Visual Basic Concepts Visual Basic Documentation Map

Visual Basic includes many documentation tools, each designed to help you learn and use a particular aspect of the product. The documentation provided with Visual Basic is listed below.
Programmer's Guide

A guide to creating applications with Visual Basic. Explains programming techniques, using frequent examples to show how the techniques work in typical applications.

Using ActiveX Controls

An introduction to the ActiveX controls — formerly called OLE controls — included with the Visual Basic Professional and Enterprise editions. Start here for general information, scenarios of real-life uses, and code. Included in the Component Tools Guide.

Creating ActiveX Components

A guide to creating ActiveX controls, ActiveX documents, and ActiveX code components (formerly OLE servers). Includes introductory step-by-step chapters as well as in-depth design guides. Included in the Component Tools Guide.

Extending the Visual Basic Environment with Add-Ins

A guide to using the Visual Basic extensibility object model to tailor the development environment to your unique needs. Use objects in the model to build add-ins that automate repetitive tasks, monitor the development environment for certain events, or perform complex tasks. Included in the Component Tools Guide.

Accessing DLLs and the Windows API

A guide to enhancing functionality provided by Visual Basic by calling functions in dynamic-link libraries (DLLs). Through DLLs, you can access the thousands of procedures that form the backbone of the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as routines written in other languages. Included in the Component Tools Guide.

Introduction to Internet Applications

An introduction to creating applications that can run on the Internet or an intranet, presenting HTML pages inside forms-based applications, and deploying these applications and other ActiveX components on the Web. Included in the Component Tools Guide.

Data Access Guide

A guide to creating and manipulating databases using Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) and other data access technologies.

Provides a complete reference for features available in all editions of Visual Basic. Includes sections on the programming language, controls, the development environment, and more.

Describes the sample applications provided with Visual Basic.

Provides an overview and complete reference for Data Access Objects, a programming model that allows you to programmatically access and manipulate data in local or remote databases, and to manage databases, their objects and their structure.

A guide to using Microsoft Repository, an extensible object modeling system that allows full programmatic access via Automation objects. Microsoft Repository comes with the Repository Add-in, a Visual Basic add-in module that automatically stores and maintains the structure of your Visual Basic projects in an object-oriented data repository.

Other Documentation

You may find the following sets of documentation useful; these are located elsewhere in the MSDN™ library.

Provides introductory material about ASP.

Internet Information Services are a platform for creating ASP pages and developing Web applications.

Web Workshop (formerly known as "Internet Client SDK")

Contains information about a variety of technologies that Microsoft has developed to facilitate development of Internet applications and content, including dynamic HTML.

Provides information about ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), OLE DB, and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC).

Provides information about the Microsoft Repository, which produces a common place to persist information about objects and relationships between them.

This toolkit covers Transact-SQL, programming ODBC for SQL, and much more.

Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) is a component-based transaction processing system for developing, deploying, and managing high-performance, scalable, and robust enterprise, Internet, and intranet server applications.

A guide to using the Database Designer and Query Designer to create data-driven applications that rely on live connections to Microsoft SQL Server databases.

Explains how to use the Help browser and find information in the Microsoft Developer Network Library.

Describes a tool that stores, organizes, and shares reusable components.

A guide to using Visual SourceSafe, an easy-to-use tool for storing files, controlling access to files, and maintaining multiple versions of files.

A guide to distributed application development for business-critical data management. This book includes information on designing solutions based on a flexible architecture, developing large-scale data access strategies, and creating integrated solutions with Visual Studio tools.

Under Books in the table of contents, you can also find Advanced Microsoft Visual Basic 5, Hardcore Visual Basic, Internet Programming with Visual Basic 5.0, and the Microsoft Jet Database Engine Programmer's Guide.