upgrade from 7.3 to 8.2

[SAMI AHMAD]

I remember reading somewhere that its possible to convert the application image to the new version without having to recompile.. is it possible and if yes how?
We lost the source of few images and I am looking for ways to be able to upgrade to 8.2

thanks

[SAMI AHMAD]

i forgot to put in the platform .its AlphaServer GS160 6/1001

[Wim Van den Wyngaert · Accepted solution]

It's possible. We run 6.2 on 7.3.
But not guaranteed ! And bugs may behave differently.

Wim

[Art Wiens]

I believe you're remembering reading about running VAX images on an Alpha without recompiling:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/products/omsva/omsva.html

You might not have to recompile your application when going from Alpha v7.3 to Alpha v8.2, but you'ld have to try it.

Good luck,
Art

[SAMI AHMAD]

hi Wim !
can you tell more about what kind of bugs you encountered or problems running 6.2 images on 7.2 ?

[Andy Bustamante]

If you're staying on the same platform, as rule code compliled on an earlier version of VMS will run on a later version. Your best option of course is to test the application.

While you're upgrading, why not go to VMS 8.3?

Andy

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

- shareable library mismatch : copy the old ones and use logicals specific for the program(s)

- the calls done by your program are no longer compatble or returning new terurn values that your program isn't testing.

But 99.9% of the programs will run fine. HP will say 99.99999%.

Once we switched from decnet 4 to 5 and had problems of return values that were to be added. No details left ...

Wim

[SAMI AHMAD]

Thanks for all your replies . yes I am going to upgrade to 8.3 if we do upgrade. Everyone was in the impression here that we cant upgrade because we are missing source code for two images but it seems that even HP supports moving images without recompiling from one VMS version to other on same platform.

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Also read this
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=655880

Most of the problems were bugs but you could be the finder of some too.

Wim

[Hoff]

Here's something relevant that I helped write some years ago...

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/binary_compatibility.html