Getting restarted

I want to continue programming in VB, but my Ver. 5 has been rendered obsolete. What now? My question is as simple as that. I downloaded VB 2008 Express Edition, but my knowledge of VB5 is of very little help for breaking into that new edition.

I was maintaining a few old projects in VB5 until recently. Most of what I do is in VB6, but I found no reason to update those few VB5 projects to VB6. Granted that official support for VB5/6 is gone, but there is no reason to stop using them for casual development.

For professional development, .NET (including VB 2008) is the way to go. However, you are correct that the learning curve will be an initial stumbling block. Have a look at the 'IMPORTANT' threads here for resources:
http://www.xtremevbtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=102
and two of the five here, as well:
http://www.xtremevbtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=25

Roll up your sleeves and get started. The graphical tools are not all that different.

There is a ton of help available right from you main menu. You should see some entitled "How do I" with links like VB.NET for the 6.0 programmer"

Microsoft MSDN has some nice canned videos you can watch on line
That start from scratch. Absolute Beginners Videos at Microsoft (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbasic/aa700732.aspx)

Start with a couple of simple test applications post them here and ask questions. This is a friendly crowd and they will probably fall over themselves trying to help.

Cheers,