Micro Focus Enterprise Developer 3.0 for Visual Studio 2017 > Welcome > New Customers: Where do I start? > Upgrading from Mainframe Express

Upgrading from Mainframe Express

Enterprise Developer enables you to develop applications that run on the mainframe or offload applications from the mainframe and develop them locally on Windows. If you are upgrading from Mainframe Express, you can move your existing applications to Enterprise Developer and continue to develop them in the new environment.

Where to start?

Enterprise Developer includes a number of resources to help you get started with developing applications with Mainframe Subsystem support:

If you've never used Microsoft's Visual Studio before, see New to Visual Studio.
Complete the Tutorial: Getting Started with Offload Development of Mainframe Applications that demonstrates techniques and features of Enterprise Developer for creating and maintaining mainframe applications.
See the available Tutorials on Mainframe Applications for more examples of applications you can create with Enterprise Developer.
See Developing Applications for more information about creating applications.

What next?

Once you are familiar with the IDE, you can import your existing code in Enterprise Developer.

See How to upgrade an application created with Mainframe Express for an explanation of what you need to install and an overview of the process of upgrading existing applications.
See the Upgrading to Enterprise Developer guide for full details on upgrading your applications from Mainframe Express to Enterprise Developer, the changes between the two products and what technologies are not supported or have been superseded.
Also, see Backward Compatibility with Earlier Micro Focus Products.