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Where can I get a VB6 IDE [duplicate]
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I have a couple of decades of experience with VB6. I could share this knowledge with those people who are still asking questions about it: but I cannot test my code or confirm my thinking without a copy of the thing. I know it's very, very obsolete: but I lost my job last year due to disability, so I am coding at home.
I have the latest c#, obviously, in the form of the Express edition of the latest Visual Studio. But is VB6 available from any legitimate sources?
VB6 is available to MSDN subscribers
You can still buy original sealed copies on ebay. But the prices are still surprisingly high, probably due to the rarity and lack of MS support.
Have you considered switching to VBA instead? Modern MS Office versions have this installed as standard (I think) and according to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic_for_Applications): "Microsoft has clearly stated that they have no plans to remove VBA from the Windows version of Office."
VBA is pretty close to VB6 apart from being able to compile it. But for syntax and general programming help I think it's still valid for testing out code samples and so forth.
Another thing you could try is to approach any schools, colleges or small businesses in your area. All three of these kinds of establishments are likely to have reasons to own legitimate copies of VB6 an have probably long since stopped using them but they may still be sat on a shelf gathering dust.
Schools and colleges love to sell off old assets because it keeps the accountants happy and frees up some forgotten cash to buy books and chalk with :). Perhaps you could offer to buy them at a low price. I'm sure they'll consider it.
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Are there still enough VB6 shops to make learning the language worthwhile?
I work for a fortune 25 company and we have a few legacy apps there were written in VB6. However all new development (in the Windows world) is strictly .NET. I would suggest learning VB.NET if you're interested in learning VB.
Computing languages don't die easily, and there are always niche markets where those skills are needed. Languages like Smalltalk, Lisp, COBOL, etc. have there loyal followers and clients that need those abilities. There will probably be some need for VB6 for a while yet.
The chief difference between VB6 and the other languages I mentioned is that the newer version of VB (VB.Net) has been declared by Microsoft to replace VB6. That tells me that VB6 will have a shrinking market as newer versions of Windows makes it near impossible to have VB6 apps that look like current modern applications.
My advice is: if you have a current need for VB6, like maintaining a legacy application, by all means learn it. The more useful you are to a company, the longer they'll keep you. If you don't have a current need for VB6 then learn the newer version of the technology. In the Microsoft world, the .NET CLR based languages are the current vision of the future. You'll also have more success finding help for problems you're facing day to day.
I do not think it is worth to learn VB6.
I work for company where main product is written in VB6 and know one another company where main product is written in VB6 too.
In both cases:
All new products/development is done in .NET (mainly VB.NET to keep syntax similar).
None of developers know VB6 when joined company.
In other words:
VB6 is probably still widely used, but companies migrate to VB.NET. Moreover VB6 is so easy to learn that you can start using it really fast with no previous experience.
I also work an Fortune 25 company with a world-wide presence and many legacy VB6 apps are still widely used through the company. Myself, I am a .NET developer and only learn as much VB6 as I need to fix a production issue or to convert something to .NET (typically C#). So no, don't invest time in learning it unless you must on the job.
I don't use vb too often - I know a lot of larger businesses (Insurance, IT you name it) who do use VB functions so managers can input data into their DB's through some kind of 'Excel' sheet.
Learning any language is worthwhile! VB is easy to understand and M$ has many libraries that are easy to use (i.e. look at connecting to Databases/creating Forms... if you're interested in what real world applications are built on it).
I've used it once for the SOAP api (very easy), and some other applications. I thought it was nice enough.
There are still companies using VB6. Where I'm active for example. But we're migrating to .NET. (the sooner the better in my opinion)
So, as mentioned by aioobe, why would you want to learn VB6? I'd say it's a waste of time and I would spend my time in, for example, VB.NET.
Unless you have a really good argument for VB6 ofcourse.
I wouldnt waste my time learning VB6. I worked with it 10 years ago and I'm still thankful everytime I look at my CV that I had the opportunity to start working in C#.NET. VB6 felt like a mickey mouse language.
You might do a search on indeed.com for "VB6" and draw your own conclusions. I find about 900 jobs there as opposed to 112,000 jobs on a search for ".net".
