAMEWORK V1.1

The answer to the below question might be something which would probably hit the bull's eye.. :-)

What promts me to write a column on this topic ?
A friend of mine has a big web application built in Visual Studio .Net 2002... Needless to say after a long a difficult process they finish their round of testing and launch their application to production... Now the enterprise decides to upgrade their software and get Visual Studio .Net 2003, which as appearing everywhere is better in all the perspective than VS.Net 2002... Well, accepted but now here we have a healthy running project, relatively large one, already in production we do not want to fiddle around with it... But the service team of this application get their new machines with VS.Net 2003 installed and here is where the problem starts... And here are the considerations that I would like to put forward for folks who are in similar situations...

10 THINGS "YOU SHOULD KNOW" WHEN UPGRADING TO VS.Net 2003 & .NET FRAMEWORK V1.1

1.) You should know that Visual Studio .Net 2002 targets .Net Framework Version 1.0

2.) You should know that Visual Studio .Net 2003 targets .Net Framework Version 1.1... Framework Version 1.1 has lots of enhancements over 1.0 so definitely the change is for good...

3.) You should know that if you open an application created in VS.Net 2002 in VS.Net 2003, it will prompt for the conversion or if application is recompiled in VS.Net 2003 it will start targetting .Net Framework 1.1...

4.) You should know that if you do not recompile application will continue targetting .Net Framework 1.0, but then if you are servicing the application made in VS.Net 2002, you expect it to change in some way right!!... And if you change it to recompile, :-) refer point 3.)

5.)You should know that sometimes its big deal about targetting .Net Framework Version 1.1 for applications which were built in 1.0... well, its a big deal sometimes coz there are changes in the latest Framework version as compared to earlier... Many of the method signatures are obselete now and just to catch your attention few of them are listed below...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfSystemDataCommonDbDataAdapterClassICloneableCloneTopic.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfSystemDataOleDbOleDbPermissionClassctorTopic1.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfSystemDataSqlClientSqlClientPermissionClassctorTopic1.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfSystemWebUIObjectConverterClassctorTopic.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemdatacommondataadapterclasscloneinternalstopic.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemnetipaddressclassaddresstopic.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfSystemWebUIObjectConverterClassConvertValueTopic.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfSystemDataOdbcOdbcPermissionClassctorTopic1.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfSystemWebServicesProtocolsSoapHeaderAttributeClassRequiredTopic.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemxmlxslxsltransformclassloadtopic7.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemxmlxslxsltransformclasstransformtopic1.asp

Now what about the applications which have been using the stuff that's obselete now... Think whether you want to use the latest version and upgrade your code or use old version and live as you are living...

6.) You should know that if you use VS.Net 2003 to open your project once and save it, it cannot be reopened in VS.Net 2002... Well ofcourse no one should expect back-ward compatibility, but you should be aware of certain things before hand right!!

7.) You should also know that both the .Net Framework versions can run side by side and you can configure which application targets which Framework version... If you think I should write a column on that configuration and way to do it then drop me a mail at Vishal_Joshi@MVPs.org

8.) You should also know that both Visual Studio .Net 2002 and Visual Studio .Net 2003 can exist side by side on the same machine as well... Even Whidbey can still co-exist with those two... But mind you don't try it... I tried doing all those things and some supernatural powers made all my applications stop working, finally I did what a frustrated developer does, i.e. uninstall everything and install only VS.Net 2002 with .Net Framework 1.0... Well this is just Vishal Joshi, I did everything possible and nothing worked out, you may try might be you do it right!!

9.) You should know that if .Net Framework V1.1 is installed on your machine ASP.Net and Web Services will automatically target .Net Framework V1.1 unless otherwise configured... A gentleman called Denis Bauer developed a utility called ASP.Net Version switcher, which is available free for download... This utility is really useful at times to switch the Framework version your ASP.Net application is targetting and if you need to get it Click Here... Well you can do this configuration manually as well but aren't we moving towards automation :-)

10.) You should know that rest of the applications made in any Version will run with the version they were made to target, unless they are configured otherwise... As mentioned earlier applications built to taget V1.1 will not work on V1.0 (disclaimer: unless otherwise designed & configured)

Feel free to write in your comments to me at Vishal_Joshi@MVPs.org... I am ready to make the title "More than 10 Things you should know when upgrading to VS.Net 2003 and .Net Framework V1.1"

Should I copyright this??? Just kidding!!