Visual Studio 2002 to visual studio migration

Question

Dear Community,

Really need your help and advise. A significantly large critical web application was built with crystal report in visual studio 2002 1.0 framework, VB.net and it is currently in production, deployed in win 2003 OS and is being used by 400 users. unfortunately because of mismanagement when i joined the organization year back, i did not have the code which is deployed in the production so was unable to make any changes in the application for any new requirements. Also could not get successful to create a solution from deployed solution from wwwroot/intepub folder. Creating a new application from the scratch is a year effort and the development cost is also an issue. so I did the reverse engineering, create a new project in visual studio 2002 and manually importing each file one by one. I was able to compile the code successfully after resolving all the errors. Now i also managed to migrate my application from visual studio 2002 to visual studio 2010 successfully by using the same process (creating a new project in visual studio 2010, manually copying each and every file, resolving all the build errors by adding references etc.). As per my initial testing, all the asps forms and reports are working fine. I have below queries:

1. Can i consider, my migration is completed in visual studio 2010 and i can use all the features available in VS 2010 in the migrated code?
2. Should i deploy my application migrated in Visual studio 2010 in the production as it is a critical business application? or the user might face some issues in while accessing the application?
3. By using the same way, can i directly migrate the application from visual studio 2010 to 2019 0r 2022 now? or should I first migrate to VS 2015 then so on.
4. If i manage to migrate to vs 2015 or 2019 or 2022 with the same way and approach, my old code written in VS 2002 can communicate with the new VS 2010/2015/2019/2022 code without any issue.?
5. If my solution is getting build in a new version with 0 errors, can i consider it migration is successful.

Will be very grateful, if someone could address my concern.

Answer 1

Hi @Amit Singhal ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A!

You can refer to: Port, migrate, and upgrade projects.

1. Can i consider, my migration is completed in visual studio 2010 and i can use all the features available in VS 2010 in the migrated code?

If your project doesn’t depend on newer features, and you can compile the code successfully, I suppose the migration is completed and you can work with them as you always have.

2. Should i deploy my application migrated in Visual studio 2010 in the production as it is a critical business application? or the user might face some issues in while accessing the application?

You can back up your application and try to deploy your application in the production. If you have any problems, you can post again to conduct further research.

3. By using the same way, can i directly migrate the application from visual studio 2010 to 2019 0r 2022 now? or should I first migrate to VS 2015 then so on.
I suggest you first migrate your application to VS2015 then so on.

4. If i manage to migrate to vs 2015 or 2019 or 2022 with the same way and approach, my old code written in VS 2002 can communicate with the new VS 2010/2015/2019/2022 code without any issue.?
What do you mean? Visual Studio is backwards-compatible. As your project is created in VS2002, it is an old version. The newer version of Visual Studio might not support.

5. If my solution is getting build in a new version with 0 errors, can i consider it migration is successful.
If your project can be built without errors and warnings in the newer version of VS, I suppose the migration is successful.

Sincerely,
Anna
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Answer 2

Hi @Amit Singhal

Just a note. I had an old project developed in Visual Studio 2002 also. This project was NOT a critical application, but for me and a few users, it was.
As each VS version release in the years following, I migrated the project to each one. This application was successfully migrated all the way to the most recent release 2022 version. There were no issues doing the migrations at all. The project was fairly large and communicated with a set top TV box (many versions but same enigma core software). I could use the newer features at each stage and did so without issue
I have only just retired the application but it served well for 20 years or so.

Answer 3

all your platforms are out of support

1) .net framework 1.0 (min supported version 3.5 sp1, 4.8 recommended)
2) visual studio 10 (vs 2012 will end in January, vs 2022 recommended)
3) windows 2003 (min supported version 2012 which ends next year)

upgrading past .net 3.5 sp1 will require the windows server be updated.

if you can not upgrade you server, then the best you can do .net 3.5 sp1.

you next restriction is crystal reports. vs 2010+ no longer include crystal reports. you download a separate component. not sure the upgrade story.

if you can not upgrade the server, then I'd shoot for:

.net framework 3.5 sp1
visual studio 2015 (maybe vs 2017 would work)

note: additional features come with framework upgrades more than visual studio.

also windows server 2003 only supports TSL 1.0, which browsers are dropping support for (though I would not be surprised if you are not using ssl)