# Visual Basic 6 to Visual Basic Express 2005



## BWA (Jun 9, 2005)

Hi,

A fair while ago, I started to learn Visual Basic 6 through a 10 week evening class which I loved, but then left it alone.

I am now looking to get back into Visual Basic and I was recommended to download Visual Basic Express 2005 to use.

I have dusted off my Visual Basic 6 books and I have started to learn again using self-study, but I am finding the Visual Basic Express 2005 GUI quite different from the VB 6 Working Model that I used to use (which I have since lost).

Can anyone give me some advice on the following points:

Should I continue to use Visual Basic Express 2005 or am I going down the wrong route and making things harder for myself?

If Visual Basic Express 2005 is the best route, how can I bridge the gap as I can not seem to find any course books/text books on VB Eexpress - do they exist?

If VB 6 is the best route using my self-study books, how can I get hold of a copy of the working model as I can not afford to buy the VB 6 package outright at the moment?

Are there any DVD or CD-ROM tutorials exist that will help me to get back into VB?

Any help from anyone more experienced that myself (that is not hard) would be greatly appricated.

Many Thanks,

Brendon.


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## clark (Nov 28, 2003)

hi bwa

I'm an undergaduate who'll be starting his third year in September. When I first started, one environment we used was VB6. When we can back after the holidays, we had moved to VB.net. I wouldn't go back now. 

I use the Enterprise ed. which comes with Crystal Reports and other stuff but my advice is get yourself a copy of VB.net Standard to start with - it's quite cheap (£60 in the UK). You have to remember that Visual Basic Express is aimed at non-professional developers which to me seems to be saying that it is quite limited in what it can do (although I might be wrong). I also doubt that Express provides a copy of MSDN which is essential.

I wouldn't bother with VB6 anymore. Dot net is the way forward, so upgrade now - you'll have to eventually anyway. And a lot of people have found it quite frustrating trying to convert programs which they have worked on for a long time from 6 to Dot net and finding they don't convert properly and thus having to start over again. 

There's a lot of differences between the old version and the new: 
* XML, 
* it's very good for developing web applications,
* some file handling techniques are different (e.g. ram files are no longer supported), 
* the intellisense seems much better, 
* it structures your code, 
* connecting to databases is easier than ever through the server explorer,
etc, etc.

I'm sure there are plenty of people here who could add to that list.
This could be be a good starting place: http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/vb/


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## BWA (Jun 9, 2005)

Thank you Clark, that is great advice and I think that I will do just what you have suggested.

Thank you.

Bren.


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