In 1998, Microsoft Visual Basic achieved prominence as the #1 selling programming tool for Microsoft Windows, with an installed base of 3.5 million users. That same year, Halvorson’s Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Step by Step became the #1 selling VB book in North America.

Halvorson’s programming primer is a modular, self-paced learning tutorial featuring 24 one-hour lessons that explore Windows programming and the fundamental techniques of software development.

The first half of the book introduces Visual Basic (VB) and the process of creating event-driven Windows applications with the VB6 Programming System. The second half introduces VB6 Professional Edition tools and techniques, including creating Windows apps with multimedia features and establishing connections to Microsoft Office applications. Also included are tutorials exploring powerful ActiveX controls that manage Web pages, process RTF files, integrate progress bars, and play audio CDs.

Over 250,000 copies sold.