Experiences with MSBee.

[Frank Rizzo]

I understand that the MSBee project helps you support .NET 1.1 projects
in VS2005. I don't understand the details though. So, here is my
situation.

I have a .NET 1.1 WinForms project that I need to support (and
occasionally add new features). The project has dependency on a 3rd
party component suite. Is it possible to use VS2005 to code the
project? Will I even be able to load the .net 1.1 project in vs2005?
(typically it asks to convert to vs2005 format). Is is possible to
design a form for this type of a project?

Regards

 

[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Hi Frank,

As for the MS Bee, it is a Visual Studio 2005 add-on that help your VS 2005
developed .NET project/applications also be able to target the former .NET
framework 1.1 runtime. As you know, when you build a .NET application, it
will be referenced/linked to a certain .net framework version(by
referencing the corresonding framework assemblies). By default Visual
Studio 2003 can only product .net application that target .net framework
1.1 class library and runtime and VS 2005 built one can only target 2.0
framework/runtime. So MSBEE's function here is let your application
developed in VS 2005 also be able to reference .NET 1.1 runtime/class
library at build time. However, when developing the application/project,
it still use the .NET 2.0 specific features such as the design-time
features(intelligence) or IDE project template and type. That's why when
you try opening a VS 2003/.NET 1.1 project in vs 2005, it still ask you to
convert the project type.

Therefore, for your scenario here, if you think your winform application
will still target 1.1 framework and also may migrate to .net 2.0 later, you
can consider converting the project to VS 2005 one so that you can build it
against .NET framework 2.0 and by use of MSBEE, you can also make it
reference .NET 1.1 runtime/ library at build time so that the output
application can run against .net framework 1.1.

Is this what you expected? Or if you have any further questions, please
feel free to post here.

Sincerely,

Steven Cheng

Microsoft MSDN Online Support Lead


This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Frank Rizzo]

Hi Frank,

Is this what you expected? Or if you have any further questions, please
feel free to post here.

Thanks, this cleared it up for me.