Just a quick update on 8.5 Beta II

In this update we have re-visited Migration from DFW 5.x and 6.x to DE8.5.

As it turns out this is not straight forward (big wonder), especially if you mix in Language, date-format, decimal separator, base year.... Need I say more..

What we found is that the main backstop is that DataEase migration has not properly supported the migration of extended characters so in 8.5 we have re-introduce the Ansi-ASCII conversion that was the life save in DFW 5.x to 6.53.

Quick Recipe:

1. Change Base year in app to 75 (same as default in DE85). If you don't do this you will get all the dates in the application corrupt.
2. Make sure you use the correct decimal separator i.e the same as  you used in DFW 5.x and 6.x. Comma for most european language. If you don't do this , every bit of code that use a decimal number in the code will not work/compile
3. Take a backup in DFW 5.x or 6.x and restore it all to a fresh app (reorganizing the entire app this way).
4. Make sure you copy the correct covert.mig into DE8.5. i.e. rename convert.mig to international.mig and then rename norwegian.mig to convert.mig if  you are converting a NORWEGIAN app.
5. When migrating, choose again the correct decimal separator and choose the correct date format manually, don't rely on the read from configuration stuff. It don't work 9/10 times.
6. Now it should migrate happily.
7. If you get a lot of error messages when the app is being re-compiled, don't worry and ignore them for now. Open the app in 8.5 and check it over thoroughly. Most times it would now work fine without the errors that the tool gave you as we have implemented a fall back that will make old tables/dqls etc use realtime asciI conversion if they can't be migrated.

8. If it doesn't work. Make sure you have done everything above correctly by doing it all again. 
9. If it still don't work, did  you use the correct Convert.mig? Find the old dataease and send us the demessag.msg (would most likely be named .swe .nor .dan .ger etc in your language) and send it to us and we will create a correct one for you.

Download Migration Files