VB/VS 60 vs VB/VS.NET

[MoKav]

I have Office XP Pro and Developer Edition and SQL Server
installed on my local development machine.

I also have the option of installing
Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise Edition

AND/OR (????)

Visual Studio.NET Enterprise Architect Edition.


I would prefer to move forward with the .NET but...

My question to you is if I use the VS.NET can I design
VB.Net code or standalone modules to be compatible or
interact with existing Access Databases/Office 2000 and
Office XP?

Is it okay -- even advisable to have VS6 and VS.Net
installed on a single local machine with one partition?

I need to install one of these tonight. My main use will
be VB for now but web apps later. Your thoughts are
most appreciated.

Thanks,
Mo

 

[Eric]

I would go with .NET, and yes .NET can interact with
Office 2000 / Access 2000 and Office XP. Yes multiple
versions of Visual Studio can exist one one machine. I
work on a laptop with Visual Studio 6.0, Visual
Studio .NET 2002 and Visual Studio .NET 2003 with no
problems.

Good Luck.

 

[Robert Jacobson]

Yes, you can do Office development with VB.Net. I'm using it to build a
Microsoft Word add-in without any (major) problems. You can use the Office
VBA automation model, just as you can with VB6.

Office Development
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/using/building/office/default.aspx

You might also be interested in the upcoming Visual Studio Tools for Office
technology that Microsoft is developing -- it's designed to make it easier
to integrate VB.Net and C# code into Microsoft Word documents.
(Unfortunately, it's only for Word 2003.)

Just make sure that you're familiar with VB.Net before plunging in -- it's
very different from VB6. (It's really an entirely new language that has
similar syntax to classic VB.) There are some good books on how to migrate
from VB6 to VB.Net. I like "Moving to VB .NET: Strategies, Concepts, and
Code, Second Edition" by Dan Appleman and "Programming VB .NET: A Guide For
Experienced Programmers" by Gary Cornell and Jonathan Morrison.

Hope this helps,
Robert Jacobson

 

[A.A. Fussy]

You need 2000/XP/Server 2003 to use .NET first