Google
VB6 - About 5,080,000 Results
Visual Basic 6 - About 33,700,000
Results
VB.NET - About 35,200,000 Results
Visual Basic .NET - About 20,800,000
Results
StackOverFlow
vb6 - 1920
VB6 applications are probably still used quite a lot but I believe for new development over the years VB6 has been chosen less and less as a primary platform to develop an application with people opting for .NET alternatives.
In terms of learning it, I would only do this is you need to work with old VB6 applications that will not be upgraded to .NET, or if you are upgrading VB6 applications to .NET then by all means learn it but dont waste to much time on it.
I would hazard an educated guess, based on my own experience, that there are many more programmers writing new COBOL programs than new VB6 programs. VB6 is ten years replaced and, as far as I can tell, no longer supported in any way by Microsoft.
There are still products around that are written in it (I have two myself) but Microsoft have meant to have said that Windows 8 will not work with VB6 programs, also Visual Studio 6 (required to build VB6 projects) does not easily run on Vista and Win7.
VBA is very similar in syntax and it looks like this will be supported for the next few years at least.
My advice: learn VBA if you need it, but only learn VB6 if you have a maintenance project that requires it. If you really want to learn BASIC then go for VB.NET. It is difficult to suggest other alternatives (there are lots!) unless we know about what you want to learn and why. Eg. If you wanted to learn about OOP then I think C# or Java would be better.
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I was certain that somebody would have specifically asked this question, but from what I can see no-one has (there's been a question about learning win32 but that doesn't cover whether it's worthwhile doing so).
I am very interested in gaining a deeper understanding of all the systems I use (I mostly program in C#, at least professionally), so I wondered, very simply - is learning win32 worthwhile, or is it overkill? Am I wasting my time? Is the knowledge I'd gain worth the effort?
Similar / related questions on StackOverflow:
Does it still make sense to learn low level WinAPI programming?
How relevant is Win32 programming to modern professionals?
Having a working knowledge of how Win32 works at the lowest level will certainly be invaluable if you are planning on doing Windows development in the future. It gives you a level of insight into things like Windows, Messaging and GDI that are hidden by the time you get to the level of .NET.
I wouldn't recommend you try and use Win32 for writing all your applications, but I feel that any Windows developer would benefit from writing a simple Win32 application using C/C++.
This is less true for things like WPF where there is less dependency on Win32, but just knowing how Win32 works will help you understand or appreciate some of the design decisions in WPF.
I advocate learning the concepts behind low level windows programming if all of the following are true.
You are going to do any windows programming.
You want to be the "go to" guy when the unexplainable happens.
You love to learn.
Abstraction layers like .NET work create and allow developers to do incredible things without having to know a lot. However, when .NET is used in a way unanticipated by its authors which reveals one of its subtle bugs, then that is the time where some win32 API knowledge goes a long way.
Will you ever have to write a message pump? I doubt it. Can it help diagnose problems? You betcha!
The question is much like, "Is learning assembly worthwhile"; and the answer is the same:
"Yes, because you will understand the fundamentals, and be able to perceive deeper than those who only work at the top level of abstraction".
However, by the same token, you probably won't be writing Win32 API directly 99.5% of the time.
When they invented C to replace assembly language, people where probably asking: "is it worthwhile to learn assembly language?" The value in knowing both was being able to drop to assembly to do the things which were impossible to accomplish in C (eg. trigger an interrupt).
The same can be said for Win32. There are some things which are impossible to do in C#. If you didn't know the win32 api, then you would dismiss some things as being impossible. However, once you know what you are missing, in those rare situations, you would be able to "drop to win32" and do them.
Another way of looking at it is this: programming is all about being able to think in multiple levels of abstraction at the same time. For example, if you know your language uses immutable strings, you don't write an algorithm that adds a single character to one 10000 times, because it will be slow. If you know the win32 api, you will be able to think about how each line you write in C# is actually implemented and that will help you write better code.
At least for me, learning an API (I'm assuming that "in-depth" is implied) that I don't use is a waste of time. I'd rather spend my limited amount of time and brain power learning new concepts or exploring new tools than becoming intimately familiar with an existing tool that I don't need to use now. When I need a particular tool that I don't have or have to use a tool that I'm not familiar with, that's the time to learn it in some depth. Before that I might do enough investigation to know whether it is going to be useful to me or not, but not much more.
