Editorial Review
More than just a programming language, Visual Basic .NET is a visual development tool for Windows. Building an application is a matter of first creating a visual interface using the drag-and-drop form designer, and then writing code to bring the interface to life. Visual Basic is popular with beginners because the language has an English-like syntax and the visual tools make it easy to get started. The same qualities enable professionals to work faster, making this a great tool for business use as well.
Visual Basic .NET is substantially different from earlier versions. It builds applications for the .NET Framework, a run-time layer with improved security and reliability. In order to achieve this, Microsoft made numerous changes to the language. Most of these are beneficial, including full object orientation with inheritance, but the new Visual Basic is not compatible with the old. To migrate an old project you use an upgrade wizard, followed by manual fine-tuning. Applications built with Visual Basic .NET no longer support Windows 95, while for development, Windows NT 4.0, 2000, or XP is needed.
Despite these heavy system requirements, there is a lot to like in Visual Basic .NET. Perhaps the best feature is that developers can build applications for the Web almost as easily as for Windows. These have to be hosted on a Windows Web server, but can be accessed through browsers running on any platform, using a technology called ASP.NET. There is a host of components available, both in the box and from third parties, for true rapid application development. It is also a good choice for database development. Microsoft's ADO.NET database API uses a disconnected model, fitting well with the world of laptops and other mobile devices. XML support is good, including the ability to program XML Web services, which enable applications to communicate over the Internet. Developers can also build software for the Pocket PC and other Windows CE devices, using a downloadable add-on called Smart Device Extensions.
Visual Basic .NET has a superb development environment, although you need to double the minimum system requirements for good performance. The main work area is tabbed so that integrated online help appears alongside the code and the visual design surface. Tool windows can be docked, floated, or hidden. Automatic code completion and dynamic help speed coding, while ToolTips reveal the type of any variable. For deployment, there is a setup wizard and a setup project type.
Overall, this is a powerful tool with few limits on what can be achieved. --Tim Anderson, Amazon.co.uk
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Customer Reviews
This should be a trial package 
2002-10-24
I wrote a small program consisting of several forms. You'd think it would be easy to deploy using the wizard, right? No. You can't just click a few buttons and create a program file that will run on any Windows Machine.
I went to the exe file that was in my programs folder and moved it to my desktop. Guess what? You can't even move the exe file and have a program run like a normal exe file. Creating your own programs for fun that you can share with others is not doable with this product, which is what I wanted.
My advice is, stick to VB 6 if you don't need this for work or school and haven't upgraded to Windows XP,
A not so Basic BASIC 
2002-10-21
First: Be aware you must have Windows XP Pro, not the home edition.(or one of the other OS's listed).
This is an OK system. I only bought it because I could not get Visual Basic 6.
This is nothing like the earlier BASIC systems. For example: it take a full page of code just to print one line to a printer.
Somewhere along the line Microsoft has forgotten the concept that BASIC stands for Beginners All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. This is a complex language intended to produce Web XML pages. It integrates Microsofts TOTAL demand to stick to windows and windows forms.
This also comes with ZERO documentation. There is a small book to get you started on a simple project, but the on-line reference is useless.
Plan on spending [money] on books including a language reference to even do the simplest things.
Visual Basic -- finally, just a toy. 
2002-09-26
I've been a professional developer with VB6 Pro for years and found it to be a widely useful product. People accused it of being a "toy language" but with a little ingenuity and a few Windows API calls you can do nearly anything a C/C++ programmer can do, in a fifth the time.
But this edition of Visual Basic is a downgrade. Don't get me wrong, I like the changes Microsoft has made to the language, but the VB.NET Standard package is a hamstrung dog. You can't use it to create DLLs or custom controls, so modularized code goes out the window. They only give you part of the web package, so all the claims about web development are just a lure.
The most irritating thing is that if you buy the next edition up you're paying for C# as well, even though the two languages are using the same libraries and the same runtime and are completely functionally equivalent. I like the design choice, but the no one needs both languages, so why isn't there a Visual Basic.NET Professional edition?
Par for course, Microsoft is stacking redundant features in one box to raise the price. It's just that in this case, the programming language itself has become a mere feature.
What you see is not what's in the box 2002-09-18
The Standard edition does not have an upgrade wizard, the error lookup, nor any built in report tools. I am running an IBM T20 with 128 RAM and being in the IDE for more than an hour slows my machine to a fustrating crawl. It takes on average 37 seconds to switch from code view to object view. I then have to restart the application to get an improvement.
All the features advertised seem to relate to Visual Studio .NET Professional and above, so this product has been a complete decoy. Do waste your money.
People this is the Standard edition 
2002-08-10
...Microsoft Visual Basic Standard edition has always been a crippled version of the Pro version. The compilers and .NET Framework on top of which all versions of VB.NET and VS.NET sit is completely free to download! On top of that Microsoft has made available a free IDE for ASP.NET development called WebMatrix.
