VS Studio 2008 VB.Net Winform - can it be run on a MAC?

Question

Hi,

Our company has a handful of Mac users. I recently built a Winform application and now my main user is using a Mac. Is it possible to run this application on a Mac? What would have to be done to convert it? If it is too much, I may just rebuild it is asp.net as a web application.

Thanks in advance!

JCC

Answer 1

Depending a bit on features and controls used, it may run on Mono. Since you can run Mono on Windows as well it's rather easy to download and test it.

Answer 2

Maybe. Many .Net programs can be compiled with mono as well, winforms usually is not a problem, but some libraries (e. g. MS Office libraries for editing Excel files). I am not sure about VB, as mono coders mostly use C#, but you can analyse your code with the Mono Migration Analyzer for portability to mono.

Answer 3

Your basic options are (from least intrusive to most intrusive, from the point of view of a Mac user):

1. Convert it to a web app.
2. Run it on a Terminal Server and have them use Remote Desktop.
3. Run the application in a virtual machine (VMWare or Parallels) that is running Windows.
4. Try to get it running under Mono.

If there isn’t a strong reason for it to be a desktop application, you really should be thinking in terms of web apps for new applications—at least, that’s an unwritten rule where I work.