Conversion from WinDev 5.5 to WinDev 7..10

This chapter covers tricks and problems concerning the conversion of an application from WinDev 5.5 to WinDev 7..10. While the conversion process is currently extremely efficient (compared to what exists in other languages I used in the past), a few problems remains (and wont go away, as WinDev 7/7.5 is the only version converting from 5.5 and is not being debugged anymore.

Better therefore be aware of the problems before being in trouble...

Converting H/F 5.5 files to H/F 7..10 (also called now H/F Classic): Be sure that the files you are trying to convert (during the migration, or later on with WDConvert) are not in READ ONLY mode AND in the same directory as the target. If it's the case (just copied from the CD done at the customer site?), here is what happens:

• During the conversion, you get an error message for each file saying that the conversion succeeded, but that the copy of a directory that you never heard about didn't.
• After the conversion, the analysis display the files as being H/F 7 (or H/F Classic, depending of your version of WinDev), which is normal, as the structure in the analysis has been marked as seven/classic by the conversion utility, but when you try to open the files in your application, they are still 5.5.

Just remove the read only flag and redo the conversion, and everything will work fine. Too bad the error message during the conversion doesn't say that the file cannot be copied because the target is read only.