Yes, the principles of the Win32 API are useful to learn - these principles are the foundation on which everything else is built.
The .NET APIs for GUI development, both Windows.Forms and WPF, do what they do within the constraints of what is possible on top of the Win32 API. Key architectural decisions of these frameworks were constrained and informed by the Win32 API.
On the other hand, you are less likely to get a lot of value from diving deep into the API, as there is a lot to learn, and given that you spend most of your time working in C#, you'll have less opportunity to use the knowledge directly.
BTW, the same applies to other technologies as well - like networking, cryptography and hardware design. Learning the fundamentals will help you become a better developer.
Yes, you should learn the basics of how Windows (a lot of this stuff predates Win32) operates. Why? For the same reason as I understand how a mortise and tenon joint operates, even though I don't make my own furniture, or why I understand how an internal combustion engine works even though I don't do my own car maintenance.
You work at a higher level of abstraction, which is nice, but when that abstraction leaks - that's not an "if", that's a "when" - if you don't understand the basics of Windows, you'll be lost. If you don't know at least some of the API, you won't have a clue where to look if you need to P/Invoke functionality not available in .Net.
Quite apart from that, isn't curiousity reason enough?
If you are trying to write a VB6 application then the Win32 API allows you to do a lot of things that are not natively supported by VB6.
If you're writing a C# WinForms app then I would recommend learning the vast reaches of the .NET Framework first.
Edit
If you really want to know what's going on under the hood in Windows then you might want to check out a copy of Programming Windows 3.1 by Charles Petzold.
I personally think it's still worthwhile learning the Win32 API.
As far as I recall when I started learning Win32 (after doing some VB(A), Pascal, etc.) I learned a lot about Windows and understood how thing works in Windows. Everything was so clearer. :)
So, as per your question - you will learn a lot about Windows through learning Win32.
As you said - you're a C# programmer and I'm not sure if you'll use it often, because almost everything you need is already there, in .NET.
I won't repeat over and over what the others said many times already.
Here's a link to a Win32 tutorial with which I am currently learning along the basics of Win32's. I find it pretty interesting and easy to follow.
This tutorial helps me get what I didn't understand first, back when I've begun to program in my secondary school years.
If I were to start today, I wouldn't learn the entire API. However, I do think that the basic concepts are important to understand, with an understanding of how message loops work as the top priority.
You'll never be able to just "learn" the entire win32 API, it's too much to take in, and it will be a moving target. If you develop in C#, there's no real point.
That said, try creating Notepad using plain C and just API calls. That will teach you enough for a C# developer to at least appreciate it.
A lot of the "No" answers here seem to focus on learning the actual methods, structs, and what not available in the API. I'd say yes, but focus not on the individual components of the API, but the overall design and the way it functions. It's much easier to troubleshoot even .NET code when you understand what's happening at the core level of the operating system.
This question looks a bit dated, but I'll answer anyway.
Answer: Complicated: yes. Simple: probably not necessary.
It really depends on what you need to do. If you need to use a feature not current supported by .NET, have-at-er. But be careful, most of the coddling the Framework provides Win32 does not, and if you do something incredibly stupid, your machine WILL bluescreen.
I know when .NET first came out, I had have no interest to learn Win32, .NET was here and it was such an improvement. But the sad fact about Windows is this: all new features in Windows are implemented in native code first, period. If you want to use any part of Windows before .NET wraps it, you're either using Win32 from C++ or Win32 from C# or from VB.NET. .NET is a wrapper, for all the stuff in Win32. So if you can't wait, yes, you can Interop into the lower bowels of the OS if you'd like.
Knowing Win32 and probably one day Win64 (whatever they happen to call it) will always be a useful skill. Any whizzbang technology requires underpinnings somewhere.
.NET is implemented using win32 api, anyone wishing to possess deeper understanding of .NET would greatly benefit from having at least marginal knowlege of win32api.
In your career it will be unlikely that you will only be creating greenfield applications where you will have the freedom to choose the technology and programming languages used.
Sooner or later you will have to integrate with old code written in Win32 and C/C++. In that case, knowledge of Win32 will help, especially if you are integrating using PInvoke or C++/CLI.
