Upgrading ASP.NET from version 1.1 to 2.0 - Any Gotchas?

Question

I know we are really behind the times here, but we are just about to upgrade from .NET 1.1 to .NET 2.0.

Thank you for your sympathy.

Anyhow, are there any gotchas we should look out for?
Do you have any general advice before we jump in?

Please do not post telling me to go straight to 3.5: 2.0 is all we're allowed!

We're using mostly C#.

Answer 1

Yes. The most important thing for you to know is to use a Web Application Project, not a Web Site. Web Sites use a totally different compilation model and migration is pretty much a disaster. Web Application Projects are much more similar to how things worked in 1.1.

We also had an intermittent problem with redirecting from the login screen, but according to Google, we were basically the only ones who had that problem - we've since resolved it.

Most of the other problems we ran into were small and easy to navigate, and the overall experience was a net improvement.

Answer 2

One gotcha is home-grown 1.1 implementations of .NET 2.0 stuff (that was missing in 1.1) like RegistryHandler and so forth. Sometimes your newly-ported 2.0 code will look like it's properly using a 2.0 class when it's really using the home-grown version.

Answer 3

Deployment is another gotcha, if you're upgrading an already-deployed app. You have to switch the .NET version in IIS from 1.1 to 2.0.

Answer 4

Here is my recommendation before upgrading:

• If you are used to use Visual Studio 2003, you will need to go for VS2005. You will have to convert the old solutions and projects so that it will be compatible with VS2005. Make sure to have a backup of the project you're going to convert so that you can roll back or even use it as source for any modification you may need to the converted projects.
• If you're developing web applications using .NET 1.1, make sure that all the virtual directories and applications in the IIS is configured to work with ASP.NET 2.0. You may need also to configure a new Application Pool for your .NET 2.0 applications.
• If you're using any third party libraries in your .NET 1.1 projects, you may need to confirm its compatibility with .NET 2.0 projects. Some old libraries used in .NET 1.1 are not compatible with 2.0.

Answer 5

I remember we had to change some client scripts, because the way ClientIDs are generated for server controls changed from ASP.NET 1.1 to 2.0.

I don't remember the exact circumstances, but some IDs which previously wer prefixed ctl0_ became ctl00_...