Knowing When to Upgrade .NET Versions And How To Get Your Boss On Board

Why is upgrading to a new version of .NET important? Is it worth the time and effort? How often should we upgrade? These are the questions we will answer in today's episode of Dev Questions.

[JALEMYmeservey]

Very relevent topic. I have two relatively large applications that are running on .NET 4.8. I'm the only developer at a medium sized company and the choice is all mine to make. The dilemma I have is that it appears this particular version of .NET framework isn't going any where for apparently forever. Meanwhile .NET is being updated at a break neck pace. I'm only updating my .NET apps when an LTS version is released. If I go away from .NET 4.8 I feel like I'll be stuck on this feverish update cycle that Microsoft is on. But like you say if I stay on a particular framework for too long than you get stuck when you reach a point of not being able to upgrade. I think I've come close to that point with these two apps. What options are available for upgrading from .NET 4.8 to say .NET 8? It's not a simple matter of changing the target framework selection in Visual Studio. Is there any sign from Microsoft that they will slow down the cadence of .NET releases in the future? Currently it seems significantly faster than in the .NET framework days.

[DalTron]

How would you convince your boss to let you upgrade without re-writing the whole database? I upgraded to the latest version on our main application, but it uses some controls that we don't want to pay for, so it would take me some time to either get different controls or make our own, but they figure we should rewrite the db before that. Even though we are still on 4.5.2

[CRBarchager]

7:20 No. .NET 6 is end of support November 12, 2024. .NET 7 was end of support in May 14, 2024. .NET 8 is supported until November 10, 2026 and .NET 9 which will be released in November, 2024 will be end of support in May of 2026.

[xavierbatlle]

I use .Net 4.7 framework to develop com components and libraries. I'm not sure if I can develop com libraries for Ms Office using .Net 8

[swordblaster]

Code doesn't magically stop working. Framework isn't going away, there's something to be said for a rock solid runtime that doesn't fricking change every couple of years. Customers don't give a crap about the latest and greatest, they want their software to keep working.

[mikey]

so, is it even versions are major updates, odd versions are minimal updates for .net?

[bogella]

When ever I update an application, I speak with its owner to find what features they dont need anymore because changing business needs.

[CRBarchager]

We're still on .NET 4.7/4.8 with multi solutions but are working on converting or just plain start over on .NET 8 with all solutions. For the most part all our common libraries are created with .NET 2.0 to maintain the compatibility and being able to used old code until we can get rid of it.

[faisalalhoqani]

Great episode dear Tim, Thank you, and keep it up.

[andywalter]

I have one question. I have a case where I am actually stuck with .net framework 3.5. I write random map scripts for age of empires online. that game was back in 2012 and was brought back but they have no source code so all the random map scripts has to be .net 3.5 even that works on even the latest windows so a person is not stuck on old windows. would that be an exception where a person is stuck on the older version of .net framework (even though i actually like .net 8 and even .net 9 when .net 9 releases).