>>>>Hi folks,
>>>>
>>>>I just received Visual Studio 6.0 (finally!) and I want to upgrade my VFP 5.0 installation to 6.0. Any issues after installing?
>>>>Do I have to re-compile my entire application?
>>>>What about ActiveX controls and FLLs? Do they need to be upgraded also?
>>>>
>>>>Thanks in advance.

I have recently upgraded and took into account the things that have already been commented on, but one thing tripped me up. Grids behave differently under 6 than they do under 5 - I had to change the properties of my SQL rowsource grids. In 5 you could set your grid to SQL and put your SELECT to a cursor in the rowsource, then you could refer to that cursor as the ControlSource of the Columns and/or Textboxes contained in the Columns. This produces an error in 6, as the Cursor does not exist until the Grid is Initialised, which is after the Columns and Textboxes are initialised. So in 6 you either have to move your cursor creation to before the grid is initialised, or let the grid set the fields itself from the cursor (which is fine as long as you SELECT in the right order and don't allow column moving), or programatically set the columns after the grid is initialised.

I also found that some of my grids behaved differently under VFP5 after VFP6 was installed. I think something was replaced that VFP5 now uses, but I can't prove this - I can't think of any other reason for the change in behavior.

Also the debugger behaves differently with the AlwaysOnTop property of a form. In order for the errors to show, I have had to set this to .f., otherwise the error messages are under the form I am trying to debug!

VFP6, with SP3 is slightly more stable than 5, though I have still hung my machine a few times. It has a smoother 'feel' and drop down combos seem to run better.

Finally, when trying to put VFP6 on, you have to have a recent version of Internet Explorer - If you use Netscape, the installation can automatically set all your file associations - and that is a pain. Also it requires you to install DCOM 98 - a process which trashed Win95 on my Compaq laptop completely. I had to do a complete reinstall and haven't been able to fix it completely yet. ( A program like TrialBlazer from Procode is a useful investment if you don't want to risk that problem). There is also one other program that the setup requires to be installed before it will finally let you install VFP6 (I forget the name of that)! And then you must install Service Pack 3 to fix the initial bugs.

I am still questioning myself as to whether it was worth it. The advantages are there, but the time it has cost me is enormous. Hope you have greater success.

David O'Brien