If you are looking for a VB.NET counterpart to VB6 Standard edition then, this product fits the bill perfectly.
Now regarding the VB.NET language and the Framework, anyone who claims this is "as slow is Java" is running on outdated hardware or doesn't have enough memory for the VM. If you have a Pentium 3 based system with 256-MEG or greater, you're .NET apps will run so close to native code speed it will be near impossible to tell they are "managed", if you were to code the same functionality in Java2 and run it on the same hardware spec it would still run about half the speed of the .NET code.
The managed framework is largely based around Java2, but it has many improvements over J2EE, most notable is transparent support for WebServices and ASP.NET (which I have discovered is a beautiful thing).
Start here or start elsewhere, if you are currently using Visual Studio 6, you need to move on up. Give VB.NET one month and you'll never look back.
Best Buy For the Price 
2003-05-01
Visual Basic.NET Standard is the best buy for the money. For all the people that think this version is crippled. It's not, you just have to do a little more work with it.
This is not a trial version, the people that made that complaint are either too lazy to learn to code and are dependant on wizards ( scary ) or just lazy. You can do alot with this package and for the money like I said before this is
an excellent buy.
As Far as not being able to compile dll's yes you can if you write your own project wizard, like I did :)
Things VB.NET Standard CAN DO
Windows Apps
Web Apps
Console Apps
Web Services
AND Yes Class Libraries if you know what you are doing.
It's a 1.0 version 2003-02-08
I like some of the new features, but VB6 was a more mature product. I was frustrated in that I spent a couple hundred dollars on additional books and all assumed you had visual studio.net. I am selling this to fund my purchase of Visual Studio.net. As someone said, it is handy if you want to start learning and delay purchase of visual studio.net for a few months.
Incredibly powerful & easy 2002-12-25
I'm not sure why everyone is complaining about Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), when this software is so powerful.
First, let me say that it's true VB.NET Standard Edition is somewhat crippled in that it doesn't let you create DLL's or mobile apps for WinCE devices. Nor does it include Crystal Reports, or some other features you'd find in VB.NET Professional/Enterprise. However, it's perfect for making small utilities/applications.
Most of my programming experience has been with Perl, PHP, Java, C, C++. I had a little exposure to Visual Basic in college, but I had forgotten everything I had learned about it. With VB.NET standard and _Visual Basic .NET Step by Step_ (ISBN: 0-7356-1374-5) I was able to write a fully functional and moderately complex application (and distribute it with the included Windows installer) in about 2 weeks time. I was astounded by the low learning curve.
There are two different types of programs you can create with VB.NET, those based on Windows forms and those based on Web forms. Windows forms would be your traditional type of Windows application, while Web forms are designed to work through the Internet. I have no VB.NET experience creating Web forms, but the features look promising.
VB.NET is different than earlier versions of VB because it is built around the .NET framework. The .NET framework works more like Java. Your programs are converted to bytecode which runs on the .NET framework (which your users must install to run your apps). That would probably explain why it is slower than older VB compilers.
In the past, applications created with Visual C++ would run faster than those made with VB. This is no longer the case. All Visual Studio Languages (C#, C++ and VB) all compile to .NET bytecode. Because the resulting bytecode is the same, you choose the language whose syntax you are most familiar with.
I feel the benefits of switching to .NET are worth the performance loss. Because .NET is Microsoft's answer to Java, everything is now heavily dependant on Objects. OO programming with VB.NET is incredibly simple. Chances are any structure or function/method you'd like to use is already written - you just need to find the proper namespace in the .NET framework, import it into your code and then create an instance of the object you want. It's OO at its best.
I would definitely not recommend VB.NET to people who have no programming experience. You need to get your feet wet with something else before delving into this.
Just to clarify compatibility issues; VB.NET requires WinNT, Win2k, or WinXP Professional. It's my understanding that it will work on WinXP Home for applications, but you need XP Pro for creating/testing Web forms.
Download Sun One Studio 4 for FREE! 2002-11-21
Sun ONE Studio 4 Community Edition is FREE. If you want to self-eduate yourself in how to develop web applications, it is a good choice.
Good For Students 2002-10-27
I'm a student in an advanced VB class and I've only had one problem with this software so far. I haven't worked with web pages yet, so for a student this is pretty fair. If you want to include a database in your projects, make sure you have Microsoft Office or the full version of Access 2000 or greater. I have Microsoft Works (which doesn't include Access or .mdb files) which is not supported by VB.NET. Now I have to buy yet another Microsoft product!!! I have the XP Home Edition, which has supported VB.NET very well, opposed to some of the reviews that stated they had problems with the compatibility of the two.
