Help for Visual Basic 6.0 Users

As a veteran developer, you have spent a lot of time and effort learning Visual Basic 6.0. At first glance, it may appear that Visual Basic 2008 is radically different and that you will need to relearn everything. However, while many things have changed, the overall experience of developing in Visual Basic 6.0 is essentially the same. Your knowledge of Visual Basic 6.0 will quickly help you become productive using Visual Basic 2008.

You will need to learn about a number of changes to Visual Basic 6.0 and set aside some old habits. Some language rules, tasks such as debugging and deployment, and even terminology have changed — often in subtle ways. Ultimately, the changes make Visual Basic 2008 easier and more powerful.

The following topics will help you identify the changes in Visual Basic 2008.

In This Section

• Integrated Development Environment for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in development environment.

• Project Management for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in project system.

• Web Programming for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in Web-related development.

• WebClasses for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in WebClass projects (also known as IIS Application projects).

• Data Access for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in data access and data tools.

• Component Authoring for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in component authoring.

• User Controls for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in UserControl projects (also known as ActiveX Control projects). Provides a link to information about the PropertyBag object.

• Windows Forms for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in forms.

• Debugging for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in debugging.

• Setup and Deployment for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in Setup and deployment.

• Localization and Globalization for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in localization.

• Windows API Programming for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in accessing the Windows API.

• Registry Access for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in setting and retrieving registry settings.

• Constant Equivalents for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in constants that have changed in Visual Basic 2008.

• Object Libraries and Namespaces for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Differences and similarities between Visual Basic 6.0 object libraries and namespaces in Visual Basic 2008.

• Run Time Libraries for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Differences between Visual Basic 6.0 run-time files and the .NET Framework common language runtime.

Related Sections

• Language Changes for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in Visual Basic language.

• Windows Forms Controls for Visual Basic 6.0 Users
  Changes in controls.

• Upgrading from Visual Basic 6.0
  Converting applications to Visual Basic 2008.

• What's New in Visual Basic
  New features for Visual Basic 2008.