Seeking migration advice

[Joseph Geretz]

I don't know if this is the right group for my question, but I'm seeking
advice from knowledgable .NET developers. Hopefully I've come to the right
place.

I work with a document management application which is tightly integrated
with the workstation Windows environment. Our software does not necessarily
handle any specific document type. User's can import any document type into
our repository. On the display side, we use WinAPI to discover the
associated application for a particular file type, and then to launch that
document with its associated application. To make matters even more
seamless, the native application is embedded into our own application
desktop space, again, using the WinAPI. I can safely say that this
particular VB application is more dependent on WinAPI than any other VB
application I have worked with.

We are contemplating a move to .NET, and a conversion of our Client / Server
architecture to n-Tier. The server side tier will definitely be implemented
using .NET Web Services. Given our dependency on Win32 at the client though,
I'm wrestling with whether the Framework environment at the client will
allow me the close integration we need with the Windows environment and with
the applications registered in that environment, to do the sort of API
operations I've described above. Although I've done several front-to-back
n-tier implementations in .NET, none of them have had this sort of
dependency on Win32 at the client, so I don't really have any frame of
reference to make this determination. Has anyone out there done .NET
implementations with heavy dependency on Win32 API?

Thanks for any advice which you can offer.

- Joe Geretz -

[Bob Grommes]

Joseph,

You will probably get some guff from people for cross-posting to so many
groups.

Anyhow ... you can certainly make API calls from .NET. Because of the
strongly-typed environment it is not as "forgiving" even in VB.NET, as is
VB6; you have to carefully define all the marshalling.

The superb book, ".NET and COM -- the Complete Interpoerabilit y Guide." (by
Nathan, published by SAMS) has a great section on P/Invoke and an extensive
appendix of P/Invoke definitions for hundreds of WinAPI calls. You might
want to consult that volume before making your decision.

--Bob

"Joseph Geretz" <jg*****@nospam .com> wrote in message
news:Oq******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP11.phx.gbl...

Given our dependency on Win32 at the client though,
I'm wrestling with whether the Framework environment at the client will
allow me the close integration we need with the Windows environment and with the applications registered in that environment, to do the sort of API
operations I've described above.

[Michael Culley]

"Joseph Geretz" <jg*****@nospam .com> wrote in message news:Oq******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP11.phx.gbl...

I don't know if this is the right group for my question, but I'm seeking
advice from knowledgable .NET developers. Hopefully I've come to the right
place.

You won't have any problems with APIs in .net, it is much more flexible than VB6. I've done an API that uses a fair bit of apis for
TWAIN and Video for Windows and had no problems (besides the usual api problems :). The only problem you might have is that it is
sometimes more complicated due to it's greater flexibility.

--
Michael Culley