Upgrade Web App from .Net 5.0 (3.1) to 8.0 --- by MS Upgrade Assistant

The next, choose components to upgrade, this seems does not make any sense, we usually choose all of them => Click Update selection to start to update:

Once your app has been upgraded, a status screen is displayed which shows all of the artifacts related to your project that were associated with the upgrade. Each upgrade artifact can be expanded to read more information about the status. Such as, in our case:

The following list describes the status icons:

• Filled green checkmark: The artifact was upgraded and completed successfully.
• Unfilled green checkmark: The tool didn't find anything about the artifact to upgrade.
• Yellow warning sign: The artifact was upgraded, but there's important information you should consider.
• Red X: The artifact was to be upgraded, but the upgrade failed.

In our case, there are three Filled green checkmark:

• Willdan.Viewpoint.Document.Service.csproj
• Microsoft.Extension.Http.500
• Finalize.project dependencies

Those indicates the artifact was upgraded and completed successfully, while the others are all Unfilled green checkmark: The tool didn't find anything about the artifact to upgrade.

The upgrade is done, and successful --- compilable, at least for this case.

E - Evaluation of the Upgrade Assistant Method

In this evaluation, we will evaluate the effects and correctness of the Upgrade Assistant Method, and compare it with the manual method, introduced from article: Upgrade .Net Core Web App from .Net 5.0 (3.1) to 8.0 --- Manually.

Sample 1: --- diff

For the case above, we got the changed files from Git:

We can see, the only upgrade is the

• TargetFramework version, plus
• Microsoft.Extension.Http

while the same app, if we use the manual method to upgrade, which will upgrade both TargetFramework and Package references, the result is

Compared, we can see, the Upgrade Assistant method is only equivalent to the manual method the first step: Upgrade the .Net Version, or the TargetFramework, without updating the Package References.

Sample 2: --- same, good

The following two cases, they are exactly the same by both Upgrade Assistant or manual method.

Upgrade Assistant:

Manually:

This is a very simple sample, only TargetFrame needs to be upgraded, so they are the same.

Sample 3: --- same, good

Upgrade Assistant:

Manually:

This sample, only involved for upgrading are Microsoft Entity Framework, besides the TargetFramework. So, Upgrade Assistant can handle correctly.

Sample 4: diff

Upgrade Assistant:

Manually

Sample 5: diff, Assistant changes more

Upgrade Assistant:

Manually

In this case, Upgrade Assistant made more modifications shown in the graph above in red frames, further more, it changed some code: added code:

However, it will causes more errors, even not happened in the Manually Method, such as

Summary of E, the comparisons between Manual Upgrade Method and the Upgrade Assistant.

• Most situations, the Upgrade Assistant is only quivalent to the Manual Method the first step: Upgrade the .Net version or the TargetFramework, without updating the Pachkage References
• In very simple situations, without much or any pachage used, such as the Model Project, these two methods are eiquivalent.
• in few situation, the Assistant may change more than Manual method.

Conclusion:

These two ways are almost equivalent,

• Using Upgrade Assistant, you cannot complete your Upgrading task, you have to make the second step like what Manual Method does, to upgrade the package references.
• Using manual method is OK, but might miss some feature that Upgrade Assistant caught.

They may be used independently, or used together to make a better solution.

References:

• Upgrade Assistant | .NET (microsoft.com)
• Overview of the .NET Upgrade Assistant - .NET Core | Microsoft Learn
• How to install the .NET Upgrade Assistant - .NET Core | Microsoft Learn