Thanks for reply Geek
Going to share the info you provided with him. I told him initially that he'd be best learning the modern version of it and there are tons of youtube videos etc, and websites. He is in his mid-50s and claims that he still enjoys having it in a physical book, but maybe hearing it from the 2 of us that there is so much online free to learn from, he will give it a try vs buying a new book with disc in the back of it.
He comes from a background as a hobbyist programmer of which he use to program in Fortran, Cobol, and Basic in the 70s and 80s. Since then he played with QBasic and C. He wants to learn how to make Windows Applications and like 5 years ago I directed him to the Microsoft C# 2008 book which I also have a copy of, but my disc is also long gone to my book, and I think it might be in a disc binder at a prior employer
I enjoy C# because of its similarities to C++ and felt that given his background working with C, that he should adapt well to C# even though a smoother transition may have been C to C++ then to C#. However learning by example he can probably figure it out pretty quickly since he has familiarity with object oriented programming. He will also be introduced to .Net through this as well which he hadn't worked with prior.
Just decided to look at Visual Studio Express 2013 system requirements since he is running a Pentium 4 (1.7Ghz) with 1GB RAM running XP Home SP3 and it requires Windows 7 or newer OS:
Supported Operating System
Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2
Hardware Requirements:
•1.6 GHz or faster processor
•1 GB of RAM (1.5 GB if running on a virtual machine)
•5 GB of available hard disk space
•5400 RPM hard drive
•DirectX 9-capable video card running at 1024 x 768 or higher display resolution
Looking at Visual Studio Express 2010, it looks like his system barely meets requirements of:
System Requirements
Supported Architectures
•x86
•x64 (WOW)
Supported Operating Systems
•Windows XP (x86) with Service Pack 3 - all editions except Starter Edition
•Windows Vista (x86 & x64) with Service Pack 2 - all editions except Starter Edition
•Windows 7 (x86 and x64)
•Windows Server 2003 (x86 & x64) with Service Pack 2 - all editions
•Users must install MSXML6 if it is not already present.
•Windows Server 2003 R2 (x86 and x64) - all editions
•Windows Server 2008 (x86 and x64) with Service Pack 2 - all editions
•Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64) - all editions
Hardware Requirements
•1.6 GHz or faster processor
•1024 MB RAM (1.5 GB if running on a virtual machine)
•3 GB of available hard-disk space
•5400 RPM hard-disk drive
•DirectX 9-capable video card running at 1024 x 768 or higher display resolution
•DVD-ROM drive
In order to run Visual Studio Express 2013, he would need a newer computer I will have to inform him. I dont think he will want to hear that ... LOL
At least I have Visual Studio Express 2010 on a Disc to share with him so he can use the 2010 version with his old computer