Misuse the .NET framework and Win32 and your machine will blue screen? Somehow I doubt that.
The biggest value to knowing Win32 (or assembly language) is that when something doesn't work as expected and you have to debug it. The more you know about the underlying system, the easier time you will have debugging the problem.
I like to further add to this. I never formally studied Win32 API/MFC. I started using Visual C++ 4 when I first got interested in GUI programming. Anyway, I wish I kept that foundation then, as I never caught on quick enough (I was rather young then, actually), so I studied Visual Basic instead.
For some reason, Delphi never interested me even though I knew Pascal well enough, but I digress. These days, I work in IT and develop installer scripts in NSIS - and every so often I need additional functionality that NSIS doesn't provide, so I make my own plugin and to keep it quick and dependency free, I opt for Win32 API opposed to MFC or even full blown C++.
The main reason for this comment, is that my own curiosity got me hooked. I like to know more, so where is the best resource for learning the API. A book? Website?
Would MFC still be worth tackling as well? I did see a website about a fellow that develops Win32 GUI apps, in assembly! I think that is overkill, honestly, but it is compact, fast code, interesting, the concept, but I never was able to get the hang of 80x86 assembly (hell, even RISC assembly in college I never was able to do!)
I think it's always interesting to know how a system works if your work relies on it. I don't mean you should learn every bit of it, but still get a good understanding, at least to be able to search more by yourself the day you will have to.
Software is not magic - well... ok... for 99% of the cases :-)
Here is a link to an excellent article about "magical thinking" and "GUID goblins" from Eric Lippert's about that subject: It's not Magic
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What advice would you have for someone who wants to start in the BI (Business Intelligence) domain?
I where and what I should start with: Books, Blogs, WebCasts...
What I should pay attention to and what I should stay away from.
Are the Microsoft technologies worth while ?
The MS technology stack is quite good and is by far the most accessible (try to get hold of a copy of Cognos Reportnet for self-learning). Where you will run into trouble (and this is the main barrier to entry for gaining a B.I. skillset) is to actually get experience working with real data. It's quite hard to come up with a realistic toy scenario for this sort of thing.
This means that you have to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem that this poses. One option would be to try to get a job as a B.I. developer somewhere like a government department or other place that has trouble recruiting due to salary constraints. Clear evidence of technical skills and a demonstrated interest in the business might get your foot in the door.
This will be a bit harder in a recession. However there is still an ongoing skill shortage of good B.I. people. The reason is (IMO) not the lack of technical skills (the technology isn't rocket science). Instead, I think it is the aforementioned chicken-and-egg problem and the fact that the B.I. domain involves customer intimacy to do it well. It lends itself to working in an analyst/programmer mode with direct customer contact (one of the reasons I do this type of work). If you like working in this mode it might be a good line for you to get into.
Edit: Someone who's just had a job offer in this space asked whether he should take the job.
I found the "project real" from microsoft really helpful while getting into the bi-world. Its a real world bi project, supported by microsoft, to develop and show best practices regarding to all the areas of bi like etl, data warehouse design, cube design, etc.
Business Objects http://www.businessobjects.com/ are quite a big player in this area and familiarity with their products will also help you break into B.I. roles.
For practise data, I would recommend something like the anonomised search records from aol that came out a couple of years back - http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/06/aol-proudly-releases-massive-amounts-of-user-search-data/ This is real world size and is an interesting database with some published search sets.
I would stress you to read this book; might seem kind of outdated but the same theory still applies today. It is probably the best starter for general BI.
The Data Warehouse Toolkit - Ralph Kimball
Regarding Microsoft's BI it is a medium-sized tool that can do the job in your first steps (I have more experience with Cognos though). Haven't used MS tools since 2005 so I can't tell much about it.
In case you happen to be interested in Cognos, I have a few videos which can be of help: Cognos Tutorials
Good luck with your project.
Get the Kimball Books (specially this one http://www.amazon.com/The-Data-Warehouse-Toolkit-Dimensional/dp/0471200247) and for starters you may want to start with the MS BI Framework The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit and the SQL Server Enterprise (MS BI Bundle with the database, ETL and reporting), it's easy a readily available, specially if you are a student with the MSDNAA, you can get the enterprise version for free!!!
