This section will help you upgrade an application written using a previous version of the SocketTools Scripting Edition. In most cases, the modifications required will be minimal and may only require a few edits and recompiling the program. However, it is recommended that you review this entire guide so that you understand what changes were made and how those changes can be implemented in your software.

Supported Platforms

SocketTools 6.0 is supported on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista. There have been a significant number of internal changes in the core networking code used by the SocketTools scripting objects which take advantage of features that are specific to those platforms. Earlier versions of the operating system, including Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 3.51 and Windows NT 4.0 are no longer supported by Microsoft. Using SocketTools on an unsupported platform may require that the user install additional system components such as the Microsoft Layer for Unicode and the latest available version of Internet Explorer.

Windows Vista

The SocketTools 6.0 Scripting Edition has been specifically designed for full compatibility with the Windows Vista operating system. Developers who are redistributing applications which target Vista should upgrade to the version 6.0 scripting components to ensure compatibility with that platform. It is strongly recommended that you review the Vista section of the Microsoft website and familiarize yourself with the changes in the operating system and specifically how the User Account Object (UAC) system works.

Development Tools

The SocketTools 6.0 scripting components may be used with any programming language that supports the Component Object Model (COM). This includes scripting languages such as VBScript, as well as languages such as Visual Basic 6.0, Visual FoxPro and PowerBuilder. Although the components may be used with Visual Basic .NET and Visual C#, it is strongly recommended that you use the SocketTools .NET Edition if you are creating applications for the .NET Framework.

If you are developing on the Windows Vista platform, Microsoft only supports Visual Studio 2005. Earlier versions of Visual Studio are unsupported and may require that you use those development tools with elevated privileges. If you are using Visual Studio 6.0 or Visual Studio .NET 2003 and cannot upgrade to Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft recommends that you continue to develop on the Windows XP or Windows 2000 platform. Applications built on those platforms can be installed on Windows Vista, and Vista fully supports both the Visual Basic 6.0 runtime and .NET 1.1 Framework. It is recommended that you download the current service packs available for Visual Studio .NET 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 from Microsoft. Additionally, if you are using Visual Studio 2005 it is recommended that you download the current Windows SDK which targets the Vista platform.

Upgrading From Version 4.0

If you are upgrading from SocketTools 4.0 or 4.5 your applications will be source-compatible with version 6.0 and will not require changes to your existing code. The only requirement is to reference the new scripting objects. Note that the component file names have changed, as have their class IDs and interfaces. This means that the new components are not binary compatible and are not drop-in replacements for the version 4.0 components.

An application should not attempt to reference both the 4.0 and 5.0 versions of a component within an application. When upgrading to version 5.0, first remove all references to the 4.0 object, save the project and reload it. Then add the reference to the 5.0 object, ensuring that the same object name is used. It is recommended that you specify the version number as part of the ProgID when creating an instance of the component using the CreateObject method. In other words, to create an instance of the FTP object, use "SocketTools.FtpObject.6" and not simply "SocketTools.FtpObject". If the version number is omitted, the latest version of the object will always be loaded.

The runtime license key has also changed for version 6.0, which will require you to define the new key in your application when calling the component's Initialize method. As with previous versions of SocketTools, you can use the License Manager utility to generate a file which contains the runtime key you should use. The version 4.0 runtime key is not valid for the version 6.0 components and an error will be returned if an invalid runtime key is specified.

Component File Names

The file names of the scripting components and their IDs have changed with the new version. The following table lists the new values which should be used in your application.

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