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Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) migration solution for ISVs

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is an embeddable programming environment, designed to enable developers to build custom solutions using Microsoft Visual Basic. VBA was first introduced in 1993, and one year later Microsoft started licensing it to ISVs.

For years, customers have been asking Microsoft for a more secure, more scalable application customization that leverages the skills their developers have in .NET technology. Microsoft’s new Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) delivers on that with .NET-based security, support for 64-bit processors, and a full IDE built on the Visual Studio 2005 environment. VSTA is a .NET-based application customization technology designed to be embedded into applications to enable developers to create custom experiences on top of those applications. VSTA enables independent software vendors (ISVs) to provide extensible software solutions with a minimum of effort.

VSTA consists of an IDE used by ISVs to build VSTA support into an object model they can expose in their application, a runtime engine, and an end-user IDE which communicates with the object model. It includes a software development kit (SDK) for integrating a customer interface object model into the ISV application and an end-user IDE incorporating Visual Basic .NET and C#. The application then uses the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime (CLR) for development and production.

Recently, the level of investment made by VBA partners in their .NET applications has increased considerably. Many will decide to integrate VSTA into their existing VBA-enabled products and that, in turn, will create a strong demand among their customers for the migration of their VBA code to the .NET Framework.

ArtinSoft now provides its Freedom® migration technology and expertise to ISVs who have integrated Microsoft VBA into their products and choose to integrate VSTA into their .NET applications. We have designed this new solution to meet the migration needs of VBA partners worldwide. The core of the solution is a recasting of the ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade Companion in order to process VBA projects effectively and then efficiently convert them into fully natural VSTA solutions through the migration and restructuring of their original code. Summit Software , which has supported hundreds of VBA partners since 1996, has provided invaluable input into the design of our new solution. We are currently working closely with Summit to deliver this support program to the VBA community.

The first step is an initial consulting engagement aimed towards designing a migration strategy with the VBA partner. For more information, please contact us