For general business intelligence, I found the Kimball Group as a great source for best practices.
If you would like to start building your own project, check out GoodData Platform. We have full BI stack Platform as a Service and you can start for free (evaluation period) with access to all resources and learn from Tutorials on our Developer Portal.
I would say try to find a few classes. Microsoft technologies are worth the time. There are many large companies running on the .Net framework.
We use this to get a feel of Microstrategy: http://www.teradatauniversitynetwork.com/apply-and-do
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Does it make sense, having all of the C#-managed-bliss, to go back to Petzold's Programming Windows and try to produce code w/ pure WinAPI?
What can be learn from it? Isn't it just too outdated to be useful?
This question is bordering on religious :) But I'll give my thoughts anyway.
I do see value in learing the Win32 API. Most, if not all, GUI libraries (managed or unmanaged) result in calls to the Win32 API. Even the most thorough libraries don't cover 100% of the API, and hence there are always gaps which need to be plugged by direct API calls or P/invoking. Some of the names of the wrappers around the API calls have similar names to the underlying API calls, but those names aren't exactly self-documenting. So understanding the underlying API, and the terminology used therein, will aid in understanding the wrapper APIs and what they actually do.
Plus, if you understand the nature of the underlying APIs that are used by frameworks, then you will make better choices with regards to which library functionality you should use in a given scenario.
Cheers!
I kept to standard C/C++ for years before learning Win32 API, and to be quite blunt, the "learning Win32 API" part is not the best technical experience of my life.
In one hand Win32 API is quite cool. It's like an extension of the C standard API (who needs fopen when you can have CreateFile. But I guess UNIX/Linux/WhateverOS have the same gizmo functions. Anyway, in Unix/Linux, they have the "Everything is a file". In Windows, they have the "Everything is a... Window" (no kidding! See CreateWindow!).
In the other hand, this is a legacy API. You will be dealing with raw C, and raw C madness.
Like telling one's structure its own size to pass through a void * pointer to some Win32 function.
Messaging can be quite confusing, too: Mixing C++ objects with Win32 windows lead to very interesting examples of Chicken or Egg problem (funny moments when you write a kind of delete this ; in a class method).
Having to subclass a WinProc when you're more familiar with object inheritance is head-splitting and less than optimal.
And of course, there is the joy of "Why in this fracking world they did this thing this way ??" moments when you strike your keyboard with your head once too many and get back home with keys engraved in your forehead, just because someone thought it more logical to write an API to enable the changing of the color of a "Window", not by changing one of its properties, but by asking it to its parent window.
etc.
In the last hand (three hands ???), consider that some people working with legacy APIs are themselves using legacy code styling. The moment you hear "const is for dummies" or "I don't use namespaces because they decrease the runtime speed", or the even better "Hey, who needs C++? I code in my own brand of object-oriented C!!!" (No kidding... In a professional environment, and the result was quite a sight...), you'll feel the kind of dread only condemned feel in front of the guillotine.
So... All in all, it's an interesting experience.
Edit
After re-reading this post, I see it could be seen as overly negative. It is not.
It is sometimes interesting (as well as frustrating) to know how the things work under the hood. You'll understand that, despite enormous (impossible?) constraints, the Win32 API team did wonderful work to be sure everything, from you "olde Win16 program" to your "last Win64 over-the-top application", can work together, in the past, now, and in the future.
The question is: Do you really want to?
Because spending weeks to do things that could be done (and done better) in other more high-level and/or object-oriented API can be quite de-motivational (real life experience: 3 weeks for Win API, against 4 hours in three other languages and/or libraries).
Anyway, you'll find Raymond Chen's Blog very interesting because of his insider's view on both Win API and its evolution through the years:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/
Absolutely. When nobody knows the low level, who will update and write the high level languages? Also, when you understand the low level stuff, you can write more efficient code in a higher level language, and also debug more efficiently.
The native APIs are the "real" operating system APIs. The .NET library is (with few exceptions) nothing more than a fancy wrapper around them. So yes, I'd say that anybody who can understand .NET with all its complexity, can understand relatively mundane things like talking to the API without the benefit of a middle-man.
