Introduction to Visual Basics

The first thing you need to do is open a Visual Basic program. From the Windows Start menu, choose Programs, Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0, and then Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0.
When you start VB, you're taken to the Visual Basic Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This is your programming workbench, the place where you create your programs. Notice that the IDE presents what looks like an empty window containing some dots and a title bar with the word Form1. This window is a form, the primary building block of a Visual Basic application. An application can have many forms or one form.

Visual Basic Environment:

VB IDE

IDE is an acronym for Integrated Development Environment. The IDE is the workbench on which you make your programs in Visual Basic.

The Visual Basic IDE is a collection of menus, toolbars, and windows that make up your programming workbench . Each part of the IDE has features that affect different aspects of your programming activity. The menu bar lets you direct the overall activity and management of your programming. The toolbar enables you to access much of the menu bar's functionality through various toolbar buttons. Forms--the basic building blocks of Visual Basic programs--are presented in a Form window. You use the ToolBox to add controls to the forms of your project. The Project Explorer displays the projects on which you're working, as well as the different parts of each of those projects. You browse and set a control, form, and module's properties within the Properties window. Finally, you position and view a form or forms onscreen within the Form Layout window
The VB IDE is the programmer's workbench. Let’s run Visual Basic for the very first time.

For now, select Standard EXE, and click on Open. The next Visual Basic will add a few things for you, to accomplish the standard setup it needs for creating a Standard Executable (Which eventually will be a runnable program with a .exe extension).

The Visual Basic Interface

The screen you see now will look more or less similar to this one.