Visual Basic Express is the cutdown version of VB.net or Visual basic 2005 as it is now called, I even struggle to keep up with the latest versions must admit, good old Mircosoft!!

VB5 and VB6 have been very popular and used alot over the years, but as life moves on, like any other develpment tools they get upgraded to suit the latest operating systems.

I have tried to migrate a few of my applications to Visual basic 2005 from VB6 but it falls over on a few bits of code and so personaly I stick to VB6 for now, but no dought I will have to find time and force myself to look at VB2005 in more depth one day.

I have no idea what they have taken out of VB Express 2005 compared to what is in the full version.
You are best to check the Microsoft site.

Years ago VB6 came in several flavours and the low end version release did not include the Comm components, so for example you could not write applications that used the serial port, without either upgrading or getting the extra components from somewhere else.

I know the sample code that gets produced with EasyHid is for VB5 but it works fine in VB6. It did not work in Visual Basic 2005 for me when trying to do a quick conversion, but I am sure with a bit of time and tweaking it hopefully will.

Regards

Sean.