The mscomm thing has been annoying for a while now. I forget whether they removed it before VB5 or VB6 (standard). There are some third party comm components available that you can use. The commercial ones are ridiculously expensive. There are a few free ones out there that really only wrap the mscomm component so that you can use it in your own programs. I don't know if they work with .NET.
The lack of comm support was the single biggest thing to throw me off VB. To me, it was even worse than the other crippling they've done to standard versions. It's been years since I wrote a VB program because of this.
Unfortunately, I haven't really found a good replacement for quick-and-dirty programs that also provides serial port support. Any suggestions?
Edit follows:
By the way, you can download the actual compiler for free. What you are buying when you buy VB .NET Standard is the IDE and associated tools, not the compiler. If you are willing to work with a command line compiler, you don't need this. I don't know how easy it is to build user interfaces without the IDE, though.
I can never find the link for this when I look for it.
Another edit follows:
You can get the .Net SDK from this link:
.NET updates page
The SDK on this page .NET Framework SDK Version 1.1 contains the command line tools you need to compile VB, C++, C#, etc.
I don't know what limitations these have. There may be components that are not included.
I have used these compilers to write a few "Hello World"-type programs in C# but that's about it.
The lack of comm support was the single biggest thing to throw me off VB. To me, it was even worse than the other crippling they've done to standard versions. It's been years since I wrote a VB program because of this.
Unfortunately, I haven't really found a good replacement for quick-and-dirty programs that also provides serial port support. Any suggestions?
Edit follows:
By the way, you can download the actual compiler for free. What you are buying when you buy VB .NET Standard is the IDE and associated tools, not the compiler. If you are willing to work with a command line compiler, you don't need this. I don't know how easy it is to build user interfaces without the IDE, though.
I can never find the link for this when I look for it.
Another edit follows:
You can get the .Net SDK from this link:
.NET updates page
The SDK on this page .NET Framework SDK Version 1.1 contains the command line tools you need to compile VB, C++, C#, etc.
I don't know what limitations these have. There may be components that are not included.
I have used these compilers to write a few "Hello World"-type programs in C# but that's about it.
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