This book is for the beginner or experienced programmer who wants to use Visual Basic and learn it quickly and sufficiently to develop a complete Windows deliverable system. I have just finished reading this book and am extremely surprised and pleased with its content, easy going style and reasonable price. I have been programming in BASIC since 1967. After QuickBasic I switched over to the PROGRESS data bases in 1995 for large multi-user business systems. Now I am going back with BASIC and this book has brought me up to speed in 4 days! This book covers screens including designing and accepting user input. All the cute visual aspects of Windows, how to use the standard Windows dialog boxes(Open File, Save File, Font, Color, etc.), are all covered quickly and thoroughly. I found these areas to be of particular value to me: Windows dialog boxes, OLE links, timer ( for animation ), menus, and using the standard databases ( Access, ODBC, Excel ...) and especially the Compilation and Distribution Programs which are really EASY ! Other books cover the printing aspects better, but if you are starting with Visual Basic buy this book, a Reference Manual and a book that covers the printing aspects. As everyone says, no one book will cover everything you need, but this one covered 95% for me. There's no CD-ROM, but that is not essential. Enjoy Windows with Visual Basic, it's easier than I thought it would be.