Just try to do DLL Injection from managed code. It can't be done. You will be forced to write native code for this, for windowing tweaks, for real subclassing, and a dozen other things.
So yes: you should (must) know both.
Edit: even if you plan to use P/Invoke.
On the assumption that you're building apps targeted at Windows:
it can sure be informative to understand lower levels of the system - how they work, how your code interacts with them (even if only indirectly), and where you have additional options that aren't available in the higher-level abstractions
there are times when your code might not be as efficient, high-performance or precise enough for your requirements
However, in more and more cases, folks like us (who never learned "unmanaged coding") will be able to pull off the programming we're trying to do without "learning" Win32.
Further, there's plenty of sites that provide working samples, code fragments and even fully-functional source code that you can "leverage" (borrow, plagiarize - but check that you're complying with any re-use license or copyright!) to fill in any gaps that aren't handled by the .NET framework class libraries (or the libraries that you can download or license).
If you can pull off the feats you need without messing around in Win32, and you're doing a good job of developing well-formed, readable managed code, then I'd say mastering .NET would be a better choice than spreading yourself thin over two very different environments.
If you frequently need to leverage those features of Windows that haven't received good Framework class library coverage, then by all means, learn the skills you need.
I've personally spent far too much time worrying about the "other areas" of coding that I'm supposed to understand to produce "good programs", but there's plenty of masochists out there that think everyone's needs and desires are like their own. Misery loves company. :)
On the assumption that you're building apps for the "Web 2.0" world, or that would be just as useful/beneficial to *NIX & MacOS users:
Stick with languages and compilers that target as many cross-platform environments as possible.
pure .NET in Visual Studio is better than Win32 obviously, but developing against the MONO libraries, perhaps using the Sharp Develop IDE, is probably an even better approach.
you could also spend your time learning Java, and those skills would transfer very well to C# programming (plus the Java code would theoretically run on any platform with the matching JRE). I've heard it said that Java is more like "write once, debug everywhere", but that's probably as true as (or even moreso than) C#.
Analogy: If you build cars for a living (programming), then its very pertinent to know how the engine works (Win32).
Simple answer, YES.
This is the answer to any question that is like.. "does it make sense to learn a low level language/api X even when a higher level language/api Y is there"
YES
You are able to boot up your Windows PC (or any other OS) and ask this question in SO because a couple of guys in Microsoft wrote 16-bit assembly code that loads your OS.
Your browser works because someone wrote an OS kernel in C that serves all your browser's requests.
It goes all the way up to scripting languages.
Big or small, there is always a market and opportunity to write something in any level of abstraction. You just have to like it and fit in the right job.
No api/language at any level of abstraction is irrelevent unless there is a better one competing at the same level.
Another way of looking at it: A good example from one of Michael Abrash's book: A C programmer was given the task of writing a function to clear the screen. Since C was a better (higher level) abstraction over assembly and all, the programmer only knew C and knew it well. He did his best - he moved the cursor to each location on the screen and cleared the character there. He optimized the loop and made sure it ran as fast as it could. But still it was slow... until some guy came in and said there was some BIOS/VGA instruction or something that could clear the screen instantly.
It always helps to know what you are walking on.
Yes, for a few reasons:
1) .net wraps Win32 code. .net is usually a superior system to code against, but having some knowledge of the underlying Win32 layer (oops, WinAPI now that there is 64-bit code too) bolsters your knowledge of what is really happening.
2) in this economy, it is better to have some advantages over the other guy when you are looking for a job. Some WinAPI experience may provide this for you.
3) some system aspects are not available through the .net framework yet, and if you want to access those features you will need to use p/invoke (see http://www.pinvoke.net for some help there). Having at least a smattering of WinAPI experience will make your p/invoke development effort a lot more efficient.
4) (added) Now that Win8 has been around for awhile, it is still built on top of the WinAPI. iOS, Android, OS/X, and Linux are all out there, but the WinAPI will still be out there for many many years.
Learning a new programming language or technology is for one of three reasons:
1. Need: you're starting a project for building a web application and you don't know anything about ASP.NET
2. Enthusiasm: you're very excited about ASP.NET MVC. why not try that?
3. Free time: but who has that anyway.
The best reason to learn something new is Need. If you need to do something that the .NET framework can't do (like performance for example) then WinAPI is your solution. Until then we keep ourself busy with learning about .NET
For most needs on the desktop you wont need to know the Win32, however there is a LOT of Win32 not in .NET, but it is in the outlaying stuff that may end up being less than 1% of your application.
