Today we launched the Interop Forms Toolkit 2.0, which makes it easier than ever to upgrade VB6 applications to .NET.  This new release builds on version 1.0 by adding support for the following features:

• Interop UserControls – These are .NET controls that can be hosted on existing VB6 Forms.  These controls look and feel just like regular ActiveX controls, but you build them the same way you would any other .NET control.
• MDI Support – One of the big pieces of feedback we heard after the initial release was that MDI support was very important.  With the introduction of Interop UserControls, you can now extend your MDI forms with .NET content.
• Redistributable Package – The toolkit’s runtime now appears in the Prerequisites dialog in Visual Studio Setup Projects, so deploying your hybrid application is very simple.

In the picture below you can see we’ve got a VB6 Form hosting a .NET UserControl which contains a MenuStrip and a ToolStrip.  By inserting default items, we can build a control containing a MenuStrip and a ToolStrip, and hook it into VB6 – all in less than a minute!

Any public Properties, Methods, or Events defined in the UserControl are visible to VB6.  You can also use My.InteropToolbox to raise application-level events and access Global variables.

You can download the toolkit here, and if you have questions you can contact Microsoft Developer Support or post questions at the Visual Basic Interop & Upgrade forum.

We’re always interested in your feedback, so please let us know if there’s a feature you’d like us to add!  You can post comments below or send mail to vbpwrpk@microsoft.com.

Jonathan