why I purchased this...
I've been wanting to learn to program for quite some time but never completed the research to start learning.

I had the opportunity to purchase new unopened legal software at less than 20% retail but had just a couple days to decide what sotfware to purchase.
I chose MS Visual Studio Professional because it said you could develope software solutions for a variety of platforms and write in several different languages. It seemed versatile enough to risk spending a small amount of money to get me started.


the rest of the story...
Just to see if I could do it in Excel, I wrote this little program for my employer about 2 years ago to replace some (truely obsolete & problematic) custom software they have. Just prior to completion they said I should stop working on it, they had a new plan, which never materialized. Well, today we're out shopping for replacement software, probably custom again! My thought was maybe I could learn fast & modify what I have to save them some money.

It really has nothing to do with Excel. It uses no native Excel functions. It does no calculations. The only Excel-like portion is the database tables! It uses several Userforms to search the tables for data or to build the tables. Then it actually finds other non Excel files and prints them.
My boss thinks I can do anything he asks me to do. I keep telling him I'm not an Excel, Crystal, ____ (you name it) wiz. But so far "snow em and learn fast" has been workin for me! I suspect I might be putting myself in way over my head this time, so I thought I'd get some opinions.

Thanks for your input.