Question

VB6 To VB.NET DLL Conversion Issue, Should be easy

Asked by: Porka

Hi all

Im still getting used to programming in VB.Net and am having major issues with my software since moving to .Net and im sure that this will be a simple thing to fix im just not sure how. My software under vb6 relies on a DLL that contains licensing information and configuration information compiled for each site that runs it. Under vb6 i would reference the dll with multiple projects that used it and recompile either the programs or the actual dll itself and i would never have a conflict on machines as long as the dll was registered using regsvr32. Now move to .NET. I have created a .NET version of the DLL and made references to it ok in the software. My problem is that if i recompile the DLL or the software and dont reference the custimers dll the software will throw an exception at start time(One i dont know how to trap as yet so it crashes), the only way i have been able to get the software to run is to recompile each program with that sites dll and distribute them which, i will need to do to 50 sites.

Im hoping i can do something similar to what i did in vb6 whereby i can compile the DLL so that no matter whether the DLL is recompliled or the software calling it is recompiled it will work. The DLL is normally located on the client machine and is installed in the GAC but im obviously doing something wrong. I dont want to have to recomplile each one with the clients version of the dll obviosuly. The software calling this dll is normally located on a network server. The security level for the framework allows local intranet full control of the machine. Experts please HELP

Thanks in advance

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Asked On
2005-08-03 at 03:51:08ID21513897
Tags

vb6

,

conversion

,

intranet

,

net

Topic

Microsoft Visual Basic.Net

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: jarnsaterPosted on 2005-08-12 at 06:00:35ID: 14660143

To catch all exceptions, you can set up global exception handlers in your application. Here's how you do that:
http://www.devcity.net/Articles/60/1/unhandled_exceptions.aspx

Could you please provide some more info about the exception being thrown?
...but I think it's a matter of version handling that's the problem.

Have you tried _not_ putting the recompiled dll in the GAC (just placing it in the apps folder instead)?
...and also not creating strong name etc for it.


 

by: PorkaPosted on 2005-08-12 at 06:29:39ID: 14660399

Hello jarnsater

Thanks for the reply, i added the code you pointed me to and then purposely removed access to the dll to see what would happen and it popped up a box say JIT Debugging and saying exception system.typeinitializationexception occurred. Im not sure if this is what is supposed to happen or not, under vb6 i used to be able to trap the error that was rasied when the dll was missing, is this still possible under .net in someway shape or form ? When you say its version handling that is the problem what do u mean ?

In terms of not putting it in the gac and putting it in the apps folder, that isnt really an option beacuse multiple apps in differnet locations will end up using it which is why i tried to have a single dll registered centrally on the machine to save on multiple copies of the file being created.

In terms of the strong naming, i was under the impression i had to give the dll a strong name so i could achieve what im trying to do, what are strong names used for then if not for this ?

Many thanks

 

by: jarnsaterPosted on 2005-08-12 at 07:06:09ID: 14660780

Here'a an example of how to define which assembly version to use (by configuration = no need to recompile)
http://www.informit.com/guides/content.asp?g=dotnet&seqNum=360&rl=1

/ Jon

 

by: PorkaPosted on 2005-08-13 at 01:12:58ID: 14666931

Hi Jon

Thanks for the reply with the link, but im not sure how to implement that in my situation. I read through the pages on that site, but it seems that i still have to perform reconfiguration on each machine, is there no way to make the dll's and exe in .NET version independant so they will run with each other regardless of the versions ?

 

by: PSSUserPosted on 2005-08-13 at 02:25:49ID: 14667046

I'm afraid I don't use VB.NET but it sounds like the problem is that binary compatibility hasn't been set.

In VB6 if you didn't set binary compatibility each time the dll was compiled (or the different client dll's) then they would generate a new CLSID for the dll. What you had to do was compile one copy of the dll and use this one copy as the binary compatibility dll for all the client versions of the dll. That way when the dll was registered it always put the same information in the registry so the application using it could find it. Otherwise the application has to be recompiled with each dll in order to know what CLSID it has to look for in the registry.

 

by: PorkaPosted on 2005-08-13 at 04:18:21ID: 14667230

Hello Experts

Im just wondering, if i edit the assembly file for my DLL and specify an exact version number for it that wont change, would this solve my problem as the version wouldnt change ? Would this be the only way around my problem ?

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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