Eugenio Pace, the Product Manager for the p&p Smart Client program just posted this to his blog...

For those thinking about moving forward those VB6 applications to the .NET platform, but have doubts where to start or how; or simply need some help in estimating the effort of such project, check this new guide from patterns & practices.

Published in this community site you will be able to download a draft of the guide (almost 14 chapters); and the team will be publishing additional content as it becomes available (like the assessment tool to estimate effort and perform an analysis of the code you need to migrate).

The Guide covers many technical challenges (like COM+, unsupported featues, API call, etc.) but also addresses the process of migration: asessment, planning and effort estimation, preparation for migration, application advancement, etc.

Experience has shown us that an appropriate assessment and preparation of an application prior to running the upgrade wizard inreases the success or the "efficiency" of the tool very significantly.

As any other offering from patterns & practices, this guide is being built with heavy input from real experience, so if you have something to tell us, please do! Send us an e-mail to vbmigfb AT microsoft.com

Thanks!

Check it out!