USB support, HID support, Windows Media Foundation just off the top of my head. There are many cool Vista API's only available from Win32.
You will do yourself a large favor by learning how to do interop with a Win32 API, if you do desktop programing, because when you do need to call Win32, and you will, you won't spend weeks scratching your head.
Personally I don't really like the Win32 API but there's value in learning it as the API will allow more control and efficiency using the GUI than a language like Visual Basic, and I believe that if you're going to make a living writing software you should know the API even if you don't use it directly. This is for reasons similar to the reasons it's good to learn C, like how a strcpy takes more time than copying an integer, or why you should use pointers to arrays as function parameters instead of arrays by value.
Learning C or a lower level language can definitely be useful. However, I don't see any obvious advantage in using the unmanaged WinAPI.
I've seen low level Windows API code... it ain't pretty... I wish I could unlearn it. I think it benefits to learn low level as in C, as you gain a better understanding of the hardware architecture and how all that stuff works. Learning old Windows API... I think that stuff can be left to the people at Microsoft who may need to learn it to build higher level languages and API... they built it, let them suffer with it ;-)
However, if you happen to find a situation where you feel you just can't do what you need to do in a higher level language (few and far between), then perhaps start the dangerous dive into that world.
yes. take a look at uTorrent, an amazing piece of software efficiency. Half of it's small size is due to the fact that much of it's core components were re-written to not use gargatuian libraries.
Much of this couldn't be done without understanding how these libraries interface with the lower level API's
It's important to know what is available with the Windows API. I don't think you need to crank out code with it, but you should know how it works. The .NET Framework contains a lot of functionality, but it doesn't provide managed code equivalents for the entire Windows API. Sometimes you have to get a bit closer to the metal, and knowing what's down there and how it behaves will give you a better understanding of how to use it.
This is really the same as the question, should I learn a low level language like C (or even assembler).
Coding in it is certainly slower (though of course the result is much faster), but its true advantage is you gain an insight into what is happening at close to the system level, rather than than just understanding someone else's metaphor for what is going on.
It can also be better when things won't work well, or fast enough or with the sort of granularity that you need. (And do at least some subclassing and superclassing.)
I'll put it this way. I don't like programming to the Win32 API. It can be a pain compared to managed code. BUT, I'm glad I know it because I can write programs that otherwise I wouldn't be able to. I can write programs that other people can't. Plus it gives you more insight into what your managed code is doing behind the scenes.
The amount of value you get out of learning the Win32 API, (aside from the sorts of general insights you get from learning about how the nuts and bolts of the machine fit together) depends on what you're trying to achieve. A lot of the Win32 API has been wrapped nicely in .NET library classes, but not all of it. If for instance you're looking to do some serious audio programming, that portion of the Win32 API would be an excellent subject of study because only the most basic of operations are available from .NET classes. Last I checked even the managed DirectX DirectSound library was awful.
At the risk of shameless self-promotion....
I just came across a situation where the Win32 API was my only option. I want to have different tooltips on each item in a listbox. I wrote up how I did it on this question.
Even in very very high level languages you still make use of the API. Why? Well not every aspect of the API has been replicated by the various libraries, frameworks, etc. You need to learn the API for as long as you will need the API to accomplish what you are trying to do. (And no longer.)
Apart from some very special cases when you need direct access to APIs, I would say NO.
There is considerable time and effort required to learn to implement the native API calls correctly and the returning value is just not worth it. I would rather spend the time learning some new hot technology or framework that will make your life easier and programming less painful. Not decades-old obsolete COM libraries that nobody really uses anymore (sorry to COM users).
Please don't stone me for this view. I know a lot of engineers here have really curious souls and there is nothing wrong with learning how things work. Curiousity is good and really helps understanding. But from a managerial point of view, I would rather spend a week learning how to develop Android apps than how to calls OLEs or COMs.
If you planning to develop a cross platform application, If you use win32, then your application could easily run on linux through WINE. This results in a highly maintainable application. This is one of the advantages of learning win32.